Male candidates get grilling at women's council forum in Happy Valley-Goose Bay

With three male candidates vying for the Lake Melville seat in the provincial election, the Mokami Status of Women Council wants to ensure their representatives keep women's issues at top of mind if they get elected.

Incumbent Liberal Perry Trimper, Progressive Conservative candidate Shannon Tobin and Independent Jim Learning were hosted at a question and answer session in Happy Valley-Goose Bay Monday night.

"We were sitting around the kitchen table at our centre and trying to make sure women's issues were being presented," said Raelene Vickers, executive director of the Mokami Status of Women.

"We have three males that are running — and not that males can't represent any of our issues, but we do individually as women have a greater knowledge of things that we do face," she said.

The council asked six pre-selected questions, before opening the floor up to the roughly 40 people who attended the session to ask their questions.

Candidates had two minutes each to weigh in on Labrador-specific issues, ranging from a lack of a pediatrician and lactation consultant at the Labrador Health Centre, to child care, to the higher costs of providing social services in Labrador.

Attendee Martina Lavallee was looking for details on the Liberal's pre-election budget promise of a $1-million expansion to the Labrador Correctional Centre to accommodate female inmates.

"I was kind of hoping to hear more about plans for the women's prison that's going to be here and why none of you see it as an issue that women are going to be housed in a prison with men," she asked the candidates.

Trimper could not provide any specifics on what the proposed addition may look like.

"While it's not perfect, it's advancing the situation," Trimper said.

"I would put a fair bit of confidence and faith in officials at the Labrador Correctional Centre to ensure that the accommodation is done in such a way that all the concerns we can feel in the room as a result of your question would be addressed," he told Lavallee.

"One hundred per cent there needs to be segregation to the point of not having those two populations access one another," Tobin said.

For Lavallee, none of the responses from any of the candidates was satisfactory.

"Yes, it was only announced recently, but it was recent enough for me to think about the question and to think about whether or not they were going to be housed next door to these men," she said. "I'm a little bit disappointed that there wasn't more thought into these answers."

Violence against women

Other questions dealt with violence against women.

Kim Campbell-McLean brought up a report from last year showing Happy Valley-Goose Bay as the Canadian community with the sixth-highest rate of violence against women.

"What strategies and policies will you put into place to address violence against all women," she asked.

"Starting with a family that's in trouble, that's a bit late," Learning said. "Policies need to be put in place to address mental illness."

Tobin, meanwhile, said he wanted to look at getting an addictions treatment centre opened in the Lake Melville district, to "deal with people who are having this problem and having them deal with their trauma so that they can get out of it and not cause other people trauma while doing it."

Trimper agreed with the need for mental health and addictions support, and pointed toward a new walk-in service the Liberal government claims eliminated wait times for mental health services.

He also pointed to the creation of a minister responsible for the status of women, a role that was filled by Burin-Grand Bank MHA Carol Anne Haley.

"She now sits at the cabinet table, which is a very powerful body which oversees every decision that's made in government," Trimper said.

During the question and answer period, McLean also spoke about the increased cost in Labrador for goods, services and transportation, pointing out that all status of women councils in Newfoundland and Labrador receive the same amount of funding — regardless of differences in operating costs.

She asked the candidates what they would do to decrease the cost of those expenses, while increasing funding for services.

"I'm all for getting more funding for these organizations," Tobin said. "They're providing the same services but with a lot more difficulties."

"We should get that little bit of extra funding and I think if we had a strong minister of Labrador and Aboriginal Affairs we would get it," he said.

"I would look forward to sitting with you and other like-minded organizations to make that case," Trimper said.

Read more from CBC Newfoundland and Labrador