Full transcript & video of Lethbridge mayoral candidates forum

Prior to general election day on October 18, there will be three weekends of advance voting:

October 1, 2 – City Hall (Downtown)
October 8, 9, 10 – Exhibition Park drive-through (East)
October 14, 15, 16 – ATB Centre (West)

For more information on voting in the municipal election in Lethbridge, use the city’s website here.

For more coverage from Lethbridge News Now, visit our Municipal Election 2021 page here.

The Chamber of Commerce allowed us to repost the live feed of the forum, which you can watch below. LNN also completed a full transcript of the one-hour Q&A session.

You can read the transcript of the Q&A below:

00:00:00
Harold Jansen: This question is for Blaine Hyggen. Would you support using cost impact analysis for proposed bylaws or zoning changes for businesses to inform your decisions and support proposals?

00:00:38
Blaine Hyggen: You know what, I didn’t catch that. I’m gonna have to get you to read that again

00:00:39
Harold Jansen: If elected, would you support using cost impact analysis for a proposed bylaw for zoning changes for businesses to inform our decisions, support proposals?

00:00:51
Blaine Hyggen: Gosh, I’m not quite understanding the question. My apologies to the writer but I don’t. Regarding businesses and how to – You know, I just don’t know what really that question is asking, so I’m sorry if there’s another one, I think another question, but I just don’t understand the question is. I’m sorry

00:01:11
Harold Jansen: Ok, well, there will be others for you I’m sure. Ok, I don’t see anybody at the microphone now so we’ll go to our media panel. Do you want to just rotate through? Ok, so um, I’m ask Mr. Busch to ask a question.

00:01:40
Trevor Busch, Lethbridge Herald: My question would be for Bridget. What is your position to bringing a ward system to the community? Are you in favour or are you opposed?

00:01:41
Bridget Mearns: This is something that I’ve looked at in the past. Something that came up when I was on council before, there’s pros and cons of a ward system. In my experience with much research, it’s not often found in the municipality our size – the reason being should end up hitting a city that’s growing sections against each other. So the north side’s competing with the things that are on the west side versus the south side and that can lead to conflict. That being said, there are some pros where we’re seeing 27 candidates running any for council, there may be less if you go ward by ward, but really, a ward system should be determined based on how good of governance it makes, not necessarily how easy it is to run an election, though I’m sympathetic to that. I’m glad to see it’s a question on the ballot. There is some information on the City of Lethbridge website if you like to learn the pros and cons of it. I’m certainly open to the discussion. There is potentially a hybrid model where you have some that are in the wards and some that are at large, so I would want to look at it further, see what the community has to say. I’ve learned to take my cues from them, but traditionally in the past I felt that our city has not been large enough to accommodate a ward system.

00:02:55
Harold Jansen: We have a question from the room. Please also direct your question to a particular candidate as well.

00:03:01
Audience Member: My name is [omitted]. I served two terms on the Chamber. I am quite concerned about how we can have tourism return to our city and I would estimate that it’s about 95 per cent small business and it’s very important to this area. I’m directing this to Bridget because I know Bridget has a background in strategy and tourism, so I’m asking what will city council do to help?

00:03:38
Bridget Mearns: Thank you for the question and and it’s a good one. I think it is one of the growth areas for our city. We’ve seen significant investment go into the Exhibition Park or into the airport and we have, as a municipality, have to continue to support those investments. We do have a Destination Marketing Organization and Tourism Lethbridge but we also have Lethbridge Lodging Association, so I’d like to see more collaboration going through there. We have to look at our DMX structure. We have a lot of great attractions. I think my potential is significant. It’s a matter of looking at Tourism Lethbridge making sure that we have a DMO that’s strong and being supported.

00:04:21
Harold Jansen: So I have a written question and this one is directed to Mr. Day Chief. Do you see opportunities to work together with businesses to establish a framework investment should improve services to make our community more attractive to investment?

00:04:36
Sheldon Day Chief: Absolutely. I think it’s the biggest. point in our time right now, with post-COVID happening and we are in the beginning of the fourth wave. We need to be very strategic in how we go forward. Today, with the plan I have proposed, it proposes partnerships within our region and our region first because we are a capable and self-sustaining region and, right now, the tourism with all the big box of projects that are coming forth and stuff like that, we can’t look at those things right now. We need to focus on things that are more convenient. That’s the thing we’re talking about investment here in the city. We need to start investing in ourselves and in our community. When we start investing in ourselves and we start reducing our situations, the issues that are facing us, only then will other people be looking at us because right now, we are number two as the fastest-rising crime community in Canada. For a small city like this, it’s huge because it’s deterring that. We need to invest in our youth because if it’s not our youth that are going to benefit from this community, what makes big businesses want to come in?

00:05:25
Harold Jansen: Our next media question is from Danica Ferris, Global News.

