By Ian Holmes

Yes side pulls out of Nanaimo events centre debate, citing safety concerns

Feb 28, 2017 | 1:44 PM

NANAIMO — The group scheduled to speak in favour of Nanaimo’s events centre proposal has pulled out of Tuesday night’s debate, citing safety concerns due to numerous personal attacks.

Vote Yes Committee chair Tali Campbell told NanaimoNewsNOW that their group is not comfortable debating the divisive topic at the Vancouver Island Conference Centre.

“We just don’t feel that it’s a safe environment tonight,” Campbell said. “We don’t have a valid security plan from the Chamber of Commerce. We still remain that a debate should happen.”

Campbell noted that a death threat was made against him over the phone on Feb. 9, which was reported to Nanaimo RCMP.

Campbell said not only himself, but other Vote Yes Committee members have been harassed numerous times in person and online in relation to their stance on the upcoming referendum.

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NoVote2017 spokesman Don Bonner said he’s “really disappointed” that the debate is not happening.

“I don’t think they’re prepared for this debate, I don’t think they have enough people together who are willing to put up a cogent argument about how this thing is going to work, how this event centre is going to be funded, I think they are using this as an excuse.”

Bonner said he doesn’t understand Campbell’s logic that the conference centre is not safe.

“If he (Campbell) wants security, we can get it for him,” Bonner said. “There is no indication in any of the events that have taken place in this town up until now that anybody is in any way unsafe.”

The debate, being hosted by the Greater Nanaimo Chamber of Commerce, was to involve three people for each side debating and also taking questions from the public.

Chamber CEO Kim Smythe said the event will still go ahead, noting there is not enough time to cancel it. He is reaching out to other people in the community who support the event centre to represent their argument.

“I can’t even describe to you the disappointment I feel,” Smythe said when contacted by NanaimoNewsNOW. “This was a real slap in the face, I didn’t even find out about it until 12:30 p.m., six hours before the event.”

Smythe said he’s now in the embarrassing position of having to explain to members of the public in attendance there will be no debate.

“One of our original objectives here was to try to balance the yes and no sides,” Smythe said. “It was clear to us that the no side seemed to have more momentum and more volume than the yes side.”

Campbell said his camp is not afraid of debate, pointing out that he personally has prepared for months. He said there has already been backlash for their decision.

“If anything it could hurt us tonight and that’s why I apologized to the other Yes members and Yes volunteers for us deciding to pull out because it can hurt us.”

The event will go ahead as planned at 7:00 p.m. with doors opening at 6:30 p.m. in the conference centre’s main ballroom.

ian.holmes@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @reporterholmes