Things get heated as candidates square-off in Calgary-Foothills

No topic appeared to be off-limits as candidates squared off against P.C. leader Jim Prentice, in hopes of wooing away some undecided voters.

The event was organized by the non-partisan group “Just Vote”, in a bid to inform residents in the northwest Calgary riding.

Each candidate was allowed an opening statement, they were asked all-candidate questions, specific candidate questions and then were given a chance to make their final presentation to those in the audience.

It didn’t take long for the Liberal candidate for Calgary-Foothills, Ali Bin Zahid, to draw first blood.

Zahid tried to appeal to those in the riding by explaining he was one of them, he’s lived there for three years, he’s relatively new to Canada and questioned Prentices spending priorities.

“The PCs haven’t balanced a budget for seven consecutive years, how will they do it again this time?” he asked. “We have a 7-billion dollar deficit, now if you have a deficit that is that huge, how do you have 30-million dollars for an election that nobody wants?”

His questioning drew loud applause from the entire audience and correlated it to nothing more than pleasing Prentices corporate friends.

Zahid says wait times are outrageous and Albertans are not getting the services they deserve and are paying for, under a Liberal government he vows this would be different.

“We need to spend smart, not cut stupid,” he said.

In an interview afterwards, he later portrayed himself as the one and only moderate alternative with a candidate that is from Calgary-Foothills (adding most don’t even know the Premier’s riding is Calgary-Mountainview).

NDP candidate Anne Wilson also didn’t hold much back while talking to 660News.

She was asked ‘why would you want to run against the Premier’ and ‘does that make it more difficult at the doors’,

“It’s like battling a full-grown mountain troll and I’m Hermione Granger,” she laughed. “He’s got some wild eyebrows but I’ve got a hedge clipper.”

She later apologized for being so punchy after being on the hot-seat for close to 2 hours.

Wilson spent much of her time attacking Prentice for his “cuts” to education and health care.

“And how can you trust Jim Prentice and the PCs if they cannot figure it out after 44 years, that they need to tax wealthy corporations just a little bit more, just somewhere close to their fair share? We could get out of the mess that Jim Prentice and the PCs have created for us, we don’t have to look in the mirror or any of those clichés that he’s still recommending.”

Wildrose candidate Keelan Frey chose to use his time, sticking to his partys talking points, and pledged his party is the only option Albertans have if they want their taxes to remain the same.

Frey says his party would do it by finding efficiencies in the government.

“The problem that the Wildrose party has with the PC governments current structure, they’ve been announcing and re-announcing school projects for the last two years,” he said.

He pledged his party would speed up the process by opening up the bidding process and eliminating sole-source contracts.

“I chose to run for the Wildrose because my generation needs someone to stand up to the voice of this 44 year old regime,” he adds.

Frey told the audience his party will ensure the Heritage Savings Trust Fund is restored.

Green Party leader Janet Keeping also took part in the debates after switching her candidacy from Calgary-Fort to Calgary-Foothills.

Keeping stuck to her environmental platform and told the audience she knows change is hard.

She called for proportional representation in the province and pleaded with supporters, if you can’t vote for her, vote for someone other than the Progressive Conservatives.

Premier Jim Prentice, who made headlines for skipping the Calgary-Foothills debate during last fall’s by-election, also took the “hot-seat” for the two hours.

He reiterated the province needs a 10 year plan and Budget 2015 is the best and most realistic way to move the province forward.

Prentice challenged other leaders to release what he said was a “realistic plan” and even went so far as to say the numbers the Wildrose are providing, don’t add up.

The PC leader however spent much of his time, defending his government’s decision not to raise the corporate tax.

“We’ve been listening to Albertans over the course of the campaign, in terms of corporate taxes as I’ve said before, the challenge for us with the economy that we’re in, with a slumping economy, a collapse in oil prices, is that we don’t want to lose anymore jobs in the province. We lost close to 50,000 jobs in the first 3 months of this year, good paying jobs in the energy sector and I’ve made it very clear as premier I think my obligation is to try to hang on to every single job that we can, that’s why we’re focused on infrastructure jobs, that’s why we’re focused on maintaining our economic competitiveness and that’s why we’re focused on preserving front-line jobs. In short, this is not the time to do this,” he said. “All of us know people who have lost jobs or are worried about losing jobs.”

The next forum for “Just Vote” will be in Calgary-McCall, although there’s no word yet on a location or date.