00:06:13
Danica Ferris, Global News: Thank you. This one is for Blaine. We’ve already heard some comments tonight about how this most recent city council has seen some division. For someone who has seen it first hand, what have you learned and how do you make [inaudible] city council?

00:06:33
Blaine Hyggen: Thank you very much for that question. You know, all of us are elected on city council with different constituents’ support, so I recognized that with all my colleagues. There’s times that we struggle, there’s times that we have many conversations that might get a little heated – but that’s democracy. It’s important – I’m representing a certain constituency and others do the same. I respect all of my different council members and my colleagues and I know they all bring an element of importance to the table and that’s what makes it, I guess, a little heated at times. I know we had somebody come down and speak to us regarding governance and they said, how can it be council with a 9-0 vote all the time is not democratic. I kind of found that was interesting because we’re all elected by different individuals, and of course, we’re all going to have different views and we bring those things forward so, for that reason, I think that’s important and I think that’s democracy.

00:07:04
Harold Jansen: Thank you. Mr. Mogdan, I see your rebuttal card.

00:07:44
Stephen Mogdan: Yeah, that’s very much. I certainly am no stranger to the idea that having opposing viewpoints gets you to a result. That’s kind of the basis our our adversarial legal system where you basically have two sides that they come together, they bring their best arguments, and the truth will be found somewhere within all of those. That being said, if we’re serving as mayor of a city like Lethbridge, we can’t really be preferring a constituency over another constituency. As mayor, you have to include everyone as you move forward. To take the view that having public spats and disputes on council is not a bad thing, to me, is really problematic. We need to be looking at a council with some confidence that they’re mature and they’re operating in our best interests and we’re moving forward. I don’t think we’ve really seen that over the last term.

00:07:47
Harold Jansen: Oh, another rebuttal. Wow, things are heating up here.

00:09:01
Bridget Mearns: So I just wanted to address those comments as well. There’s definitely a difference between having heated debate and having a unified decision. So I absolutely agree that a 9-0 vote is not necessarily what you’re looking for. In fact, have the form, have good debate, bring your perspective, have the information in front of you, but when the decision is made, it is made and you go forward and unify. It’s important that our community understands and the people around that horseshoe understand that they are equally elected there in every perspective is respected. If it’s not respected on each other in the public, then the community itself will also not respect it. So that’s the leadership issue and it’s important for any new council and its leader as mayor to ensure that that’s understood and that’s a foundation we don’t have [inaudible]. This isn’t what our community is looking for in its leaders and we have to be made sure that the leadership understands that.

00:09:58
Harold Jansen: Thank you [inaudible]. We have a question from the podium.

00:10:21
Audience Member: Thank you. This question is for Blaine Hyggen but I wish I could ask it to everybody on the panel. Lethbridge is hemorrhaging family doctors, and one of the major reasons people might desire not to move to a community is lack of access to healthcare. What is your plan to work with the province, to recruit doctors to Lethbridge and, as well as expanding services that are being offered to include abortion services, which are not currently offered in the city?

00:10:45
Blaine Hyggen: Thank you for that question. Back in June when I announced my candidacy to run for mayor, one of my top priority items was recruiting family physicians and retaining family physicians. That was something I was one of the first to come forward with that and we’ve saw what’s happened in the past few months. I’ve been in discussions with numerous doctors and have looked at putting together a group, which they are very much in favour of, a committee to meet on a regular basis to find out who and how we can retain the doctors that we have, and also encourage ones to move to our community. Now, understanding that the first thing that a doctor does that is looking at relocating or coming to our community is they Google. They’ll Google Lethbridge and the first thing that, unfortunately, comes up if you have the opportunity to try it, it comes up quite regularly, it’s the crime hotspot in Canada. As a doctor, I’m not quite sure I would want to move to a community that had that. I have spoken with a doctor, one that’s recruited 12 physicians into our community and wants to be part of this team to reach out and to those that are just out of school and those who want to relocate and bring them into our community. I think that’s extremely important – a monthly meeting if it’s not three times a year, whatever that might look like, it’s something that’s extremely important and I look forward to putting together a mayor group and council to work with these doctors to recruit and retain doctors that we have in our community.

00:11:07
Audience Member: You missed a part of the question – the abortion clinic. –

00:12:29
Blaine Hyggen: Abortions? Sorry, that’s…

00:12:31
Harold Jansen: We’re out of time. If you want to come back to the podium you can ask it again. The next written question is for Miss Mearns. Red tape is often used as a buzzword for how regulations hold back economic growth. Can you provide specific bylaws or zoning issues that you would address if elected to reduce costs for businesses and create jobs?

00:13:24
Bridget Mearns: So red tape is a buzzword, we definitely hear that a lot. We that means, at least in the industry I’m in, unnecessary processes that take too long. Rezoning is probably one of the big issues but permits is also an issue. The back and forth that goes between the regulatory body and development can delay developments and that cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. That’s probably where I would look is the land use bylaw and look at zoning so that it’s not so difficult to do the rezoning and also making sure that the designing standards and the regulatory and the other processes don’t get in the way of growth. So I spoke earlier about barriers to growth and that’s certainly one of them. Working in the city and finding those efficiencies is always good and you’re talking about employment. So obviously, the more effective or efficient company is, the most successful they are. The most successful they are, obviously, they can invest that back into employees and their businesses.

