A man of few words

In a dozen or so tiny newsrooms across Newfoundland and Labrador, a small gaggle of overworked and underpaid editors, reporters, and contributors hammer out community newspapers, week after week.

Their dedicated work provides a valuable public service in communities under-served by larger publications and news outlets, and provide rural regions with a valuable mirror onto themselves. The importance of their role comes into sharp focus during election campaigns, whether for federal, provincial, municipal, or Aboriginal governments.

One long-standing tradition observed by many community papers is to fire off a series of questions to all the local candidates, and give them equal opportunity to respond, in print, in order to better inform the electorate about the issues, their views, and even their personalities.

The Northern Pen, serving the Northern Peninsula and southern Labrador, has done this again with the candidates for the three local districts in the current provincial election campaign.

Herewith (please don't sue!) is the question-and-response with Cartwright—L'anse au Clair PC candidate Glen Acreman, as it appeared in Monday's edition of the paper, in its entirety.