People queued up early to pose questions to three of the federal election candidates in the Brandon-Souris riding last week.
It was an encouraging sign for Adam Sobkow, who had arranged what was billed as the first live on-line election debate in Manitoba.
“I have very little idea how many people are going to come, how many questions will come and how fast they will come,” said Sobkow, owner of Sobkow Technologies in Brandon, before the event.
The Jan. 4 debate was done through a chat room, with Sobkow as the moderator. Questions were drawn from those posed by visitors to the chat. Candidates typically were given two minutes to reply through the laptop computers in front of them.
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A wide range of questions poured in, one from as far away as Tokyo, Japan. Taxation, education, crime, economic growth and agriculture were popular topics.
“They’re taking a personal shot,” said Sobkow, partway through the debate, deleting a question that he thought was inappropriate from one of the visitors. “We don’t need that stuff.”
An hour had been set aside for the on-line debate, but it soon became apparent that a longer forum would be needed.
“Can we get the questions that have already been posed answered?” asked a visitor to the debate, anxious to get the opinions of the candidates.
The format prevented heated exchanges between the candidates or attempts to horde the time available for replies. The mood was mainly hushed as the candidates, aided by assistants, concentrated on answering the questions that popped up on their computer screens.
At the close of the on-line debate, the three candidates described it as an interesting and useful way to reach potential voters.
“It gets more people involved and people that may not stand up at a public event and ask a question,” said Conservative candidate Merv Tweed.
“It appeared that there were a lot of young people asking the questions.”
Added Liberal candidate Murray Downing:, “It’s a big constituency, we don’t get to see everybody, so this was a chance for somebody from their house or apartment or from wherever to talk with us.
“It was a great evening for everybody involved here. We had history in the making here tonight.”
NDP candidate Bob Senff described the on-line debate as innovative. He was struck by the quality of the questions.
“They were giving us a chance to step out and answer them sort of one on one, as it were, even though we weren’t face to face.”
Sobkow said he set up the on-line debate because he had felt “a lack of connectedness” with candidates in previous elections. He saw some areas for slight improvement, but was generally satisfied with the outcome.
“I thought it went excellent. There was a plethora of really, really good questions to the point where, unfortunately, we didn’t get to answer probably every single one of them.”
