Dean Constable

Dean is so far the only candidate to show up at my door, which was before the election was actually called. Sabrina spoke to him for quite a while about community swimming facilities and the fact that the CARI isn't really fulfilling its mandate, and is turning into more of a publicly-subsidized private health club. He was genuinely interested in what she was saying and made a note of it to take away with him. I was quite impressed that he did a lot more listening than talking.

He was on the radio this morning talking about video lottery terminals and promising to do what he could to try and get rid of them, including exercising what influence he could in opposition. I fully support this and am glad he mentioned that the money that goes into those is money that would have gone into the economy in some other form anyway. He didn't mention it but it's not people who have a high rate of savings who use these, it's mostly people who live paycheque to paycheque, and it really is shameful that the government has come to rely on them as a form of income.

Pat Martel was asking him questions and seemed to take a bit of a condescending tone at a couple of points. Dean answered the questions well, and it was refreshing to hear a politician say exactly what he thought was right rather than couching his statements in language to not offend entrenched interests. And good for him for pointing out that the Racino (ugh) is losing money, so the VLTs really aren't helping the local harness racing industry at all.

I think Dean would do well to try and slow down his rate of speech, he came off as a bit nervous. Something I've learned to consciously do is to speak slowly and retain control over the flow of discussion by making someone wait until you have made your point rather than trying to squeeze as many words as you can in the time the other person decide to let you speak. The last thing people want to be reminded of in NDP leaders is the tendency to be excitable and shrill.

Labels: Elections, NDP, PEI, Politics