The four local candidates on the campaign trail for the Oct 10 provincial election - Liberal Elizabeth (Betsy) Hall, Progressive Conservative Sylvia Jones, the New Democrat Party's Lynda McDougall and the Green Party's Rob Strang - are taking every opportunity afforded to them to talk to as many people as possible.

Last week they went head to head in the Dufferin-Caledon riding's second all-candidates debate, Wednesday evening at Grace Tipling Hall in Shelburne.

On Thursday afternoon they met again - accepting an invitation to the Dufferin Women in Business Luncheon (DWIB), held at Orangeville's Best Western hotel.

The luncheon is a monthly gathering of local businesswomen which offers a chance for them to get together, network and share ideas over a meal.

The group extended an invitation to the candidates to join them to discuss "women's issues" during the campaign and the four candidates accepted.

At first glance, the forum may have seemed to be a great opportunity for the candidates to reach out to more potential voters and discuss the issues.

After all, it's expected that during an election campaign, candidates will be offered many invitations to speak with different groups.

News agencies during an election regularly announce where the leaders are stopping on the campaign trail. Often it's visiting hospitals, schools and recreation facilities - usually a special interest or focus group - to announce the party's plan and policy of particular interest to the audience.

On such occasions, the leaders often use the chance to highlight their party's platform on a particular issue, and at the local level some of the candidates use the opportunity to comment (negatively, of course) on the other parties' policies.

So on the whole, I understand why the candidates would choose to accept an invitation but I don't know whether the one for last Thursday's sent the right message to all voters.

DWIB is an organization that normally excludes men, so why would they warrant an exclusive meeting with the candidates to discuss "women's issues"?

When did women become a special interest group?

Could you imagine what would happen if a men's organization - "for men only" - asked for a private session with the candidates to discuss "men's issues"?

The public outcry would be enormous, or at least it should be.

As a reporter I attended both all-candidates debates held in Dufferin - the one at Orangeville District Secondary School on Sept. 18 and last Wednesday's in Shelburne. At each event, both sexes had equal opportunity to ask questions on any number of subjects, among them women's issues.

During the DWIB luncheon, the format was changed from a typical debate style, where political hopefuls field questions from the audience. This time, the candidates were requested to provide one question each that they wanted to deal with and then have the other candidates give their responses.

The question period was moderated by the Rob Rice from the Greater Dufferin Area Chamber of Commerce, who said the candidates were asked to focus their question on "women's issues".

Unlike the all-candidates debates, when funding for education and the Tory decision to fund faith-based schools appeared to be the most discussed topic, the issue most talked about during the luncheon was health care. The candidates chose this time, in front of a female audience, to discuss funding for cervical and breast cancer treatments. Had the candidates been addressing a completely male audience would the example used be prostate cancer?

With politics being politics, I can understand the candidates wanting to tailor their answers to suit the audience, but in this case, it somehow felt very wrong to me.

As a voter I don't want to be singled out for my gender, marital status or by class, or what percentage of my income I pay as tax.

I don't want to know which party has a platform to address women's issues. I think it's wrong to separate issues based on gender, much the same way it is wrong to separate the issues based on any other differences.

I believe every issue should be important to all voters, regardless of gender, whether it's health care, education, child care or small business incentives.

I do believe candidates should take advantage of opportunities to talk to as many people as possible. I think it helps to put a face to the name and encourages people to get out and vote.

But I also believe they should consider carefully the message they are going to deliver when they accept invitations to meetings that are exclusionary.