In the environment of a federal election where issues change daily, it is incredibly difficult for a monthly publication like Pipeline News, with our long lead times for publication, to provide meaningful coverage. But I do have one strategy that seems to work rather well.
At least it did, until this month.
I crafted a series of questions that are specific to the energy sector, questions that the candidates are unlikely to field from any other media organization, but are pertinent to our industry. Last month I interviewed the Conservative and NDP candidates for Souris-Moose Mountain. (The Green and Liberal candidates had not yet been announced when this was being done.)
I sent the questions in advance because these are highly-detailed questions, and to present them to a candidate out of the blue is, in my opinion, an unfair ambush tactic to make the candidate appear dumb. So I let them know what I鈥檓 seeking, so they have the opportunity to bone up on their knowledge in an area that may not be in their realm of expertise, but is important to their riding.
Their answers are reported verbatim. I don鈥檛 filter out what they say. And our paper typically will have enough room to provide up to two pages of space, where a candidate is often lucky to get three paragraphs in other publications.
The Saskatchewan oilpatch is located in three ridings: Battlefords-Lloydminster, Cypress Hills-Grasslands and Souris-Moose Mountain. The incredibly long campaign gave Pipeline News the opportunity to tackle two of those three ridings, and Cypress Hills-Grassland was next on the agenda.
I started phoning the four candidates in earnest on Sept. 9, saying I needed to get this done by Sept. 18. That鈥檚 ample time to prepare for a 20 minute phone interview, which I was willing to do in the evenings or weekend if the business day was inconvenient for them. Except it wasn鈥檛 that easy. There was no contact information at all provided on the national website for the Liberal candidate Marvin Wiens. Calls to his personal phone were not returned. Green Party candidate William Caton鈥檚 personal phone gave a fax machine, and emails weren鈥檛 returned.
Phone calls to the Conservative and NDP candidates at first seemed promising, as the campaign workers who we talked to seemed to indicate they would be getting back to me.
My phone never rang.
So, the following week I tried calling. Emailing. Sending direct messages on Twitter. Making comments on their Facebook page. Nothing, from all four candidates.
It was only after I posted my lack of success reaching these candidates on our Pipeline News Facebook page that I got responses from the Liberal and then Green candidates. I tried everything but smoke signals and carrier pigeons, and that鈥檚 only because the local Co-op was out of pigeons. I checked.
The morning of the deadline of Sept. 18, Trevor Peterson, the NDP candidate, finally picked up the phone and said he would speak to me later in the day. In the end, he sent email responses.聽
Finally I spoke again to Scott Cassidy, the campaign manager for David Anderson, Conservative candidate and sitting MP for the riding since 2000. They would not be participating.
I pointed out I had tried numerous times to reach them, I gave the questions in advance, and ample time to respond, much more than any other media would do. Would he have preferred me ambushing him on a doorstep? No, Cassidy didn鈥檛 like that idea. He also seemed surprised the Greens and Liberals had responded. He would call Anderson right then and find out if Anderson would take part.
Cassidy finally emailed, 鈥淲e thank you for the opportunity to do an interview with your paper. Regretfully, David Anderson is actively campaigning across our large riding and we will not be offering any comment at this time.
鈥淲e would welcome future interviews in the future.鈥�
This is inexcusable. The people in Cypress Hills-Grasslands, especially those who work in the oilfield (or are currently laid off) have a right to know what their candidates think about energy issues. For goodness sake, Anderson was twice the parliamentary secretary to the minister of Natural Resources. He also served as a member of Standing Committee of Natural Resources. If anyone should be intimately familiar with these issues, it would be him.
In the last 12 years of covering federal, provincial and municipal elections, this has been the worst example I鈥檝e seen of politicians ducking questions during a campaign.
The question voters in Cypress Hills-Grasslands might want to ask themselves is why?
Brian Zinchuk is editor of Pipeline News. He can be reached at [email protected]
