Two of the candidates at the Smithers All-Candidates forum on Friday admitted they don’t stand a chance at unseating incumbent NDP MP Nathan Cullen.

But they still want your vote on Tuesday.

Canadian Action Party’s Mary Etta Goodacre and the Green Party’s Hondo Arendt each said at the forum they don’t expect to win the upcoming federal election.

The Christian Heritage Party candidate, Rod Taylor said that while he didn't think the CHP would form the next federal government because the party wasn't running a full slate of candidates, he still hoped to represent the riding.

"The only wasted vote is for a party that doesn't reflect your values," he said.

For the remaining three, Cullen, Conservative Party’s Sharon Smith and Liberal Corinna Morhart, the forum gave the three contenders a chance to court the Smithers vote.

One even went so far as to play the Hockeyville card.

Sporting a Smithers is Hockeyville sweater, the Prince Rupert native, Morhart was clearly appealing to Bulkley Valley voters to throw their support behind the Liberal Party despite what most prognosticators believe is a two-horse race between the NDP and Conservatives.

“A friend gave this to me and I thought I would wear it because I know how hard people in this town worked on Hockeyville,” Morhart said.

Earlier in the campaign, Cullen called on all six candidates to agree for a moratorium on coalbed methane extraction in northwest B.C. On Friday, all six candidates agreed, including his main rival Sharon Smith.

“The technology is too risky,” Smith said. “I would not support any projects until the environmental impacts are better known.”

Taylor said despite environmental concerns, the proposed Shell project in the Klappan Valley sits on land that belongs to the Tahltan Nation, who have first rights to the land.

“The Tahltan Nation first invited the government to sit down and discuss the land in 1910,” he said. “They have been waiting a long time for an agreement.”

In response to written questions on the proposed Davidson project — a molybdenum mine, that if approved, would sit on the east side of Hudson Bay Mountain a mere nine kilometres from Smithers, Cullen voiced his opposition to the project.

“At first the meetings went very well, then in the last year and a half things have been very quiet on their [Thompson Creek Metals/Blue Pearl] side,” Cullen, said. “I’m with the mayor in this case, that mine could go on the back side of the mountain.”

Arendt said that small towns are simply treated as a place to extract resources, rather than putting back into the community.

“Two communities in this riding have had the largest percentage of outward migration in the last few years,” he said.

“We have to be careful of development that has a boom and bust cycle and stop treating our natural resources as a treasure trove we can dip into.”

Brenda Wilson, whose sister Ramona was found murdered near Hwy 16, asked Smith if she would work to have an inquest look into the missing women in the region.

“I feel for the families and I know it’s hard driving on the highway and seeing the pictures,” Smith said. “I pledge to do what I can to bring this issue forward.

Cullen said the Prime Minister has a lot to answer for because he didn’t come out and accept the petition from the people that walked all the way from Prince Rupert to Ottawa to raise awareness of the missing and murdered women.

“I was really impressed with the Prime Ministers’ apology to First Nations residential school survivors,” Cullen said. “But his actions when these people walked all the way to Ottawa — he was given three months notice and he was in Ottawa that day — it makes me doubt the sincerity of that apology.”

The forum was exceedingly cordial with few fireworks. However, the public admission of potentially-futile campaigns did raise eyebrows.

“I know I won’t get elected,” Mary Etta Goodacre said. “But I wanted to have my two weeks to talk to you about the conspiracy of 9/11. There is a cabal in the United States that controls the media, the official story we were given is not true.”

Arendt said he sees the Green Party as the 21 Centurys’ answer to the NDP.

Despite consistently losing, the popularity of the party has increased over the years, with 600,000 votes in the last election and an expected 1.5 million votes this time around.

“In the 1940s the NDP promised a 40-hour work week and Health care and they delivered on those promises,” Arendt said. “Despite having never formed a government they influenced government because they were trying to appeal to the voting block they were losing.”

Taylor said that although, it is unlikely the Christian Heritage Party will form a government, he felt that the only wasted vote is one that doesn’t best represent a persons beliefs.

“The CHP is only party that works to defend the rights of the unborn child, the institution of marriage between a man and a woman and basic family values,” he said.