Of the six candidates running to become member of parliament in the North Island-Powell River riding, four attended an all-candidates meeting sponsored by Powell River Chamber of Commerce, which was held in Powell River Recreation Complex’s Evergreen Theatre on April 17.
In attendance were Jessica Wegg (Green Party of Canada), Glen Staples (Independent), Jennifer Lash (Liberal Party of Canada) and Tanille Johnston (New Democratic Party). Candidates faced 16 questions during two-hour forum.
Aaron Gunn (Conservative Party of Canada) and Paul Macknight (People’s Party of Canada) were not in attendance at the meeting.
One of the questions was about missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls. The questioner identified herself as a First Nations individual and as an elder. She said Canada had undertaken the missing and murdered Indigenous women inquiry and came forward with a series of recommendations. She said since the inquiry, she hasn’t seen those enacted in a large part.
Her question was: “I want to know what each of you is going to do in regard to those recommendations, because we still have our women being murdered and going missing. It is happening across Canada. These recommendations are to keep our people safe.”
Here are the responses from the candidates, in the order they answered:
Glen Staples
“I’m not sure what the recommendations were. I have lived and worked in three different Indigenous communities. South Africa learned the apartheid system from Canada. Israel is still digging the hole. It’s going to take Canada another 100 years to dig our way out of it.
“It’s a mess, but we have to get to the point where we realize that the Indigenous people were the original inhabitants here and the Europeans came in and locked them up on reserves. They didn’t even have the vote until 1960. We’re still having problems today.”
Jennifer Lash
“Bottom line, women need to feel safe, and they don’t. Indigenous women are more vulnerable that non-Indigenous women and this needs to be corrected. It breaks my heart every time I hear about some sort of violence against women, and more often, you hear it about Indigenous women, and that is tragic.
“I would point to two different things we could do to help implement the recommendations of the inquiry. One is making it harder for repeat offenders who do violence against women to be released. We also need to really follow through with our commitments to reconciliation.
“We need to heal our relationships with Indigenous communities so Indigenous communities can also grow and thrive in a way that we can get rid of some of the dysfunctions that are happening. We need to move in this direction because we need to have a healthy society.”
Jessica Wegg
I am sorry that more hasn’t been done after we did this important work and we had this study. We know of the problem, and we are just letting it continue, and we’re not doing more.
“The Green Party would implement all 231 calls for justice from the missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls inquiry, including a national strategy to end gender-based violence and ensure accountability. We will make sure there is government support to do that.
“We would also fully fund the missing children and unmarked burials project and continue our work in reconciliation with our First Nations across the board, recognizing the struggles that are happening that are caused by the settler community, that are the result of systemic racism, and then move forward.”
Tanille Johnston
“I just want to say, get me in there. We haven't had enough voices, Indigenous voices in government to make this stuff happen. We’re studied over and over again. We’ve had umpteen reports that tell us how bad or how hard our lives are, how we show up in all the worst health conditions, and that more of us are in jails. That’s not how we want to live.
“We need more of us around government tables to make sure our voices are heard and actions are happening following all these studies that they do on us.
“I want to point out something that I have been fighting for since I was elected to Campbell River City Council, and that is what I have been calling an equity vote. We need polling stations at every First Nation in our riding and in our country. It’s not fair that the federal government put is in the middle of nowhere and doesn’t give us a voting ballot box.”
The candidates also answered questions on how they plan to support local businesses, subsidies for large corporations, government spending and how Canadian resources are harvested and sold, as well as crime and policing. Questions and answers on transparency in politics and national unity will be published in the Thursday, April 24, edition of the Peak, and at prpeak.com. For more local and national election coverage, go to prpeak.com/2025-canada-votes.
A walk in honour of National Day for Awareness of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, Girls and Two-Spirited People, also known as Red Dress Day, will take place in the qathet region on Friday, May 2, starting from Tis’kwat and ending at Willingdon Beach.
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