For the first time heading into October’s municipal election, all eight mayoral candidates will be participating in a debate over the hotly contested issue of arts and culture in the City of Calgary.

The sold-out debate, hosted by three of the city’s largest theatre companies, will include a number of questions from Calgary’s art community.

Many of those will address issues like public art and how art organizations are funded in the city and organizers thought a forum was the best way to spark discussion.

“We thought it would be a really good opportunity to get the mayoral candidates together to have a focused conversation about to see where they stand on arts issues and how they feel arts and culture plays a role in Calgary's economy,” said Karen Bell with Theatre Junction, where the event is being hosted.

Right now, public art installations are included in infrastructure projects that cost over $1M.

In those, one percent of the first $50M goes towards public art, followed by half a percent of the rest of the project’s costs.

A number of people are concerned that that is too much public money being spent and those funds should be used in other ways.

Mayor Nenshi, following the opening of the controversial Bowfort Towers in the northwest, said earlier this month that the selection process for public art is the main issue.

All public art is chosen by a panel of seven members, with six of those being civilian volunteers.

The mayor says that that isn’t enough of a conversation with Calgarians.

As for funding for arts organizations, a number of the candidates have already made their views known on previous occasions.

Nenshi has fought to keep funding consistent for the arts community despite what happens in the local economy while Chabot, known to be a fiscally conservative politician, has opposed overspending.

Monday’s debate begins at 6:00 p.m. and organizers say at about 450 tickets were offered for free and they were all snapped up quickly.

It will feature all of the candidates who have declared so far; Shawn Baldwin, Andre Chabot, Dr. Emile Gabriel, Paul Hughes, David Lapp, Naheed Nenshi, Bill Smith and David Tremblay.

For those who weren’t able to get tickets to the debate, organizers say it will be livestreamed on Theatre Junction’s Facebook page.