The Leaders Debate

[Infanteer]

Did anyone catch the Leaders Debate in English tonight?

Although Steven Harper displayed his usual dry toast persona, I think it helped him in the end because he didn't seem like a whining 15 year old throwing accusations and insults like the others did at times because he kept his cool.

I give props to Duceppe for his ability to cut straight to the point and really nail his opponent down.  As well, I liked his admission "I am de only one here who knows dat I'll be in de opposition on the 28th."

I really developed a dislike for Jack Layton; his constant smiling gave me the impression of a slimy used car salesman.  Given that he believes in helping himself to our wallets, I think the persona fits.  He really hammered in on his Proportional Representation idea.  My question is this Mr Layton:  How does proportional representation protect the right of a Canadian citizen to run as an independent.  If anything, it seems to me as undemocratic as it forces one to ally with a party to hope for a seat.  Along with eliminating the Senate, which has the potential to act as a check and balance if properly reformed, I wonder who's feeding this guy his ideas.

Martin stumbled on his words alot in the beginning, and I was really turned off by his constant rehashing of the abortion debate.  Since when did the right to abortions become an issue in this election, let alone in current public discourse?  I think arguing against abortion right now is like trying to argue for an all-male military; sorry, but don't waste your breath.

Alas, I was disappointed in the end.  All the debate boiled down to was finger pointing and name calling.  When will national debate (and Parliament, for that matter) become a place for constructive debate, where politicians can pool perspectives and ideas to work towards the best possible solution?  Everyone was trying so hard to slag Paul Martin that the fact that he was probably one of the best finance ministers in Canadian history (I'll give him that) was ignored.  What ever happened to working together?

Well, I'll leave you with a good speech I re-discovered the other day for you guys to munch on:

"Parliament is not a congress of ambassadors from different and hostile interests; which interests each must maintain, as agent and advocate, against other agents and advocates; but Parliament is a deliberative assembly of one nation, with one interest, that of the whole; where, not local purposes, not local prejudices ought to guide, but the general good, resulting from the general reason of the whole.  You choose a member indeed; but when you have chosen him, he is not a member of Bristol, but is a member of Parliament."

Edmund Burke (ironically, he was thrown out of office by the constituents of Bristol in the next election, but I think he was on to something....)

 

[chriscalow]

I agree with what you said about working together.  Seeing as it's probably going to be a minority government, the parties should be looking at ways that they can work together on things.  I personally was not swayed by the debate.  I am not voting liberal.  I want to see a change.  Maybe at the next election I might vote liberal.  But for now, Stephen Harper's "Promises" mostly relate to what I see as problems in this country.

 

[RCD]

Yes  it looks like we will have a minority government.
But will they be able to work together?

 

[Michael Dorosh]

Martin stumbled over his words like an ass, but I thought he had the best line of the night, to Layton (who did smile a lot and look slimy):  "Did your handlers tell you to talk all the time?"

It was the only sincere moment Martin had!  ;D

 

[Jarnhamar]

i was going to ask this question but you beat me to it.

Although Steven Harper displayed his usual dry toast persona, I think it helped him in the end because he didn't seem like a whining 15 year old throwing accusations and insults like the others did at times because he kept his cool.

I couldn't agree more.
I think someone said here before that Harper had the charisma of a rock and when i saw him on TV a few times i had to agree. I thought great this is the leader I'm convincing myself to vote for.  He never came across as being a good speaker.  (Not like me who gets nervous leaving a message on an answering machine heh)

After watching a bit of the debate last night i was really impressed with harper. He really came across as being honest in my opinion. Everyone threw insults and cheap shots at each other including harper. Martian almost seemed to consintrate on it. 

I think the comments about the "aircraft carrier" were important. The Conservatives aren't arguing for a Nimitz class super carrier or whatever but a transport type ship so we dint have to rely on the Americans to give us a ride.  Martians only reply was saying ships are the past, the future is all about flying (try using a jet as a mobile hospital or helicopter platform) to which harper brought up the point about our 50 year old helicopters.

I don't know if i agree with privatizing health care but i don't really understand much about the pro's or con's regarding that either.

I think the liberals were scared and it showed.

 

[drebk]

Hrm... Live Debate... what did that prove/accomplish? good greif.
1:  that we have a few white men that can argue with each other, tossing away curtesiies and politeness
2: that each and every one of these white men can talk for hrs and NOT SAY ANYTHING =P
3: that the moderators aren't very good at moderating? Mmm, lets all talk at the same time, productive!

unfortunately... i bet there's a good number of people out there that, as they were flippin thru the channels, stumbled about this 'debate' watched for a bout 15mins, decided they were now making an 'educated vote' based on the garbage that went on, and will now null the votes of those that actually tried to research into their votes...which is like someone has said on a diff. thread. a bunch of promises... i mean... that's why its a campaign right, i'm sorry but lieing is part of politics, and nomatter who's in government, someone else will be pointing out their 'scandals' and downfalls its just the way it goes

 

[Lance Wiebe]

Layton scares me.