00:14:36
Harold Jansen: Alright, our next question comes from David Opinko.

00:14:37
David Opinko, Lethbridge News Now: My question is for Gary Klassen. At the most recent city council budget, there was one million dollars cut from policing. I just wanted to know your standpoint on police funding, both in terms of the total amount or if there are different areas where funding could be re-allocated in certain ways.

00:14:41
Gary Klassen: That’s a great question because you want to cut crime in Lethbridge and you want to make it a better place to live and get our crime rate down, but you can’t get the crime rate down if you take away the funding from the police. The police are [inaudible] not only the funding they have reduced from, but they are going to need more funding to help them get even more to take better care of crime in our city. I think that… the clock stopped working? Oh! Sorry about that. It turned me off. No, the police need all the help they can get, they need more funding, they need more help, more guidance, and I think they are doing a good job, they just need help doing a little bit better job.

00:15:54
Blaine Hyggen: Thank you. This topic is very near and dear to my heart, as it is one of my main things that I’m running on platform issues is safety in our community. With policing there, as many of you are aware, I was against the cut, against cutting the police budget by a million dollars, especially in a time when we, just weeks before, are put forward as the number one crime – on the Crime Severity Index in Canada. Now, reducing our police budget, not only does it take the resources away from the police, but what we need to understand is that, the first thing that I know our chief has done is, in order to put the saving in, it goes off support staff. Now, what that does is, you think, Ok, we don’t have police that are being pulled off the streets, but what it does is, those police officers now don’t have the time to stay out on the street because they have a lot administration work that they need to do after hours. Of course, that takes them hours of their shift to do the paperwork where the support staff could do that. Also, the training is very important to keep our officers safe as well as the community safe. For that reason, I can’t believe that we actually cut the budget for the police – we should have re-allocated funds from somewhere else to keep that funding there.

00:16:04
Harold Jansen: We have a question from – oh, Miss Mearns.

00:16:09
Bridget Mearns: Thank you. This is a really important question around the million-dollar reduction. It was covered by the surpluses that the police had in their budget and there was three programs went along with it, and that was funded out of the city operational budget. What you’re going to see moving forward is those three programs are going to have to fund some funding going forward – that million dollars that won’t be. Surplus will also have to be found. That having been said, there’s a lot more to dealing with police and addressing crime than just increasing the budget. Obviously, police commission has a big role to play – they don’t have an action plan – they need to have a detailed action plan to tell us how they are going to be spending that funding, how they are going to be addressing the concerns that you have in the community and the crimes we’re seeing. Even the perception of safety has to be addressed. There needs to be an annual report – that’s also not been done and a communications. Now, the police are doing amazing work, for sure, but what is the communication plan got to do to let you know what they are doing and what they are achieving. I think there’s a number of things to be considered there other than just the funding.

00:18:27
Harold Jansen: We have a question from the podium.

00:18:45
Audience Member: Hello, my name is Michael and I’m a candidate for city council, and I wanted to be here and have this opportunity. So my question is for Sheldon Joseph Day Chief – based upon your experience with the [inaudible] cultural experience that you have on a personal level, how do you feel about, how certain do you feel about a resolution for the suffering that has happened in the downtown area, and what type of integrative approach, focused on partnerships, would you apply to resolve that? Thank you.

00:19:28
Sheldon Day Chief: Thank you for that question. I want to begin by stating, going back to my plan. My plan starts within the City of Lethbridge and that plan is to begin the partnership with this level here and then reaching out to the citizens of Lethbridge. Also, bringing together the social agencies, the support agencies that are within the City of Lethbridge already, the existing ones, and then introducing a housing-first program. That resolution will help those to help themselves. You need to provide the resources for them. They can’t do that alone and they can’t do it on a homeless basis because those support agencies cannot stay in contact with those individuals that they are trying to support and help themselves, so you have to house them first and then find the support programs that they need in order to be productive citizens of the city of Lethbridge. So when you’re talking about transients, say for the Blood Reserve or Piikani, you gotta also incorporate also having the decision-makers of those two reserves to be involved. You cannot do it alone so you have to have those partnerships on a regional-wide basis. Thank you.

00:19:34
Harold Jansen: Thank you. I have a written question here for Mr. Klassen. If elected, how will you engage businesses to ensure that future policy decisions do not add to their bottom line? [Inaudible] businesses to support prosperity for members of our community? I

00:21:09
Gary Klassen: If you have businesses doing well, they have employees and [inaudible] and they turn around and support the community also. So, the businesses themselves, the small businesses and all businesses have to prosper or they will no longer be viable and they won’t have the employees supporting people in the city.

