It was a civil but impassioned debate at the Watson Art Centre Monday night, with five federal candidates making their case for why they deserve to be elected Member of Parliament for Dauphin-Swan River-Neepawa.
Questions were kicked off with a specifically local topic from the Dauphin Herald about turning Riding Mountain National Park into a four-season park.
Independent Inky Mark was given the chance to answer that one first. He said it's worth examining, but the park needs better funding and needs to be perceived as one of Canada's important parks. He also questioned infrastructure in the park considering Manitoba's harsh winters.
Liberal Ray Piche said the Liberal platform has already put forward intentions to make Riding Mountain a four-season park.
"It's an essential part of this riding and all the other parks an essential part of Canada. We are not bears in Manitoba, we do not hibernate. We love our winter season," said Piche.
Dauphin-Swan River-Marquette incumbent Conservative Robert Sopuck said he would support seeing it become a four-season park as well and touted the near 40 million dollar investment going into the park.
The NDP's Laverne Lewycky called Riding Mountain National Park a jewel.
"There are municipalities around there that would be gladly supportive of a four seasons park. In Manitoba here, we actually have winter for six months of the year, so we really need Riding Mountain National Park to be an all seasons park. There are trails that could be groomed, we could have students employed on those trails and other things," said Lewycky.
Kate Storey of the Green Party called the park beautiful and said people could be enticed to come from all over the world with a little imagination and some start-up funding.
Several other topics were covered including Canada Post, jobs, Manitoba First Nations, mental health, and post-secondary education.
The federal election is on October 19.
