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Sechelt mayor hopefuls have first debate

MUNICIPAL ELECTION
Mayor's forum
Sechelt mayoral candidates Bruce Milne, incumbent John Henderson and Christine Younghusband wait for their turn to speak at the first all candidates meeting of the election season held Oct. 27 at the Sunshine Coast Arts Centre.

Sechelt mayoralty candidates had their first public debate on Oct. 27 at a forum organized by seniors’ advocate Sue Jackel that saw a huge public turnout eager to hear what incumbent Mayor John Henderson, Bruce Milne and Christine Younghusband had to say.

Around 125 residents crowded inside the Sunshine Coast Arts Centre while another 60 or so stood in the rain outside and listened via a speaker set at the doorway.

Moderator Keith Maxwell asked the first questions based on the recent Vital Signs report while audience members were able to address candidates later in the forum.

Maxwell pointed to a Vital Signs statistic showing the high number of seniors on the Coast and the high ratio of people classified as dependent here.

“There are almost 70 residents on the Coast that are either younger than 18 or older than 64 for every 100 residents on the Coast that are working age adults,” Maxwell said, asking candidates how they would mitigate the problem.

Henderson said more young people were needed to take care of the aging population.

“The way we will do it, in my view, is to support and promote smart growth. We have to grow. We have to create jobs and good employment for young people,” he said, noting he would also work with investors to build facilities that allow residents to age in place.

Younghusband said she sees the trend as an opportunity to become a service-oriented community because “both ends of  the continuum will require care, childcare and adult care.”

“A lot of the jobs that are available here are in health care. We need to draw those people here to the Sunshine Coast so we can fill those roles to support us,” Younghusband said.

She also pointed to small business development as a way to create opportunities for “the  working group to sustain themselves.”

Milne had a different take on the problem, saying it wasn’t a problem at all.

“I look at the retirement age group and people moving here as one of our greatest opportunities, and I think it’s a sustainable opportunity over the next 30 years at least, and if we do it right it can continue past that,” Milne said.

He said the economy has changed a lot and that now most people in their retirement years have investments, entrepreneurial initiatives and funded pensions.

“Most people I know in their 60s, 70s and even 80s are not dependent on the workforce for their income and their wealth,” Milne said. “We can’t think of jobs as being the sole core of our economy any longer.”

He suggested developing more targeted health care and assisted living centres as a way to provide jobs for younger people in the area and support the aging population.

When the floor was opened for questions candidates were asked things like how important complete transparency at council was to them and whether they were in favour of building medicinal marijuana grow ops in Sechelt.

Younghusband said she was against medicinal marijuana grow ops because she didn’t want to “validate marijuana,” to children on the Coast and didn’t want grow ops to be “part of our image here at Sechelt.”

She also said she supported complete transparency at council.

“We are serving you and we’re accountable to you,” she said.

Milne said he was also in favour of complete transparency.

“Part of my campaign is to make sure that we do in fact have open and transparent government. It’s simple, we can do it, and it’s not that difficult,” he said, noting he has concern about the arm’s-length businesses that have been set up by the current council because “we don’t actually see what goes on.”

On the topic of medical marijuana, Milne said if a legitimate medical marijuana business wants to set up in Sechelt it should be able to find appropriate land for the activity.

“Certainly not in industrial parks that are close to residences or other residential areas, and I think the initiative around Lot L is misplaced for that reason,” he said.

Henderson said he was in favour of medical marijuana operations if they were safe, noiseless and odourless.

“Innovation sometimes means taking risks, but taking calculated risks and in this case the opportunity to create what I’m told … are very well paying jobs in an industry that can be operated in a safe manner. Hey, if we can get those  jobs, I want them here,” Henderson said.

On the issue of transparency, Henderson said his council has discussed issues in closed meetings a lot during their term because they were “getting things done.”

“Closed meetings are in fact necessary if you’re going to have a commercial transaction in the community and protect the privacy of individuals,” he said.

Milne later challenged that statement. Section 90 of the community charter says closed meetings are only necessary if council is discussing something to do with a freedom of information or protection of privacy act, an investigation under the ombudsperson act or a performance audit under the auditor general for local government act. The rest of the time the charter says council “may” go into a closed meeting.

Maxwell encouraged those in attendance to think carefully about the answers they heard from candidates that day.

“We need to choose those in charge of municipal government carefully and from an informed perspective,” Maxwell said.

Find out more about the three mayoral candidates for Sechelt in our pull-out section this week and on their websites: www.johnhendersonformayor.ca, www.mayor
milne2014.ca, www.sites.google.com/site/voteforyounghusband.