00:21:09
Harold Jansen: Thank you. Our next question is from Jeannette Rocher.

00:22:14
Jeannette Rocher, Bridge City News: Thank you. This is really addressed to any of you, but I’m going to ask Stephen Mogdan. The supervised consumption site was very a polarizing issue in our city, with people strongly in favour and strongly opposed. How do you see this? Do you believe that another SCS would be helpful to our city or are other solutions a better option?

00:22:44
Stephen Mogdan: Thanks very much Jeannette. A city the size of Lethbridge, given the issues that we’re facing with an opioid crisis, need to have available to the residents that type of supervised consumption service. We need to have available to residents harm reduction. We need to care for people. They are part of us and we need to look at it that way. There were some problems with the supervised consumption site. The location, maybe it wasn’t the best and some of the operations maybe went a little further than other people thought that they should. But at end of the day, we have to have those types of services within our community, honestly, I mean for the community that doesn’t that wants to do away with that type. That could be your kid out there, and that’s how I read it.

00:23:45
Harold Jansen: Thank you. We have a question from the audience.

00:23:53
Audience Member: My name is [omitted]. My question is for Mr. Hyggen. Considering the need for a new performing arts centre has been identified as capital priority for the past 20 years, I’m wondering, are you prepared to advocate strongly to provincial and federal governments for funding for a new performing arts centre, and if so, how?

00:24:22
Blaine Hyggen: Currently, that’s a want and not a need, I believe in our community, but if funding is available for other levels of government, but let’s understand something, that funding from other levels of government still comes from out pockets, and it’s something right now that, I know talking to one of the top promoters in Canada for performing arts and definitely knows his stuff, said this is not something that needs to come to our community yet. will it come at one time? I believe it can, but I do not, as far as advocating to the other levels of government, I will do that, but I don’t believe it should be put onto the taxpayers here in our community. At this time, I would not advocate locally for that, as much as trying to get that funding from other sources, either provincial or federal, or there could be a business or P3 project that could come in and help with that.

00:24:30
Harold Jansen: I have a written question here for Mr. Mogdan. If elected, how would you propose our community being made aware of efforts by our local leaders to improve business services on an ongoing basis?

00:25:49
Stephen Mogdan: Thanks for whoever submitted that question. Business in Lethbridge is really a bright spot. It’s one thing that I’ve been involved with throughout my time here, not only as a lawyer who pertains to business clients but also as a business owner in the downtown area, and we give a really great story to tell, in terms of business, in terms of how we support each other here in Lethbridge, and we have great organizations – I’ll plug the Chamber right now. As one of those organizations that really listens to the business community and really can get that message out and to us, you know, the chamber is very strong in terms of giving the message out to council. I know, I have presented on behalf of the chamber previously to council. So that’s that’s something that I think, as an elected official – you need to listen to those groups that are in your community. They have the expertise, they are there and they have the members. That’s what need that feedback.

00:26:53
Harold Jansen: Thank you. Our next question is from Trevor Busch.

00:26:58
Trevor Busch, Lethbridge Herald: My question would be for Stephen Mogdan. You know, Lethbridge is surrounded by a pretty big agricultural nature land that contributes significantly to the city’s economy. I guess, how would you like to see the city capitalize on that?

00:27:19
Stephen Mogdan: Thanks very much, Trevor. That’s three in a row, if anybody’s counting. This is one of the great parts of being in Lethbridge is that we are blessed with natural resources, of air and sun and water and we have a wonderful growing area, and so, we’re really on the cutting-edge in terms of agricultural development. That’s something that we need to get that message out as the agri-food hub of Western Canada. It’s a great thing for us, it feeds our economy. It brings dollars in from the wider area into Lethbridge, right? And really, we’re going to capitalize on that. That’s you know, a big part of the intention behind the expansion down at Exhibition Park – it’s to be able to showcase that and that’s what we need to do to move forward.

00:28:10
Harold Jansen: Thank you. We’ve got a question from the audience.

00:28:18
Audience Member: Good evening, it seems to be an evening for potential council candidates to pose questions of the mayoral candidates. Councillor Hyggen, this one’s for you. One of the things that I’m hearing a lot from potential voters is concerns over things like property taxes and our tax base, money that we have to spend on programs, et cetera, in the community or for capital improvement projects. So, being the end goal, you have ways of making available more funds by either reducing staff, which is really a bandage short-term method, or increasing the revenue. So, we can do that by increasing property taxes or creating more businesses which pay their taxes, which employs more people. I mean that cycle, that seems to be the best answer. I explored with Mr. Day Chief about bringing communities, small business, into communities within the community of Lethbridge [inaudible] all these things that we as an agricultural hub, have plenty of – why are we not focusing on that? Why are we not fostering those small businesses that can become Chamber members that employ more people that increase our tax base. How would you promote further small business?

