For me, one of the highlights of the 2005 provincial election was covering a debate on health care at the 411 Seniors Centre in downtown Vancouver.

Finance Minister Colin Hansen attended as the representative of the B.C. Liberals. He was joined on the panel by Adrian Dix of the NDP, Kathleen Stephany of the Green party (she's now an NDP candidate), and independent candidate Will Offley.

It restored my faith in democracy seeing provincial politicians willing to field unscripted questions from the public in front of the media. It gave me enough material to write a cover story on how the parties differed on health care on the eve of a provincial vote.

In the 2009 campaign, however, the B.C. Liberals have refused to send a candidate to the health-care debate at the 411 Seniors Centre.  The debate will be held on Tuesday (May 5) from 1 p.m. to 2:30 p.m. at the centre (411 Dunsmuir). It's open to the public.

In an e-mail to Lew McDonald, who is coordinator of the B.C. Health Coalition, B.C. Liberal communications officer Alexa Young wrote that the party "must decline to participate".

"As you can imagine, the number of requests for public appearances compared to the number of days of an election simply does not allow our candidates to schedule all requests," Young wrote. "All our candidates are committed to being accessible during their campaigns and as such we do encourage you to send us any questionnaires and or surveys and will be happy to complete them."

During the 2008 federal election, Conservative candidates refused to participate in several candidates debates across Metro Vancouver.