Sam Katz and Judy Wasylycia-Leis duel it out at RRC

Yesterday morning the Creative Communications (and other) students had the luxury of hearing Sam Katz and Judy Wasylycia-Leis lay out their plans for Winnipeg on the table. Well... Judy did. Katz mostly relied on the past (on what he had done) or what is a possible plan. Judy had lots of plans to tell us about, most of them including community centers. Many of my colleagues had the opportunity to ask the candidates questions directly, hoping to get a direct answer. Or half direct, I guess. I've heard this rumour that politicians have a knack for ALMOST answering a question.

Hailey Brigg questioned Judy's plan to give ex-inmates and ex-gangmembers jobs in the city to keep them away from criminal  activities. Brigg brought up a valid point that many non-criminal members of the community are unemployed due to a lack of jobs available or don't make much more than minimum wage. She wondered why these people who have committed some kind of offense should have the advantage over those who haven't. At this point, Judy more than likely started talking about her beloved community centers again.

The two candidates acted like in person examples of those commercials you can find on tv in the States where the candidates bash each other. Instead of acting like professional adults, Judy and Katz continually pick at each other. Moments like these were cause for Richard Cloutier to say" You can feel the love in the room today."

Anyways, throughout the community center babble and the factfactfact chat it became clear to me that Katz was winning the crowd in this forum. 

Despite the cattiness and the poor professionalism at times ("Thanks, MOM") it was a great experience!

What I learned at the forum:

Katz owns the Goldeyes... (heehee just kidding, already knew that)

Montreal is a kick ass place to live and we should strive to be just like it

Judy thinks the helicopter was bad investment on the part of the city

Katz and Judy agree that a teen curfew is not the answer to violence downtown

Oh and did I mention that Judy loves community centers? She wants to rejuvenate them... a tad bit curious after 45 million dollars was invested into community centers around Winnipeg.