Fundraising comes first: Why BC Conservatives are skipping debates

Harman Bhangu isn’t afraid to debate policies. His campaign manager says he just had better things to do.

Bhangu, who is running to represent the Langley-Abbotsford riding, is one of five Langley, Abbotsford, and Mission Conservative candidates who have foregone events traditionally been seen as obligatory for anyone with a real shot of sitting in the legislature.

Empty chairs aren’t unheard of at all-candidates meetings. But the absence of five candidates from a single party with a shot at winning seats is unprecedented in recent Fraser Valley history. The move prompts questions about the relevancy of such meetings in the 21st Century, the motives behind avoiding public events, and whether candidates have an obligation to subject themselves to public debate.

A democratic cornerstone

For UFV professor Hamish Telford, all-candidates meetings and public debates have long played a critical role in the Canadian democratic process.

“All-candidate debates have been a feature of Canadian elections, going back probably to Confederation,” he said. “It’s an opportunity for candidates to test their mettle against the other candidates, for voters to see them in action against each other. It gives them the best opportunity to weigh their candidates and their respective abilities, as well as to learn what they stand for and get a sense of their character and judgment at the same time.”

The perceived importance of such meetings has shifted in recent years, as the focus of federal and provincial elections has turned to party leaders, Telford said. But he said there remains an important role for the events and the ability for voters to be able to visit a local venue and compare individual candidates’ personalities and priorities.

“At the end of the day, we are voting for a local representative, and you should have some sense of who that name on the ballot is when you mark your X beside them,” he said.

Over the last decade, some major party candidates have failed to appear at Fraser Valley all-candidates meetings. But in the vast majority of those cases, the absent parties have been out-of-town “parachute” candidates who have done little campaigning and been chosen to represent a riding in which their party has no real hope of victory. In 2017, the provincial NDP fielded two such candidates in Abbotsford. Two years before that, federal Liberal candidate Peter Njenga didn’t show at his riding’s all-candidates meeting. Occasionally, candidates have boycotted events hosted by groups they perceive as hostile.

But unlike those who have missed events in previous elections, the five BC Conservative candidates who are skipping Fraser Valley meetings likely have a good chance of actually being elected and the meetings they have missed have been hosted by the Chamber of Commerce—an organization not regarded as hostile to parties of the right.

In addition to Bhangu, the Conservative candidates who have skipped their local all-candidates meetings include Jody Toor in Langley-Willowbrook, Misty Van Popta in Langley-Walnut Grove, and Korky Neufeld in Abbotsford West. Several Green and independent candidates also skipped the meetings. They include Langley Greens Rylee Mac Lean and Melissa Snazell, Langley independents Shelly Jan and Carlos Suarez Rubio.

The Current attempted to contact each of the BC Conservative candidates who missed their local all-candidates meetings. (No local NDP candidates missed their local Chamber-of-Commerce-hosted forum.) One candidate, Van Popta, responded to say all interview requests must go through the party. But our requests for comment only resulted in one returned phone call. That came from Andre Roberge, the campaign manager for Abbotsford-Langley candidate Harman Bhangu.

Roberge told The Current that he would have Bhangu call us. That call never materialized. But Roberge himself briefly talked about the decision to forego the all-candidates meetings.

He echoed previous written statements by the candidates in which they emphasized the importance of door-knocking. But he said fundraising was also one of those other, more-pressing activities.

“It wasn’t a matter of choosing not to participate, but rather there’s other things that were more pressing at the time,” Roberge said. When asked what could be more pressing, Roberge replied: “Certainly, the all-candidates meeting is important. But when we have supporters who are—you know, we’re trying to generate funds, people who want to come out and hear him for fundraisers and meeting up with organizing our GOTV [Get Out The Vote]. All these meetings are extremely important and when we’re trying to get everybody together at the same time, sometimes it just doesn’t line up.”

Abbotsford, Langley and Mission aren’t the only communities where BC Conservative candidates have skipped all-candidates meetings and debates. BC Conservative candidates have also been no-shows at well-attended meetings in West Kelowna and Delta.

But in other areas, BC Conservatives do seem to think that all-candidates meetings are worth attending, whether out of self-interest or democratic principle. In addition to Banman and Gasper, Chilliwack’s two conservative candidates—Heather Maahs and Á’a:líya Warbus—attended their local all-candidates meeting Friday night. In the vast Fraser-Nicola riding, Conservative candidate Tony Luck has spent hours on the road travelling to Lillooet, Boston Bar, and Lytton to attend all-candidates meetings.

When The Current pointed to Luck’s attendance at those events as proof that some candidates were finding the time to attend public forums, Roberge said: “That’s a very good point.” Bhangu and most other Abbotsford and Langley Conservative candidates also didn’t respond to The Current’s questionnaire about themselves and their priorities as would-be members of the Legislature.