00:30:13
Blaine Hyggen: Thank you for that question. Being a small business owner for 30 plus years [inaudible] in terminology, red tape. It’s a struggle for a lot of businesses to get involved and to actually open up businesses in our community is something that is – it’s it’s a long, windy road. I have taken many questions on this on a weekly basis on how hard it is to get into business. and, regarding this on a weekly basis, of how hard it is to get into business. Now, the beginning of your question is revenue or expense, what our issue is. We don’t have as much a revenue problem as we have an expense problem. We’re struggling with the costs that are [inaudible] in our community and we have had some reports done by KPMG. KPMG reports come back and they tell us exactly that. We have far too many expenses and not enough revenue to cover those. The ones that do, it makes us want to put our taxation up – something that’s not right. We need to be able to look at these different recommendations from the KPMG report, implement them, and the savings will be there as they have indicated. With that, that’s something I would want to continue to follow is those KPMG recommendations.

00:31:42
Gary Klassen: I know that business is very important. If you get more businesses in town, you get some market business rather than just small businesses, but if you can entice businesses to come to town, they’ll employ more people, we’ll have more people paying property taxes with the houses they buy. We’ve got to encourage and draw people to come into Lethbridge to run bigger and better businesses, that I think would be an important thing. If you’ve got a nice strong [inaudible] that can work all together, we can have some very good profitable businesses for this city.

00:32:19
Harold Jansen: Thank you. I have a great question here for Mr. Hyggen. Explain what role, if any, you see the municipal government has in affordability of homeownership.

00:32:58
Blaine Hyggen: Actually, homeownership is not a municipal requirement, or it’s definitely something that comes from provincial level or federal level, for the matter, but we do need to be able to make sure that we work with the different developers to build housing that is needed in our community, whether it be for seniors. We’ve just opened up here, or going to be opening up here next year, our senior complex, we need to be able to provide that through our community. So the type of housing is extremely important so we can actually with, of course, the builders in our community and the developers to be able to definitely help those that are looking for ways to build within our community.

00:33:40
Harold Jansen: Thank you. Our next question comes from, I believe, Ms. Ferris.

00:33:42
Danica Ferris, Global News: Yes, thank you. My next question is for Stephen. Calgary recently voted to implement a restrictions exemption bylaw to make all eligible businesses require to ask for proof of vaccination. Do you believe Lethbridge should consider something similar, given the rising COVID-19 case numbers?

00:34:20
Stephen Mogdan: Thanks very much Danica. In answering these kinds of questions, I want to make it clear that I do support, number one, the concept of wearing a mask to protect other people in our community, to protect those who are most vulnerable. I mean, we all want to be able to hug our parents and go see our grandkids and that type of thing. I certainly do support that, and being vaccinated myself, I do support – well we’re all here, we’ve had a negative test result. As far as adopting something similar to what Calgary has done, I don’t think we need to go quite that far here yet. I think the provincial program that has been put in place, I think give it a little bit of time and we’re going to see the numbers fall here. I think Lethbridge is a pretty responsible place – I say as I don’t have a mask on, but hey, I believe it is and we’ll be ok.

00:34:22
Harold Jansen: Thank you. We have a question from the audience please.

00:35:33
Audience Member: Hi, this question I’ll direct to Bridget but if other people want to chime in, that’s great. My name is [omitted]. I’ve lived in it for five more, from Whitehorse, which is a smaller place. My husband’s in the back, he’s in a wheelchair and he can’t get down here, and so, of course, we’re concerned about accessibility issues and the thing about accessibility is that unless you’re living in the chair, you don’t always think about it. The Chamber may have had best intentions for having access space, but the fact is it’s not equal access to get down to the mic. So, we tried to participate in the accessibility master plan. We didn’t find that a very transparent or welcoming process to be part of, and in looking at the plan, it sets up an internal committee to advise the city on accessibility issues. When we were in Whitehorse, there was a committee that was made up of business, community, city officials that advise city on the sorts of things and we think that’s a far better model for having good advice go to the city, so we’re wondering whether you would support a more open and transparent process for advice in the city on accessibility issues.

00:37:10
Bridget Mearns: Thank you for the question. I agree that accessibility is something that is incredibly important and I did mention it in my opening remarks. I think the process does absolutely have to be transparent. I like your idea of having the advisory committee. I have to admit, other other than Accessibility Master Plan, I don’t know a lot about how the city was moving forward with that, but I can share with you that story that I have. When I was on the city council, a friend of mine who is paraplegic lent me his chair for the day and I took it from my house to city hall and back, and taking the transit, encountered on the sidewalk a light pole right in the way so I have to go on the road to get around it. It is an incredibly enlightening day and I agree with you, until you’re living in it is something you truly don’t appreciate. So I take your comments to heart and believe that it is something that’s incredibly important and I would certainly look at your ideas.

00:38:15
Harold Jansen: Thank you. I’ve questioned question here that was submitted, also for Mrs. Mearns. Can you describe your vision of a better Lethbridge that exhibits stability, growth, and diversification, particularly as it addresses small business, employment, infrastructure, retaining and attracting family physicians, and the impact of climate change on the Lethbridge region… in 60 seconds.

