Logistically, cramming 31 Richmond city council wannabes and three mayoral hopefuls onto a stage — and giving them all fair voice in a tight, two-hour timeframe — is problematic at best.
But a Chinese community radio station’s bid to circumvent such a farce has rattled the cages of several independent, non-slate candidates for the Nov. 15 municipal election, none of whom were invited to the party, so to speak.
AM1320 hosted a bilingual “Richmond Civic Election forum” on Sunday at Yaohan Centre, but, due to the aforementioned challenge with a high volume of candidates, AM1320 only invited one member of each slate onto the stage for the debate.
One of the excluded independents, Jerome Dickey, branded the event “undemocratic” and told the on-stage panelists as much when he spoke out as a member of the packed audience.
“I got a moment or two at the end (to speak), but only because I asked a question of the panel, ‘why are you a part of this?’” said Dickey, who “crashed” the event without an invite. “I directed my question to (Bill) McNulty, who agreed with me, and I was invited up on stage. The moderator gave me 30 seconds or something, along with everyone else who wasn’t allowed to take part.
“I felt totally excluded and it totally goes against what we’re trying to do as a community; building tolerance (with other cultures). Logistically, I understand it, but all this does is give the voice to the bigger organizations. This is against democracy and is plainly wrong.”
Fellow independent Dave Semple brought along a translator in the hope he would be allowed on stage.
“They did allow us a short time to speak at the end of the debate, but it wasn’t translated,” said Semple, a former City of Richmond manager.
“I was disappointed; it’s not very democratic, is it? (Mayor Malcolm) Brodie was up there, he’s an independent, right?”
Semple reckons half a dozen or so independent candidates attended the meeting without being allowed to take part.
“We were not represented because we don’t belong to a party,” added Semple. “So, if there are two of you, that’s a party?”
Andy Cheung, the Vancouver-based radio station’s assignment editor, defended the decision not to invite independents, saying it was a “party debate” and Yaohan Centre’s stage could only fit six or seven people at a time.
“We had to provide the debate in two languages, as well, and then there’s getting all this into a one-hour program,” said Cheung.
“Each one of the candidates on stage represented their colleagues; we didn’t pick which one of that party was to come on stage.
“Everyone got on stage (at the end) and was allowed 30 seconds. It’s not great, but we tried our best to make it as fair as possible.”
As for the debate itself, the conversation was steered away from the Chinese language on signs issue, with more time spent on crime and property tax.
