On Monday, voters will cast their ballots in what many consider the most important federal election of our lifetimes.
In our riding of Sault Ste. Marie—Algoma, five candidates are vying to be your next local Member of Parliament. They are (in alphabetical order by last name):
• James Collins: Christian Heritage Party
• Robyn ‘Kiki’ Eshkibok: Green Party
• Laura Mayer: New Democratic Party
• Terry Sheehan: Liberal Party
• Hugh Stevenson: Conservative Party
During election campaigns — local, provincial and now federal — it is tradition for SooToday to invite local candidates for an in-depth interview in our downtown studio.
For this election, we narrowed down our invitations according to the same criteria followed by the Leaders' Debate Commission, which says each party must meet two of the following three requirements: at least one sitting MP in the House of Commons, at least four per cent national support in opinion polls, and candidates running in at least 90 per cent of all federal ridings.
Following that criteria, we extended invitations to the local candidates running for the Conservatives, Liberals and NDP.
As previously reported, Hugh Stevenson initially declined our interview request — just as he has refused to attend any all-candidate forums or speak to any local journalists throughout the campaign.
But on Thursday, just four days before election day, his team reached out to see if Stevenson still had time to squeeze in an interview with us. The full conversation is above.
You can find Terry Sheehan’s interview HERE and Laura Mayer’s video HERE.