00:38:40
Bridget Mearns: But what I keep going through my mind when we’re talking about vision and all of those things, I think a lot of them can be boiled down to quality of life. So looking at the quality of life that we have here, making sure that we’re investing in those things that are important to us, those things, the reason why we love living here, the reason why we choose to stay here. The reason why we have businesses here is because we’re investing in the things that are important to us. When we have a quality of life, obviously, we’re going to be attracting and keeping professionals, but that’s sort of close to the doctor question. I have had the opportunity to also speak with some physicians and they advised me what are the reasons they stay in Lethbridge is the quality of life. So we have that, we have a lot to build from, and we can build all of those better Lethbridge, better vision, better for small businesses, the climate change or climate modelling is obviously something that’s important. That’s not, that’s the quality of life issue as well. Thank you for the question.

00:39:43
Harold Jansen: Our next question is from David Opinko.

00:39:50
Sheldon Day Chief: This question will be for Sheldon Day Chief. So lots of small businesses have been hurting during the pandemic, so how would you look to support businesses, not only through the remainder of the pandemic, but support their recovery after the pandemic and ensure they are resilient enough that they can endure anything else that might disrupt day-to-day business.

00:39:55
Sheldon Day Chief: My goal, overall goal, is to support Lethbridge and that’s what the plan is all about. When you look downtown, the parking stalls downtown at the business core are used as a parking lot. The access to those small businesses are not there because our professionals are using that as a parking lot, so, in order to support the small businesses, I would look at the rezoning and make that as a walkway so that they could have, the citizens of Lethbridge can have more access to those small businesses downtown. The other thing is to take care of our social issues and have it where the main focus of my plan is, if you make it safer for businesses down there, for the staff, and for the people that are going down there to shop and be a part of downtown core, that will make a big difference. Thank you.

00:40:17
Harold Jansen: We have a question from the audience please.

00:41:33
Audience Member: Hello, thank you. I would like to continue on with the train of thought, because I feel this is one of the most important issues we are facing, because it’s just like if someone is sick and dying in their home, our community’s our home and there’s people sick and dying, so they say it’s no matter of health to be well adjusted to a sick society. So I would like to make a proposition and I’ll direct it to Sheldon. I would like for every audience and everyone up here tonight, to really consider this proposition. Is it possible that the cost to value proposition of simply deciding to solve it and agreeing to explore with an evidence-based system, what it would actually cost if money wasn’t an issue. Just so that we have an idea, if money wasn’t an issue, could we solve it? I mean, we’re not going to the moon, right? There are tested methodologies being used all over the world to deal with these issues, so my proposition is, would you consider that to be a viable option of exploration?

00:42:54
Sheldon Day Chief: Absolutely, and thank you for that question. Because this plan that I keep talking about and introduced to the City of Lethbridge, my proposal, I should say, is not going to take millions of dollars to implement. We have social and support agencies that are already existing in the City of Lethbridge. There are research and best practices that are within different communities. If we reached out to them and we brought those ideas back into the City of Lethbridge, I believe it can work and it will work because we, as the leadership, listen to the people of the City of Lethbridge. We can develop those practical solutions together. I am proposing that plan is going to make an immediate impact. If we are so concerned about raising money to implement a plan as simple as this, then I’m willing to take a further 25% cut back from my wages to implement it within the community. I know that leadership took a 10% wage cutback over this past year – I’m willing to go further. It’s not about money for me, it’s about making a difference and helping those to help themselves. That’s my passion and I’ve been in this field of work for most of my life and it’s time that we came together, as a city, as the region, to make that difference. Thank you.

00:42:59
Audience Member: Can I just have five seconds? Just five seconds?

00:44:29
Harold Jansen: Five seconds.

00:44:30
Audience Member: Thank you so much. I just want to make sure that everybody recognizes the vast implications on an economic level and on a gross domestic happiness, what it would do for our community to know that people are suffering. Thank you.

00:44:33
Harold Jansen: Jeannette Rocher.

00:44:33
Jeannette Rocher, Bridge City News: This is directed towards Bridget. So, the Canadian Federation of Independent Business recently stated that Alberta small business owners carry that largest debt level within all of Canada, and they’ve also stated, if there were another shutdown, one in five small businesses could shut their doors. We are right now in the middle of the fourth wave, so as the mayor, how would you handle this situation for our city – keeping us safe while not hurting the economy?

