Your chance to hear from each of the five candidates vying for the warden position is this Thursday Oct. 12.
We will be hosting a debate in the Pontiac High School Auditorium at 7 p.m. and it’s your chance to solidify your choice for warden.
This is the first time in the history of the Pontiac that voters will be choosing the warden. In the past, the warden was chosen by the 18 mayors that sit on the MRC council.
This is the epitome of democracy: giving the power back to the people to choose their leaders.
We realize many people have busy lives, and can probably find something better to do than sit for hours on end listening to prospective politicians drone on and on.
That’s why we’re going to be running a tight ship. Candidates will have 90 seconds to respond to each of the seven carefully thought out questions. Add in their opening and closing statements and a bit of time for rebuttals, and we’re looking at a debate that clocks in somewhere around 90 minutes.
This should give the candidates plenty of time to answer pressing questions, and it allows people who have families to come out without sacrificing an entire night.
We’ve said it before, but we’ll say it again: municipal governments are the ones we deal with most frequently as citizens. With this in mind, we need to make sure we know who we’re voting for before we cast the ballot.
We get all kinds of perks living in Canada. In exchange, we have a few responsibilities. We have to pay taxes and we’re expected to vote – even though many of us stay home on election day.
Since voting is a responsibility that we have as citizens, we owe it to our fellow citizens to be as informed as we possibly can be before casting our ballot.
Here is your chance to find out for yourself.
For the first time, we have a choice when it comes to who will be the warden of the MRC Pontiac. We have five capable candidates who bring differing fields of expertise to the table.
This is a great chance to see which of them resonates the most with you.
Whoever wins the election will be overseeing important files in the region for the next four years. Odds are, he or she will have a significant impact on the future of the Pontiac.
So before you cast your ballot, make sure you get as much information as possible. As far as responsibilities go, we don’t have many as Canadian citizens.
The least we can do is make an informed choice when we go into the ballot box.
Chris Lowrey
