North Bay mayoral candidates go head-to-head

Close to 50 people showed up for Wednesday night's mayoral candidate debate in North Bay.

Taking part were Johanne Brousseau, Peter Chirico and Leslie McVeety, who shared why they want to be the city's next mayor.

A number of topics were discussed including transparency at city hall, which each candidate said is something they would improve.

"Transparency is a lack of communication and that is one thing I want to improve on. I want to improve communication with the media and responding to citizens," said Brousseau.

"You are the taxpayer. You deserve to know where every penny is going. There's not going to be any secrecy whatsoever if I'm in," said McVeety.

Chirico's message was the same.

"There's three reasons that things are kept in-camera: HR, legal and real estate, those are the only three things. I pledge to you that we will be open and we will be transparent," he said.

The debate was hosted by North Bay Pride and Jason McLellan -- dressed as his alter ego Geri Atrick -- was host and moderator.

He told CTV News the debate was an important exchange.

"Our general society has forgotten that elections is the time to hold our politicians accountable and get them on public record about making those promises we want to hear," McLellan said.

"That's what we had tonight, we had those commitments."

There's at least one more scheduled debate before the October election.