00:44:34
Bridget Mearns: So this is the question of the pandemic, isn’t it? So, obviously, this is a healthcare question, and how do we – this is a provincial mandate and this has been a bit of frustration that it has been downloaded to the business level when they are looking for clear direction. So there is this opportunity for the Restrictions Exemption Program that allows for everybody who’s vaccinated to come into businesses, but there is also the option where you have to restrict your business if you’re not willing to go that route. I think what we’re looking for here is some clear leadership from our provincial level so that businesses aren’t left with this responsibility or left with the heat of their decision. What I’d do as mayor is work with the provincial government and help them understand this is their mandate to take responsibility for. That being said, there is the MGA that does say that, if your safety, the community and health of, or sorry, the safety and health of your community is an MGA issue, but obviously, this is a healthcare issue and belongs with the province to do their job.

00:44:36
Harold Jansen: We have a question here for Mr. Klassen. What are your policy goals to better include people, whether they be Aboriginal, people of poverty, or transgender men or women?

00:44:42
Gary Klassen: What would I do for people that are transgendered and Indigenous? People are people, they’re not Indigenous or transgendered – they’re still a human being. You don’t want to specify this that or that. Everybody deserves the right to be treated equally. Everybody deserves the right to have their voice or opinion, so that’s the best I can say for that.

00:44:56
Harold Jansen: Thank you. I don’t see anybody at our microphone, so I’ll turn this over to Mr. Busch.

00:44:58
Trevor Busch, Lethbridge Herald: My question would be for Gary Klassen. Should the third bridge be a priority for the community, and if so, why?

00:48:20
Gary Klassen: Ok, this is a real question that’s been asked many, many times. Now, the cost of the third bridge is pretty high cost. If you do it now, it’s a lot cheaper to do it now than in 10 years because the price of everything will go up in 10 years. But, use of the bridge is mostly would be for the people in the southwest part of Lethbridge. A person on the north side of Lethbridge, they’re not, unless they’re going golfing in Paradise Canyon, they probably won’t use that bridge, so that bridge is more a specific use for a certain type or group of people. The cost of the bridge is an expensive cost, and I’ve heard the cost will increase our taxes 13 to 18 per cent. Now, people on the far north or in the south side that don’t go over that way, their taxes are going to go up – they’re not going to want to spend that money on the bridge, and when we have the Highway 3 bridge, we have the 6th Avenue bridge. Now, the problem, though is, if we turn around and there’s a big accident on 6 Avenue bridge and there’s an emergency on the far west side, you’ll have to go Highway 3. If they add a third bridge over here where they’re planning to build it, it would be quicker and easier, but it’s a big cost to build a bridge for emergencies. I mean, the most important thing is nobody dies – that’s important, but you can have… I think I gave a good answer to that. It’s not priority one. It’s a big cost and it’s not priority one. I also heard that that’s not going to be covered by the provincial or the federal. Maybe because it’s not a priority bridge, so the whole cost to the City of Lethbridge. Thank you.

00:48:37
Harold Jansen: Thank you. So we have about 10 more minutes of questions, just giving a heads up to people who have rebuttal cards burning through this. We have a question from the audience.

00:50:25
Audience Member: One more time, Davey Wiggers. This one’s going to be directed to Miss Mearns. Since you opened that line of questioning, the provincial government being responsible for the health and wellness, and I don’t recall that MGA actually mentions health at all, it says public safety, and although the masked bylaw was not, strictly speaking, illegal, not in contravention to the MGA, certainly wasn’t in support of it either. So wouldn’t putting the responsibility of imposing a mask mandate on the city and the rest of the province have should have been put back on the province rather than the city passing a bylaw?

00:51:39
Bridget Mearns: You’re asking about when they first brought in the bylaw? When the city first brought in the bylaw?

00:51:44
Audience Member: Correct. I meant, that was quite a divisive item on council, speaking of division amongst council, not just council, but the community as well. There were a lot of people that thought the city overstepped.

00:51:49
Bridget Mearns: Right. So, I don’t want to speak for the decision of other councils, but as I understand it, there was concern about rising rates and understanding that masks had proven to be a way of an effective public health measure. They stepped in when they felt the provincial government hadn’t and they did it to protect the citizens of Lethbridge and that’s my understanding as to why they did it. It is within their mandate to do that, as per the MGA, and obviously, that’s an interpretation, I’m not a lawyer, but that’s my understanding of the decision they made.

00:52:44
Audience Member: If I could, just really quickly touch on that, at the time that the bylaw was imposed, there were zero cases in Lethbridge, and it wasn’t until the province finally imposed that that was a handful of cases in Lethbridge. Why would the city not keep that line of communication open with the province? I guess what would you do as mayor? I don’t care what they did – what would you do?

00:53:19
Bridget Mearns: So that’s, you know, hypothetical situations are really difficult to answer. I don’t want to second guess what they did, but it made sense to me, based on the arguments that they provided. They were concerned about the safety of the people in our city and they did the best that they felt they could do to say they’ll protect the health, recognizing that you don’t want to put something in place when something’s up here. You want to put it in place down here so it doesn’t get up to that. So that is my understanding. That does make sense to me.

00:53:47
Harold Jansen: I have a written question here for Mr. Hyggen. Do you support treatments and recovery facilities to deal with the opioid crisis?

