A debate on poverty had to be cancelled this week because two of the main federal candidates for Kingston and the Islands chose not to attend.

Now the four main political camps — Conservative, Liberal, NDP and Green — are blaming each other for the spotty attendance at organized election events around Kingston.

Meantime, other debates have been cancelled or, sometimes, only two candidates — Nathan Townend of the Greens and Daniel Beals of the NDP — have shown up.

Most fingers are being pointed at Conservative candidate Andy Brooke.

“He’s just not accepting the invitations,” Liberal candidate Mark Gerretsen said. “That’s well known.”

But Brooke said his “supposed non-attendance” is a non-issue and that he will get to about a half-dozen gatherings over the course of a busy campaign.

“We are attending debates,” he said.

Brooke acknowledged, however, that his team has decided the most effective way to campaign is to canvass door to door around the riding — and not attend every event sponsored by a “special interest group.”

The issue of non-attendance reached a peak on Monday.

A televised debate had been scheduled at the Cogeco television studios featuring all four candidates and the main topic was to be poverty, with an emphasis on something called the Basic Income Guarantee, or BIG.

Local supporters of the income idea were also among the main organizers of the debate, including Queen’s University business school professor Bill Cooper.

“We thought everything was going well until the middle of August,” Cooper recalled. “They all seemed interested and willing and Mark (Gerretsen) seemed especially interested in a basic income guarantee. So back on Aug. 21, Mark’s campaign manager sent an email saying he was working hard to make sure all four candidates were on board. It turns out he had some concerns about whether Andy (Brooke) was going to attend the debate. Then it fell apart.”

Cooper’s impression was that the Conservative team was steering its candidate away from the Cogeco event because the issue of a guaranteed income was better aligned with NDP or Liberal policy.

He called Brooke a “red Tory” whose political leanings are more to the left than the main party, and that makes it harder for him to defend Conservative policy in public settings.

Jonathan Rose, a professor of political studies at Queen’s who was supposed to moderate the debate on Monday, said the Conservative decision to pull out in Kingston isn’t an isolated one.

“I’m reluctant to say why they did, but it is curious this pattern is being repeated across the country with Conservative candidates. It could reflect a change in their strategy,” Rose said.

The upshot, Cooper said, is that the group’s hard work was all for nothing.

He described organizers at Cogeco as being “pissed off.”

“We were the first out of the chute. We had an agreement with Cogeco in February,” he said. “I think the candidates have an obligation to show up at the debates.”

Brooke’s recollection of what transpired is slightly different.

He recalled getting together at Queen’s with Cooper and some of the other organizers.

“We had a really good meeting,” Brooke said.

However, when his campaign manager, Richard Landau, received followup information, they felt Cogeco was no longer taking the lead on the debate and that it had been “handed over completely to the BIG debate.”

“We just never wanted to see something handed over in its entirety to a special interest group,” Brooke said.

The Conservatives decided their efforts would be better focused that day on door-to-door canvassing.

“My principle responsibility as a candidate is first and foremost meeting with people where they live,” Brooke said. “The most important use of my time is meeting people where they are, which is at the doors, literally. It’s not attending events.”

The Liberals have also received their share of criticism for not attending community gatherings.

Gerretsen explained that the agreement among his campaign team members from the outset was that they would only go to events to which all candidates were invited — and that all four must accept.

(It should be noted that as of Tuesday there were five men in the race for Kingston and the Islands with the addition of a Libertarian party candidate.)

When Brooke pulled out of the Cogeco debate, Gerretsen dropped out as well.

“There’s not a whole lot of value going to a debate when you don’t have the representative of the party that’s governed for 10 years,” Gerretsen told the Whig-Standard. “When we can get all the candidates together and have a healthy discussion, I think that’s great.”

Beals has been openly complimentary of Brooke for attending as many events as he has.

“I think he’s bucked the (Conservative) trend,” Beals said. “It’s a strategy those candidates are adhering to and he’s bound by it.”

Beals is critical of any candidate who doesn’t attend debates, and he singled out Gerretsen for basing his attendance on whether others show up.

“It’s bothered me because this isn’t a game where I’m going to strategically avoid doing something. If you don’t show up to an interview, how can you expect go get the job?” he asked. “It smells bad.”

Townend said the election process is “gruelling” for candidates but choosing canvassing over debates is the wrong approach.

The only “legitimate excuse” for not attending, he said, is when a candidate has to choose between two debates.

“I feel very disappointed about it,” Townend said. “The people that are missing out are the citizens of Kingston. Kingston has a very collaborative political climate. Candidates go to most of the debates. I appreciate that Greens are included. This is the first time we have seen this kind of behaviour. It just isn’t very ‘Kingston’.”

Townend said that in a time of declining voter turnout, candidates must lead by example.

“Once people are tuned out, it’s very hard to tune them back in,” he said. “I’m very impressed with Daniel Beals. But with just him and me, there’s not too much we disagree on. It doesn’t make for much of a debate.”

Everyone, including the organizers of the Cogeco debate, agreed that election campaigns are busy times, the invitations numerous, and that some tough decisions need to be made.

The first all-candidates meeting was held only last week at St. Lawrence College, and from then to the Oct. 19 election, the candidates have been invited to at least two dozen similar events.

“We’re aware that political parties, their time is at a premium during election campaigns,” Rose said. “The argument that it’s better use of the candidate’s time to knock on doors is absurd. There will be more people in a room (for a debate) than you’ll meet in an hour of door knocking.”

Gerretsen said the Liberals have accepted invitations to nine community events out of about 24 invitations.

His campaign team recently helped negotiate an agreement at Queen’s University so that several campus groups rolled their issues into one jointly hosted evening.

“For us, it comes down to a matter of trying to balance the number of debates with trying to get out and canvass,” Gerretsen said.

Brooke said his decision to work the neighbourhoods is indicative of how he would be as an MP.

“I will not grant any interest group preferred status,” he said.

“We received many requests. We have chosen to meet people at the doors. I’m not saying any other approach is wrong.”

He was, however, critical of Gerretsen’s approach.

“For anyone to say their attendance is dependent on the attendance of candidates — you don’t abdicate your independence,” he said. “I don’t let anyone choose my attendance for me. … Any candidate who does so is granting a veto to another campaign. That’s not how I run a campaign. I will attend if Mark doesn’t go.”

Brooke also disputed the suggestion he was avoiding public debate that might involve criticism of the Conservative government record, noting that he will get to six in total.

“I’m not afraid of anything,” he said. “If that were the case, I would not attend any. I’m not afraid to defend the record of this government.”

paul.schliesmann@sunmedia.ca