Mix together six organizing groups, three political candidates, three issues, one excellent moderator, about 20 event volunteers and an audience of about 120 people plus another 75 online. The result: an effective, polite and informative Hamilton Centre candidates meeting at our church on October 15 2019.
Our Affordable Housing team led the effort to create the event. Back in August, Joan MacNeil of the housing team suggested that if we were serious about making housing an election issue, we had to make it the focus of a candidates meeting. So we did, adding the issues of climate change and income inequality for a richer mix.
We were delighted to have leaders from some key city organizations join in the effort—the Roundtable on Poverty Reduction, Environment Hamilton, the Social Planning and Research Council, Eco-Locke and the Office of Justice and Peace of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Hamilton. Samantha Craggs of CBC Hamilton was a terrific moderator.
Two people with lived experience of housing challenges and poverty, Katrina Gervais and Alana Baltzer, gave the issues a very human urgency.
You can read CBC’s coverage of the debate at https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/hamilton/hamilton-centre-candidates-debate-1.5322267
This event was the first at the church to be lived streamed, extending our reach. So you can watch it all at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AfKpAbGT7mA Thanks to Jeff Duke at Duke Interactive Media, and Al Sharp, sound tech for the night, for making that happen. And thanks to our organizing partners, affordable housing team members and others from the church and the community who, together, made a successful event possible.
Bill Johnston