00:54:00
Blaine Hyggen: Absolutely, I do. I think treatment and recovery is the only way to get through this. This pandemic, this opioid pandemic that we’re in. I’ve stated numerous times that keeping someone in that cycle of addiction is, in my opinion, very inhumane. We need to be able to help these individuals get through that are struggling with these addictions. I was in touch with the province here the last couple of weeks and asking about what was happening with our treatment and recovery centres that are going to be coming into our community. We have 50 we know will be coming in the spring of next year – that will be a fresh start, as well as 50 out on the reserve, and another 15 out in Fort Macleod. This is what we need to do – we need to find ways to treat those individuals who are struggling with addiction, and so, I believe these facilties will do that. it’s not going to be for a two-week, or a three-week, or a four-week, this could be 18 months, it could be 24 months where we get these individuals back into the community as they so deserve.

00:54:20
Harold Jansen: Thank you. Mr. Mogdan.

00:55:25
Stephen Mogdan: It’s a difficult issue, absolutely. We need to have things in place to get people to where they can recover for that rehabilitation and recovery stage, and that’s really where we see difficulty. And where do we see things in our community that some of us don’t like to look at and that could be a problem for people, and certainly, there’s stuff that goes along with that. There’s crime and all those things. We don’t like to see those for sure, nobody does, but my question is. who among us has not had to deal with addictions of whatever description. I mean, you look at me, I have a minor food addiction and I can make light of it, but, honestly, who amongst us doesn’t have something they’re dealing with? In order to get to that where you’re getting over that, you need some help along the way, and that’s what we need to have in place. That’s what I would work for.

00:55:57
Harold Jansen: Thank you. So we have time for, but my estimation, two more questions, so we’re going to take the two from the audience, so I’ll take one from over here please.

00:56:36
Audience Member: Hi, my name is [omitted] and I use her/she pronouns. So my question is directed for Blaine Hyggen, and I’m just curious about the deconversion therapy vote and it appears that you voted against it. How that explanation at that time, why you voted against it? It seemed like your messaging changed just a little bit, maybe, and I’m just wondering why you can be mayor of Lethbridge when you don’t support all of Lethbridge.

00:57:03
Blaine Hyggen: Thank you very much for that question: I’ve answered it about a 1,000 times and, obviously, you’ve not had the opportunity to go to my website and watch the video time and time again, but I will say one thing – I am 100 per cent against conversion therapy. I’ve said it numerous times and I’ll say it again and I’ll continue to say it – I am 100 per cent against conversion therapy. I’m being challenged on a regular basis, it’s people that definitely want to steer critics in my direction. I voted against that because of the wording. I voted against it because of the community consultations I asked to have. I was completely against conversion therapy – there wasn’t strong enough wording in there and many members and friends that are members of the LGBTQ community – I respect them as I respect anybody in the community and I will continue to do that, but take a chance, go look at www.Hyggen.ca, look at the conversion therapy video that I posted, you’ll have that explanation, and I’m sure that you’ll enjoy it. Thank you.

00:57:11
Harold Jansen: Our last question is from this person here. Thank you.

00:58:05
Audience Member: Thank you, just follow-up I think that we can do this by show of hands. So, if I get elected as a councillor sitting in our city council candidate, I will be moving a program forward to try and attract abortion services into the City of Lethbridge. So, as a mayor who, maybe, we’re potentially going to be coworkers, show of hands – will you help me and will you support me bringing accessible abortion services to Lethbridge as a city?

00:58:09
Blaine Hyggen: That’s a provincial matter, and I’m sorry, I’m not going to raise my hand –

00:58:10
Audience Member: You’re not going to advocate on behalf –

00:58:19
Blaine Hyggen: No, absolutely not, that’s a provincial matter.

00:58:20
Stephen Mogdan: Can I answer that?

00:58:20
Audience Member: Show of hands to everyone – sorry, that was directed to everyone.

00:58:48
Harold Jansen: Questions have to be directed to one candidate.

00:58:51
Audience Member: Has to be directed? They can’t even do a show of hands?

00:59:03
Harold Jansen: No, those are the rules that the Chamber has set.

00:59:03
Stephen Mogdan: Can you ask me this question?

00:59:03
Audience Member: Directed to Stephen Mogdan then.

00:59:03
Stephen Mogdan: So, I do agree, it is a provincial matter and it’s something that that the problem we should be looking at. That being said, I mean we’ve also been talking about attracting physicians here, and that’s that’s a provincial matter and that’s where, something where we’re being asked as a community to basically, correct the effects of the way that our provincial government has waged on doctors and healthcare professionals as it is, and that’s not fair. To me, having a basic medical need met for half of the population is something we absolutely have to have. I think it’s embarrassing that we don’t have it to the extent that I would be able to help with that, I certainly would.

00:59:52
Harold Jansen: Alright, that brings us to the end of the period for questions.

by David Opinko

Full transcript & video of Lethbridge mayoral candidates forum

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