The debate
Every federal leaders’ debate, much ado is made about “knockout punches”—the critical one-liner or moment that leaves an opponent not scrambling for words, but completely defeated. Brian Mulroney’s famous “You had a choice” attack on John Turner in the 1984 debate is invoked as an example of a debate which had a massive effect on public opinion.
Yet the fact is that such knockout punches haven’t happened in the twenty-four years since. Party leaders these days spend too much time on debate preparation for that to happen. So while it promises to be a good show and there may even be plenty of fireworks, don’t expect anybody’s political career to end tonight.
6:05 pm – In a sense, Elizabeth May has already won the debate by showing up and being introduced by TVO’s Steve Paikin.
6:11 pm – Speaking of Steve Paikin, he’s an extremely capable moderator. Steven Harper and Jack Layton engaged in a shouting match, so the floor went to … Gilles Duceppe.
6:15 pm – I haven’t heard Duceppe speak English for a while, but it’s only taken me about fifteen minutes to conclude that he still speaks better English than Stéphane Dion.
6:21 pm – Jack Layton to Stéphane Dion: “I don’t know why you kept [Harper] in power so long if you disagree with him so much.”
6:25 pm – This first round on the economy is going very largely as expected, with Harper defending against attacks from Layton, Dion, and May. One surprise: May just suggested reviving the Canadian pulp and paper industry. I thought her party was against cutting trees?
6:27 pm – Duceppe: “You know what is really astonishing? The only party proposing a Buy Canada act is the Bloc Québécois.”
6:36 pm – Begin round two, this time on the subject of the environment, and Duceppe just brought up the Kyoto accord. If I didn’t know better, I would have thought I was watching the 2006 debate again—I was sure that by now we’d be talking about carbon taxes instead.
6:39 pm – Using the phrase “bad economics”, like May just did, is always a dangerous idea when there’s an actual economist sitting at the table.
6:46 pm – May to Harper: “Well done [on national parks]; everything else is a fraud.”
Paikin: “And you learned how to say that in French last night!”
6:48 pm – The perennial Canadian debate topic has arrived: health care. Maybe we’ll see some drama here; not that I was expecting much from this debate, but the pace has been almost as slow as the overall campaign itself.
6:52 pm – As if on cue, Harper makes a reference to Layton’s controversial visit to a private clinic and a fracas erupts.
7:00 pm – We’re halfway through the debate and the sum total of action has been a couple of testy exchanges between Harper and Layton. Moving onto arts and culture now.
7:04 pm – More reasons to love Paikin encased in a simple question to the opposition leaders: “Are Conservatives barbarians?” Nobody bites.
7:06 pm – Coming from a musical background, I do have more thoughts on the arts and culture debate, which I’ll get to after the debate.
7:08 pm – Paikin trying to gain a handle on a burst of undecipherable crosstalk: “Guys, I’m trying to make sure that Biden and Palin don’t take our audience here.”
7:14 pm – Onto crime and punishment now, and Layton can become extremely predictable at times. Once he mentioned the people in his riding killed by stray bullets, it was only a matter of time before he proposed banning handguns.
7:23 pm – Finally, a decent exchange between Dion and Layton, with the latter providing the best shot of the evening so far: “If you can’t do your job as leader of the opposition, I don’t know what you’re doing running for prime minister.” He’s clearly practiced that line.
7:36 pm – A segment on the mission in Afghanistan finishes without incident.
7:39 pm – May says that her first priority as prime minister will be to fix the electoral system. But will it still be her first priority in the event the electoral system awards her enough seats to actually become prime minister?
7:45 pm – Harper channels George H. W. Bush in about as dangerous a fashion as one possibly can: “I will not raise taxes.”
7:50 pm – Throughout the debate it hasn’t been difficult to tell that May has little debate experience. She’s extremely overenthusiastic with her hand gestures.
7:52 pm – Layton still won’t make a play for the prime minister’s office directly. The most he’s willing to go is to suggest that the NDP might have representation at the cabinet table, which continues a series of hints he’s been dropping throughout the campaign that the NDP might form a coalition with the Liberals.
8:00 pm – And just like that, the debate’s over. May likely outperform expectations, and Dion was slightly more eloquent than his usual self. Some good exchanges between Harper and Layton and between Layton and Dion, but for the most part, the debate was, quite frankly, a snoozefest. I really won’t be that interested to see what the pollsters have to say tomorrow.