This year’s close campaign has sparked increase scrutiny of the organizations of the all-candidate events. The moderator of Chilliwack’s forum was replaced at the last minute after questions about her involvement with the BC Conservatives. And the campaign of Conservative Reann Gasper issued a press release Monday expressing unhappiness that a former staffer for NDP candidate Pam Alexis sits on the board of the Mission Chamber of Commerce and was involved in planning the all-candidates meeting for the Abbotsford-Mission riding. (Gasper attended despite the concerns.)

Although none of the absent candidates called The Current, their Abbotsford colleague Bruce Banman—who attended an all-candidates meeting last Wednesday—did return our calls.

Banman said the practicalities of running for office, and a new era of campaigning, are calling into question the future of all-candidates meetings and their importance in connecting with voters.

Speaking the morning after participating in an all-candidates meeting in Abbotsford, Banman expressed disappointment with the turnout, which he pegged at around 150 people, including a loud contingent of apparent partisans. He pointed to both social media’s rise as a venue for voter engagement and the leader-focused campaigns as alternative venues for political contact.

“I think people are more interested in seeing and hearing what the leaders have to say than they are about the individual candidates,” Banman said, echoing Telford.

While that may be true, Banman—who was elected as a BC Liberal and chose to leave the party to join John Rustad’s Conservatives—demonstrates why the public should be interested in an individual candidates’ views. Both his Abbotsford South predecessor, Daryl Plecas, and Plecas’s own predecessor, John van Dongen, left their parties while in office.

Banman suggested that speaking to people in person, on doorsteps, provides voters with a better way to engage with candidates directly. It’s also potentially more efficient than all-candidates meetings, which take significant preparatory time on top of the time it takes to attend them.

“Social media has changed everything,” he said. “Candidates are able to get a message across in a way that in the past they could not.”

Although Telford speculated that the BC Conservative Party might be wary of having inexperienced local candidates take the stage at meetings where they may struggle, Banman said the party has left it up to each person running for office how to spend their time. He also said there was not inherently more risk in botching a response at an all-candidates meeting than in another venue or at a person’s doorstep.

Banman said he chose to attend his local meeting because he had crossed the floor to the BC Conservatives since his first provincial election. But he said the previous night’s audience might change his future approach.

“I felt that in my case, it was the right thing to do,” he said. “Now, based on the attendance, I’m sitting here wondering, ‘Would my time have been better spent at the doors?’”

Assessing the value of the meetings for parties and candidates is difficult in 2024. Although in-person attendance is the most obvious gauge, all-candidates meetings are not just consumed by people sitting in a municipal hall or theatre. Meetings are usually covered by local media, and resulting news stories are usually read by audiences several times larger than the capacity of the meeting’s venue. Word-of-mouth plays a role and modern meetings are also frequently streamed and stored online. The Current, for instance, has embedded the videos of local all-candidates meetings at the bottom of this story.

There is also the question of whether candidates will be penalized for ducking all-candidates meetings and be viewed more negatively—even from people who may not rely on the events to make up their minds.

For at least some voters, attending meetings is a democratic responsibility—a duty that candidates are expected to subject themselves to, even if they aren’t in their personal interest. When The Current polled its Insider Members, a majority declared that foregoing meetings was a betrayal of democracy. Only about 10% of respondents said it’s fine for candidates to skip them if they deem attendance to not be in their personal interest.

Some local municipal political leaders seem to feel the same way. Mission Mayor Paul Horn wrote online that he was “shocked” that candidates were refusing to participate in such meetings. And Abbotsford councillor Dave Loewen wrote the hashtag #Disrespect in a post noting that BC Conservative candidate Korky Neufeld didn’t appear at last Wednesday’s all-candidates meeting in Abbotsford. (Neither Loewen nor Horn are aligned with a provincial political party.)

Of course, paying subscribers to a local news website and municipal politicians are not exactly representative samples of broader society. And it is the voters at large that will determine the future of public debate, according to Chilliwack Coun. Jason Lum.

Lum, who ran as an independent in the 2020 provincial election, told The Current that it’s up to voters and the public to demonstrate that they actually believe politicians should be expected to prove themselves next to their opponents.

“There is no mechanism, other than public/political pressure, that can compel a candidate to take part,” Lum wrote in a text message. “I think it will be a poor reflection on our democracy if we allow avoiding public debate to become a winning election strategy.”

For Telford, meanwhile, attendance at an all-candidates meeting is part of the job of running for office—and not so onerous that it should be considered optional.

“I understand if there are multiple offers, if they’re getting inundated with requests, they can’t do a debate in every seniors home in Abbotsford,” he said. “But I do think there’s a democratic moral imperative for people to show up for a couple of public debates.”

You can find the all-candidates meeting videos below.

Langley-Willowbrook

Langley-Walnut Grove

Langley-Abbotsford

Abbotsford West

Abbotsford South

Abbotsford-Mission

Chilliwack North and Chilliwack-Cultus Lake

Fraser-Nicola