Victoria's federal candidates will participate in a Q&A on Thursday, September 26.
NDP's Laurel Collins, Green Party candidate Racelle Kooy, Liberal Nikki MacDonald, Alyson Culbert with the People's Party, and Jordan Reichert with the Animal Protection Party, have all confirmed they will participate in the moderated discussion.
The question and answer session will focus on poverty, homelessness, housing affordability, mental illness, substance use, and issues related to the downtown core. The event is hosted by the Downtown Service Providers, a group representing organizations that support the impoverished and marginalized in Downtown Victoria. They've already posed some questions to the candidates, and those answers have been posted to the Greater Victoria Coalition to End Homelessness's website.
Kathy Stinson, CEO of the CoolAid Society and Chair of the Downtown Service Providers, says Thursday's event will give the audience a chance to ask their questions.
"So the questions that we'll be asking the evening are from the floor, so from people attending the event. They can write out their questions. We'll be giving them to Cliff [Lecain], and he will be asking the candidates those questions."
The all-candidate question and answer session runs from 7pm to 9pm at the Christ Church Cathedral School's gymnasium on Vancouver Street. Doors open at 6:30, and the public will have a chance to mingle with the candidates before and after the event. Only 150 people will be able to fit into the gymnasium, and Stinson says the seats will go in a first-come first-serve manner.