The Fernie Chamber of Commerce is announcing full details for the Fernie Municipal Election All-Candidates Forum taking place on the evening of Tuesday 4 October 2022 at the Fernie Community Centre. All 14 candidates running for council and the 2 candidates running for mayor have confirmed their participation in this event.
This will be an in-person forum with a strict 400 person limit due to capacity at the venue. If the limit is reached, people will be turned away so please try to arrive promptly. The event will be filmed and a recording of the forum will be made available to the public to view on the Fernie Chamber website the following day, for those that can’t attend in person. The Fernie Chamber is unable to live-stream the evening due to the venue having no Wi-Fi.
The forum will be moderated by Glen Purdy (Q.C., M.S.M.) and the format of the forum including time limits and other rules is attached to this press release.
Doors will open to the public at 6:00pm and the forum will commence at 6:30pm sharp.
The agenda for the evening:
6:00pm – Doors open
6:30pm – Forum commences (welcome, land acknowledgement, overview of format)
PART 1 – Council Candidates
6:40pm – Introduction from each council candidate (3 minutes each)
7:30pm – Questions to council candidates
8:00pm – Council portion concludes. 15-minute break.
PART 2 – Mayor Candidates
8:15pm – Introduction from each mayor candidate (5 minutes each)
8:25pm – Questions to mayor candidates
9:00pm – Closing statements (3 minutes each)
9:10pm – Adjournment
The general public can submit questions to be asked of candidates. For questions to be directed at council candidates, the public can email their question to election@ferniechamber.com with the deadline to submit council questions by Monday 3 October at 9:00am local time. These pre-submitted questions will be collated by the Fernie Chamber of Commerce and shortlisted to 14 questions that will be randomly asked to each of the 14 council candidates depending on what number they draw.
Questions for the mayor candidates will be submitted on the evening of the election forum in writing. Questions can be submitted to the Fernie Chamber of Commerce forum committee between 6:00pm (when doors open) and 7:30pm. The questions for mayor candidates will be collated by the Fernie Chamber and given to the moderator. The moderator will then direct each question to one or both candidates, at his discretion. Duplicate questions or recurring themes may be streamlined into one question.
Council candidates will have 1 minute to answer their questions. Mayor candidates will have 2 minutes to answer their questions. Rebuttal opportunities will be given to each candidate as per the attached rules.
Brad Parsell (Executive Director of the Fernie Chamber) explains, “We are looking forward to a respectful and constructive all-candidates forum that will help the citizens of Fernie make an informed choice during this municipal election. Every effort will be made by the moderator to ensure a balance of questions and time given to each candidate. We reiterate that the Fernie Chamber of Commerce is a non-partisan organization and we do not support any candidate over another.”
