Election 2014
Business banter
Election 2014
Federal Employment Minister Jason Kenney offers frank talk at Island economic summit.
INSIDE
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INSIDE:
All-candidates meetings How to vote, where to vote Election questionnaires
www.nanaimobulletin.com
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 4, 2014
VOL. 26, NO. 50
Candidates can speak up I CHAMBER OF Commerce forum, for mayor, council and trustee hopefuls, is tonight (Nov. 4). BY TAMARA CUNNINGHAM THE NEWS BULLETIN
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account balance continues to decrease, the surcharge may be eliminated or cut in the not-too-distant future, adding she didn’t have a timeline. “The balance is definitely coming down in the fuel deferral account but it just needs to come down further, as well as the price (of fuel),” Marshall said.
Candidates will be looking to win a little love from potential voters during a new “speedcampaigning” event. The Greater Nanaimo Chamber of Commerce has added a speed-campaigning twist to its all-candidates forum at the Vancouver Island Conference Centre today (Nov. 4) for voters to question contenders running for city council and school board. According to Kim Smythe, president and chief executive officer for the chamber, the idea came from a similar event tested in Cobourg, Ont., this year and gives voters the chance engage with candidates face-to-face without the filter of a moderator. He said he hopes the format gives the public a better chance to evaluate candidates. People will be able to choose which candidates they speak to and have between five to seven minutes to ask questions before a bell signals the need to switch tables. “Because we have a high volume of candidates, we’ve coined the term ‘speed campaigning’ to get as many people through all the candidates they wish to speak with,” Smythe said. “We expect that most people will come with a list of those candidates they’d like to speak to in person, rather than try to research all 59 candidates in one night.” School trustee and council candidates will sit down with voters at 5 p.m. in the Mount Benson Ballroom at the Vancouver Island Conference Centre. Voters have a one-hour window for one-on-one conversations with the city’s mayoral candidates, beginning at 6:30 p.m., before the contenders are invited to speak and take questions raised by the audience at 8 p.m.
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Alyssa Glassford, a street artist, works on an Alice in Wonderland-themed mural on Saturday in an alley dubbed Wisteria Lane behind Nicol and Milton streets. Concerned residents in the area have banded together to rid the neighbourhood of drug use and prostitution and the mural is part of beautifying the area. Students from Vancouver Island University collaborated with street artists on the public art project, which will continue with fairy-forest themed paintings this Saturday (Nov. 8).
Gas prices drop, ferry fuel charges won’t BY KARL YU THE NEWS BULLETIN
B.C. Ferries won’t be lifting a 3.5-per cent fuel surcharge despite dropping oil prices. The additional ferr y charge came into effect in January due to fuel costs and according to Deborah Marshall, B.C. Ferries’ spokeswoman, car and
truck fuel is different from the fuel used by ferries. “One’s got to appreciate that while the price of gas at the pump has dropped, we haven’t seen the same corresponding decrease in local diesel fuel prices – it’s actually a different product that we buy,” Marshall said to the News Bulletin. “We’ve got fuel deferral accounts to help with the
volatility of fuel prices and currently, we’ve got approximately $3 million as a balance in [that] account, so we need to pay that down before we could reduce or eliminate the fuel surcharges,” Marshall said. She said B.C. Ferries is monitoring the situation and if the price of diesel drops and the deferral
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