Particularly worth mentioning are those groups and individuals who went out of their way to make certain that Freedom Party candidates would not attend their all-candidates debates.

The most inexcusable example occurred at an all-ridings, all-candidates debate sponsored by the London Status of Women Action Group (LSWAG) at London's Central Library on April 30.

When Freedom Party candidates arrived on the scene, much to their amazement, no seating had been prepared for them under the assumption, apparently, that they would not show up. When LSWAG organizers were asked why this was so, we were told that they were "unaware" that Freedom Party was running in the election.

Of course, nothing could have been further from the truth.

As the last all-candidates debate of Election '85, LSWAG organizers had to be aware that our candidates were present at every previous debate. Not only was press coverage of our attendance at these debates very fair and adequate, but Marion Boyd, the NDP candidate for London North, was immediate-past president of LSWAG --- and was an organizer of the debate!

In fact, LSWAG's "awareness" of Freedom Party in the community has a history, in which Freedom Party representatives have engaged in direct debates and political conflicts with LSWAG representatives. Freedom Party president and London South candidate Robert Metz debated LSWAG past-president Gail Hutchinson, both within the pages of the London MetroBulletin and on a two-hour open line talk show. Freedom Party Action Director Marc Emery was scheduled to debate LSWAG representative Heidi Strasser on another two-hour radio debate, scheduled for May 3, the day following the election. All debates were initiated by ourselves.

Add to all this the fact that our repeated calls to LSWAG's telephone answering machine were not responded to --- well, not "aware" that Freedom Party had candidates running in the election?

We must suspect that LSWAG has placed some form of "boycott" on Freedom Party, much in the same way its members are urged to avoid shopping at Emery's City Lights Bookshop in downtown London. In a zealous display of its inability to deal with our ideas on an open and free forum, LSWAG has been forced to advocate its position through evasion, avoidance, and through a political advocacy of censorship of any ideas with which it does not agree.

But LSWAG's tactics of evasion and avoidance extended far beyond the manner in which it treated the Freedom Party candidates, as attested to by the following day's coverage in the London Free Press:

While the meeting, organized by the London Status of Women Action Group, was billed to discuss women's issues, the audience used much of the two and a half hours to bad-mouth the Tory record, scorn the Freedom Party candidates, ignore or disagree with the Liberals and applaud the NDP candidates.

The format did not allow debate and directed a different set of questions to candidates in each riding.

Organizers called an end to the meeting 30 minutes earlier than scheduled, saying they felt all the ground had been covered.

Press coverage was actually quite kind.

Of all the special-interest group audiences encountered by Freedom Party candidates during Election '85, none was as rude, intolerant, or as inconsiderate as the NDP-stacked audience at LSWAG's debate. But Freedom Party candidates held their ground and never once accepted the false premises on which most of LSWAG's questions were based. We greeted their uncivilized behaviour with civility, their questions with philosophical challenges, and their evasions with direct confrontation.

At one point during the "debate", things got so bad that Freedom Party candidate Robert Smeenk was prompted to bring attention to the audience's lack of consideration for any and all non-NDP candidates with whom it did not agree. "Thank God you guys are here," commented lone Tory candidate Bill Rudd, helpless against the onslaught of left-wing vindictiveness and name-calling.

LSWAG's attempt to dominate and control its all-candidates debate clearly backfired --- and justifiably so. In addition to the negative press coverage quoted above, local radio stations chose only to air the comments of London South candidate Robert Metz, who bluntly accused the forum of being nothing but an NDP front.

So much for "women's issues."

But the real surprise of the LSWAG debate did not become known to us until several days later when our campaign office received phone calls from several women who attended the spectacle and who let us know how impressed they were with the Freedom Party candidates --- and that the alternatives we offered were the only ones that made any sense at all. Evidently, our message found its mark.

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Page last updated on April 28, 2002