Both Major Political Party Leaders Back Out of Debate

Marissa Longsworth

According to Longsworth, while Party Leader Patrick Faber had indicated last Monday that he will be participating in the debate, he reached out personally via email to the leadership debate committee to hinge his participation on the debate once all participate.

Marissa Longsworth, President, B.C.C.I.

“As it relates to the leader of the United Democratic Party, in a televised interview with no relation whatsoever to the debates at all, he indicated that he would be participating once certain conditions were met.  On the deadline for submitting confirmation which was a few days after the televised interview, we received an email personally from that leader, not from his party which was the practice with the others, saying that he is only willing to participate if others participate.  So he hinged his participation on the participation of others and all leaders participating.  Now if you keep in mind that we have two leaders who have agreed to participate and yet still there is no participation from the United Democratic Party then maybe there was some other meaning to saying that others needed to participate.  We as the committee can only work with the words that are given to us by any one leader at a time.  In the case of the People’s United Party leader, the leadership debates committee was told that that leader is not in a position to accept the invitation unless a meeting is held where all the rules, regulations, moderator announcement and so on could be done.  The leadership debates committee, in essence, granted that request although it was something that we were planning to do anyway without having been asked by any one leader to do so.  We had a meeting yesterday invited all leaders and their advisors and during that meeting we went through the order of the debate, the rules of the debate, the announcement of the moderator, as well as a question and answer segment for the leaders who are present and as you can see, the People’s United Party also did not seize that opportunity and that meeting was held with the understanding that there is a statement of commitment that if after that meeting you submitted a statement of commitment to us, then that is considered your confirmation to participate.”