Caldwell, Helwer try to sway voters at BU

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This article was published 07/04/2016 (3835 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A noon-time debate at Brandon University turned into a political slugfest between Brandon’s two incumbent candidates on Wednesday.

Of the six candidates vying to represent the Wheat City in the legislature, only Progressive Conservative Reg Helwer from Brandon West and Brandon East’s Drew Caldwell (NDP) showed up at the debate, hosted by the Brandon University Students’ Union and Canadian Federation of Students.

Liberal Vanessa Hamilton and Progressive Conservative Len Isleifson, who are running in Brandon East, and Brandon West NDP candidate Linda Ross said they couldn’t attend. Brandon West Liberal candidate Billy Moore confirmed he’d come but didn’t show up.

That left Helwer and Caldwell alone before a crowd of about 50 at the Harvest Hall dining room.

Helwer told the room that the NDP had reneged on a promise to increase post-secondary grants by six per cent a year each year for five years, but only increased grants by three per cent.

At another point in the debate, Helwer said, “The Selinger government has frozen funding to students. It’s been a very damaging time for universities in Manitoba.

“The Selinger government lied to you time and time again prior to the last election — what will they lie about to you this time?”

However, asked in an interview following the debate when the NDP made the six per cent increase over five years promise, Helwer was uncertain, saying it might have been about three years ago. When it was suggested that the NDP had once promised five per cent a year for three years, and reneged in the third year, providing only 2.5 per cent that year and in subsequent years, Helwer said that sounded right, and speculated he had mistakenly used figures for some form of health-care funding whose details he could not immediately remember.

Helwer and Caldwell took care to note their past — both were BU political science students and served as BUSU president. They also promised to champion the cause of BU and Assiniboine Community College.

“I got involved in politics because the Conservatives gave it to me in the neck when I was a student,” said Caldwell, playing to a much more favourable crowd.

Caldwell — the NDP’s first education minister after taking power in 1999 — told students that he had cut tuition by 10 per cent and frozen it at 1999 levels.

The NDP has characterized that now-abandoned tuition control as keeping tuition at 1999 levels and then giving students a 10 per cent rebate, but Caldwell insisted Wednesday that it was always a cut and freeze.

By law, Manitoba allows universities and colleges to increase tuition by only the level of provincial growth, and operating grants have been around 2.5 per cent for universities and two per cent for colleges.

Helwer refused to say what a Tory government would do. “Those are the responsibilities of our leader,” he said in an interview, declining to say if he expects Tory Leader Brian Pallister to say anything about post-secondary finances before the April 19 election.

The ongoing discussion on campus about sexual assault also got air time.

Bill 3, which would make it mandatory for all post-secondary institutions to have sexual assault policies, but didn’t make it past first reading in the legislature last year.

“This bill will be reintroduced by our government and passed,”Caldwell said.

Caldwell accused the Tories of trying to delay the legislation.

“The opposition can’t stop legislation, despite what the MLA across may say,” Helwer rebutted.

“It doesn’t really cover a lot,” said Helwer, who asked the students to re-read the legislation “in light of recent occurrences at BU.”

“If it was built from the grassroots, why is it identical for every institution?”

Helwer raised the 45-day BU faculty strike in 2011, the longest in Manitoba history.

“The first question I get from people is, ‘Will there be another strike?’” he said. “We are still building the campus back.”

Helwer denied yells from the student audience that he is anti-union: “It has nothing to do with unions,” he said.

BU political science associate professor Kelly Saunders, who moderated, said there had been no word from Moore about his absence.

» tbateman@brandonsun.com, with files from the Winnipeg Free Press

» Twitter: @tombatemann