Election Night in Canada : Parkdale / High Park All Candidates debate

I was at tonight’s “All Candidates debate” at Runnymede United Church (432 Runnymede Road, just north of Ardagh ,south of Annette), presented by the Bloor West Village Residents’ Association.

We had six candidates out this evening: Sarmite Sam Bulte, Liberal Party of Canada; Lorne Gershuny Marxist-Leninist Party of Canada; Jurij Klufas, Conservative Party of Canada; Peggy Nash New Democratic Party; Terry Parker, Marijuana Party; Robert L. Rishchynski, Green Party of Canada.

We also had a packed hall with standing room only! Amongst the crowd was Joey deVilla, representing the accordion vote, who made may more notes than I and video recorded some of the proceedings. (He has now put up: All-Candidates Meeting: Opening Statements, and Sam Bulte and the Copyright Pledge.)

After an introductory statement by each candidates, locals lined up to ask questions. This is where it paid to come before 7:30 and get a seat next to where the line quickly formed. Questions asked ranged from closing down Toronto Island Airport and the Toronto Port Authority, psychotropic drugs and children, Education, Guns and crime, Senior’s Health Care, and the Environment.

Oh, yes this CopyRight Thing came up. Three Times!

We had the one person asking if they would take the Copyright Pledge. Sam Bulte avoided answering the question; Peggy Nash and Conservative Jurij Klufas said “Yes”, as did the other candidates.

Joey has video! Sam Bulte and the Copyright Pledge.

A few questions later Sam Bulte was asked about getting a donation for The Stratford Festival (she claimed this in her non answer mentioned above, and on air on CBC radio Ontario Today on January 10th see the archive and listen to part 1 and part 2 (part 2 isn’t working for me. anyone?) and whether she though it was appropriate. She clearly she no problem with it. I think Jurij Klufas made a quip about “when did we go from politicians supporting the arts, to the arts support politicians”.

And the last question of the evening was about Sam Bulte, Jan 19th fund raiser hosted by various lobbyists: Doug Frith (President of Canadian Motion Pictures Distributors Association – CMPDA), Graham Henderson (President of Canadian Recording Industry Association CRIA ), Jackie Hushion (Executive Director of the Canadian Publishers Council), Danielle LaBossiere (Executive Director of the Entertainment Software Alliance ESA) & Stephen Stohn (DeGrassi producer, who spoke to the Copyright Board of Canada) on Jan 19th, four days before a general Federal Election. Again, Sam Bulte sees no problems, it’s all transparent, and so what is all the fuss about?

Doing one of these questions She lost her cool for a moment and lashed out at “Michael Geist, the EFF and their extremist friends” or something like that.

The crowd was very well behaved, save for a couple of Liberal supporters in the back who acted up a couple of times.

See my past postings Sam Bulte : What’s That Smell and is it Cause or Effect, and Sarmite Bulte : Is Canadian CopyRight for Sale?.

Also OnLine Rights Canada’s Money in Politics, Conflicts for Copyright has an online petition calling on Canadian politicians to take the Copyright Pledge, and on Boing Boing : Hollywood’s Canadian politico lies about her approach to lawmaking about the above mentioned radio program.

Update: I fixed the ugly HTML. This is happens when you post at the end of a long day. Sorry. Now I find out that after another long day that I’m getting mucho hits from Melanie McBride : Bulte’s last stand ; Liam O’donnell : Bulte Loses Cool at “pro-user zealots”, Joey deVilla site The Adventures of Accordion Guy in the 21st Century – who did an amazing job! -, and Michael Geist’s The Bulte Video analysis. All good reading! Many Thanks!