Roughly 50 Greater Sudbury residents voted on social services as the most important topic in the upcoming provincial election.
They were taking part in AgendaCamp, an event hosted at Laurentian University by TVO's Steve Paikin, host of The Agenda with Steve Paikin, on June 26.
Greater Sudbury residents can catch the live taping of The Agenda with Steve Paikin at Tom Davies Square on Monday, June 27. The show runs from 8-9 p.m., but people wanting to watch the live taping are asked to arrive before 7 p.m.
Tony Ryma, the Liberal candidate for Nickel Belt, France Gélinas, the incumbent NDP candidate for Nickel Belt, and Victor Fedeli, the Conservative candidate for Nipissing-Timiskaming, will all participate in the live taping.
AgendaCamp is in its third season, and each year the event travels to roughly five communities. This year, Greater Sudbury is number four on the roster, with a fifth event to be held somewhere in the 905 area of southern Ontario right before the provincial election in the fall.
"Mainly what we try to do is bring a cross-section together from the community to talk about what they think should be priorities in the election," Erica Balch, AgendaCamp producer, said. "We try to get as good a cross-section of people as we can. (People) who are interested in the issues, know something about the issues, who want to get engaged."
The issues discussed at AgendaCamp are issues brought forward by participants themselves, not chosen by TVO staff. In the morning, participants were asked to write down what topics they felt were important, and nine were chosen for groups to discuss over the day.
By the end of discussion, each group was to come up with a question that could be posed to political candidates at the live taping of The Agenda the next day. These questions, along with a bit of information, was presented to participants.
"The issues tend to be the same regardless of where you are in the province," Agenda host Steve Paikin said. "I know that each area will have a particular local spin to it, but I think the issues that emerge...are pretty much the same. People care about health care, they care about the economy, they care about jobs, they care about energy prices, they care about governance."
A sheet of paper with each of the topics were taped to a board, and after the presentation, AgendaCampers took part in "dotmocracy."
"Everyone in the room is given five dots (stickers)," Balch said. "They go up to the board and rank how important the issue is. They can use all five dots on one issue, they can distribute their dots across all issues — it gives us a sense...of what people really value (and) want to see as priorities."
Through dotmocracy, AgendaCampers ranked social services as the most important topic, followed by environment, northern Ontario, education, governance, energy, democratic engagement, economy and health care.
"One of the things I sort of enjoy about getting to other cities across Ontario is finding out how much we have in common," Paikin said. "In the main, whether people are in northern Ontario or southern or eastern (Ontario), they worry about the same thing."
Tune in to The Agenda with Steve Paikin Monday through Friday at 8 p.m. or 11 p.m. on TVO, or visit www.tvo.org/theagenda.
-Posted by Heidi Ulrichsen
