Liberal candidate Terry Sheehan was quick to point out the Conservative’s absence at an all candidates meeting Tuesday night.
Hosted by the Sault Ste. Marie Chamber of Commerce at Sault College, all candidates but Conservative hopeful Hugh Stevenson showed up to introduce themselves and answer questions before dozens of attendees.
It’s something Sheehan pounced on during his opening statements.
“I am disappointed that the Conservative candidate, once again, is a no-show, and the silence is deafening,” Sheehan said.
And, once again, during his closing remarks.
“I've never seen a candidate like the Conservative candidate not show up like this — ever — not participate with the media,” he said. “Why hide? This is democracy. This is Canada. This is participation. This is what this is all about.”
Stevenson was also absent at a recent all candidates meeting at the Algoma Youth Wellness Hub, where he was billed to attend.
While the other candidates did not directly address Stevenson’s absence during the forum, none spoke positively about it when asked by SooToday afterwards.
“Is there a fear of accountability and questions from the public that people are going to want answers to?” said Green Party candidate, Robyn Eshkibok. “If I can do it, he can do it, so I’d like to encourage him to come on out and hope to see him at the next one.”
NDP candidate Laura Mayer similarly hoped Stevenson would show at future debates, and said “people who are running locally should be answering to local people.”
“They should be able to be able to be present and actually meet with people who have certain questions about their policy and their platform, and they should be available for people to meet with,” Mayer said. “I think it's very disappointing that the Conservatives are not here.”
James Collins, the Christian Heritage Party candidate, had no doubt Stevenson was aware Tuesday’s event was taking place.
“It's too bad he couldn't make it, because more voices in the room is always great,” he said.
“That all candidates meeting last week — I had absolutely no idea about,” he said. “However, I'm sure Hugh knew that this one was taking place.”
With four of five running to represent Sault Ste. Marie–Algoma present, candidates weighed in on a range of issues, with several questions highlighting economic stability and growth both local and beyond.
With regard to the Trump administration’s tariffs, Eshkibok said the Greens propose developing a federal strategic reserve of “softwood lumber and other essential resources” to stabilize prices and “revitalize domestic industries.”
“A lot of that goes right through here, this territory, and we can implement that right here, preserving our lumber … sustainable harvesting, addressing our housing crisis needs first, investing in Canadian jobs,” she said.
Mayer said she supports tariff countermeasures against the U.S., arguing any collected tariffs should “go directly to the affected industry.”
“They need to be about the worker to ensure that we're not doing bailouts that only benefit corporations,” she said.
“The NDP will create a Rapid Response Task Force to ensure that communities like Sault Ste. Marie and Algoma don't bear the cost alone,” she said. “We need to ensure that our economic sovereignty is protected at all costs, and that we ensure that our trade supply is not being controlled by American interests.”
Collins took aim at the reigning Liberals in his response.
“Our current government has taken no initiative to ensure we are strong, proud and free. If you want to be free, you have to be strong, and we just simply are not strong economically or militarily,” he said.
“Our economy relies so much on the United States of America that we, as you can see, are crippled by our lack of independence from them.”
Sheehan laid out his party’s $155 billion in counter tariffs – which “have the maximum impact on the Americans and the least amount of impact on Canadians” – and laid out plans to reduce interprovincial trade barriers, launch infrastructure projects, and more.
“We're building a whole bunch of ships for the Canadian military, and as Mark Carney said when he was in a Halifax shipyard, if it is built on Canadian shores with Canadian workers, it will have Canadian steel and aluminum,” he said.
When it comes to raising productivity, growth, and attracting investment to Sault Ste. Marie–Algoma, Mayer highlighted how — in the past few decades — “we outsourced all of our manufacturing and we didn’t replace it with anything.”
“For me, building a resilient and inclusive economy for Sault Ste. Marie–Algoma begins with education. We need to empower post-secondary education institutes to create more innovation, to focus on STEM to become a hub for innovation,” she said.
“We need to diversify our industries and not rely solely on resource extraction, and those kinds of things will be our way through this kind of economic instability and the kind of economic bullying that we're seeing.”
Collins said that by removing “government red tape,” businesses will be able to focus on creating products that “address the consumers’ needs, not the World Economic Forum.”
“The green agenda has forced us and the steel plant to turn a massive employer with great wages into a source of fear for our local economy, with the electric arc furnace – that sounded great at first – only to realize that the workforce is going to be cut in half,” he said.
“I would argue that we need less government involvement.”
Sheehan laid out Liberal plans to provide up to $8,000 in funding for skilled trades apprenticeships — on top of $20,000 in interest-free loans currently available – and highlighted the Carney government’s cancellation of the carbon tax and proposed capital gains tax increase.
“We also announced middle class tax cuts for 22 million Canadians,” he said. “We are working together, and we are going to create the greatest and best economy in the G7 through working with both the private and public sector institutions.”
The Greens plan to build an economy “that evolves to be better, not bigger,” Eshkibok said, highlighting plans to improve wages and invest in renewable energy.
“The Green Party of Canada supports a maximum compensation policy, where the highest compensation within an organization is no more than 10 times the lowest compensation in that organization,” she said. “We are committed to building an economy that is derived through clean renewable energy.”
SooToday reached out to Stevenson and his campaign prior to the meeting to see if was going to attend, but did not receive a response.