A student at Dr. Ken Sauer School poses a question to candidates for the Brooks-Medicine Hat riding, leader of the Alberta Party leader Barry Morishita and NDP candidate Gwendoline Dirk.--NEWS PHOTO SAMANTHA JOHNSON
reporter@medicinehatnews.com
Two of three candidates for Brooks-Medicine Hat – Alberta Party leader Barry Morishita and NDP candidate Gwendoline Dirk – were at Dr. Ken Sauer School on Wednesday to introduce themselves to Grade 4-6 students and take questions.
Teacher Travis Boser explained, “We are doing the student vote program through Alberta Elections. Grades 4-6 are going to be taking part. We invited all three of our candidates from Brooks-Medicine Hat and Gwendoline and Barry agreed to come and talk to the kids today.”
The information will be taken forward and next week, before the election, the school will run a student vote.
What positive things can you say about the other political parties?
“Both parties have done good things in the past and the Alberta Party comes at it from that perspective. We don’t think anyone is bad because they don’t agree with us. We don’t think anybody doesn’t deserve to be part of the process,” stated Morishita.
Dirk said, “I call myself someone in the middle. I don’t like extremes.” She went on to say Morishita is wise and has strong ideas and she likes to tease him that he should have run for the NDP.
“The UCP is a little more difficult for me to find nice things to say about but I will.”
She was happy the UCP listened to teachers and educational experts and didn’t push through the entire new curriculum. Additionally, she is pleased they have started attracting investment back into Alberta.
What makes you proud to be an Albertan?
Dirk was raised on a farm in Saskatchewan and likes that Alberta has lots of agricultural people, but also big cities and lots of advantages.
Morishita loves the people and how they are resilient, friendly and doing the best they can for their families, home and communities. He also mentioned the beauty and diversity of landscapes and people across the province.
What’s it like being a candidate?
Morishita loves what he does but acknowledged it can be frustrating. He followed that statement by sending a shoutout to all Oilers fans who were still wearing their colours even though they had a sad week. He moved on to explaining how it is harder on his immediate and extended family due to comments made on social media.
Dirk talked about how she has knocked on about 10,000 doors in the past year and it isn’t always a positive experience. She also mentioned how divided the province is and how much misinformation is out there. One of the most stressful things for Dirk is to see people living in subpar living conditions and not being able to immediately help them.
What motivated you to run for this election?
Morishita loved being mayor of Brooks but there were many times when he couldn’t do things for his community because the provincial government was in the way.
“I decided to run provincially because I saw things had to change to make my community better.” Service also motivates him. Regardless if he becomes an MLA, he is committed to serving. It’s not about him but how he can represent people in the riding of Brooks-Medicine Hat and take their issues and help build solutions.
Dirk was motivated to go back to her beginnings.
“I became involved with the Alberta NDP because I felt there were so many things going on in our province. We were losing investments; people couldn’t pay their bills or find a family doctor.” Dirk was initially motivated to finding a candidate she could get behind, which evolved into her becoming that candidate.
