Ontario election - Guelph all-candidates debate first impressions

I attended the all-candidates debate this evening for Guelph. I've taken detailed notes which will be the subject of a later post, but here are my first impressions.

Only two of the six candidates struck me as credible, intelligent potential MPPs: Ben Polley for the Green Party, and Liz Sandals, the incumbent Liberal MPP.

Andrew Garvie, the candidate for the Communist party was young, but it was nice to have someone speak about tuition rates and post-secondary education. However, it was really frustrating that both he and the obnoxious man from the Family Coalition Party were given equal speaking time to the more serious candidates.

The NDP candidate, Karan Mann-Bowers, did not impress me with her grasp of the issues of her party's platform, and seemed to be running primarily on her credentials as a visible minority woman.

The Progressive Conservative candidate, who rarely dared say the word "conservative" was weak, and parroting the party platform in a wooden delivery.

Quote of the night: "Bob Senechal, who appears to be running as the candidate for the Independent party of John Tory..." from Ben Polley's closing statement.

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