Always has to be in the limelight.  Always has to be talking.  And he has to be louder.....

What an arrogant a$$.  He would make a real good dictator, I bet.  Even better than the Cretin.

The one with the most self-control was Harper.

The one with nothing to lose, of course, was Duceppe.

Martin struck me as being a bit scared, and of having lost some of his self-confidence.

But, to me, there were no real winners.....but Layton is a loser.

 

[CDN Blackhawk]

Harper and the Conservatives are the ones i am voteing for,

 

[Andyboy]

I watched some of the french debate and the entire english debate and personally I ranked them in this order. Duceppe, Harper, Martin, Layton.

Duceppe surprised me in that he's an excellent debater and burned Martin several times. It looked to me like He and Harper would at least be able to discuss things rationally and come up with answers. The other two did nothing but shout and change the subject whenever confronted. Martin is starting to unravel, he's looking tired and desperate and he knows it and I think people are starting to see it. Layton is a socialist who thinks he can spend your money better than you can and it's the Government's duty to tell Canadians how and what to think.

In general I thought the "debate" was interesting but there didn't seem to be any real knockouts until Duceppe's closing remarks. He burned Martin in a bad way and I seriously lost all respect for Martin and gained a new respect for Duceppe. If you didn't watch the debate you won't hear anything about it. I watched the CBC post debate wrap up and it was the most shockingly pro-Liberal propaganda I've ever had the misfortune to see. It was as though they watched a different debate. The CBC trotted out various "experts" who apologised for Martin, made his points for him, explained what he meant etc. It was pretty blatant, I wish I had taped it. I guess maybe someone owed him a favor or something. Anyway, my vote is sealed, after reading their platform, hearing him speak and seeing him in action at the debate  I'll be voting Conservative.

 

[Lance Wiebe]

I'm thinking that anybody that wants to see our military survive had better vote conservative.

That should include all of our service people, all of our vets, all of their families, all of our friends.......

I sure hope that in twelve days we'll all be saying "Prime Minister Harper".

And saying "goodbye" to the MGS idea...

 

[Brad Sallows]

The amusing part was the post-debate damage repair by pundits and media flacks.

 

[drebk]

Gotta love the media,

lots of important topics and platform ideals were discussed and reiterated during the debate... and what does the media focus on as soon as its over? controversial statements about controversial issues, they seem to think Canadians don't care about the real important issues, and only want the dirty controversy scandals.

Another thing i noticed, which i'm sure a lot of you have, is that the ads from all parties are pretty much hate-ads on other parties, telling us why we shouldn't vote for 'x'
but not really saying what they'll do differently.

but...w/o the media i wouldn't have been able to watch any  of the debate, so i guess you take the good with the shameful

 

[Andyboy]

The amusing part was the post-debate damage repair by pundits and media flacks.

Amusing or a sickening display of typical biased media reporting? Note they didn't even mention Duceppe's name or the fact he ruined Martin with his closing remarks?

Long live the good old CBC!

 

[Enzo]

I wasn't impressed with any of them.

Duceppe's a man on a crusade and IMHO shouldn't even be there. I understand the "why" but how a regional candidate is allowed to participate in a national election and yet other parties who are running candidates in a majority of national ridings are not; eludes me. Regardless if you're in favour of the Green party or not, they should be allowed to have a chance to participate. I'd have been interested to see if there would have been an upset there?

As for the others, Layton's an idealist. I'm not against that, but does he have that gleam in his eye? That this is a destiny? The party doesn't bother me, I'm fine with an increase in taxes if the social programs are to be managed properly, but would that happen? Probably not, mismanagement accompanies "every" major party.

So that leaves Martin and Harper. I've been pissed off with the Liberals, as has everyone. The hand in the cookie jar is an insult and their arrogance about the lack of policing and penalties pisses me off even more. Add to that my special interest: I've been annoyed with the state of affairs in the CF since the cancelling of the Sea King replacement program in '93-'94. It's been a rough ride ever since. From Somalia to Kosovo to Afghanistan; it could be better. But will it ever truly be satisfactory? I accept a certain view upon the system, more cash is great, but there is abuse of our system now; I favour a policing of the system, before we chuck more cash at it.

EG: The subs, they're crap. Our MCDV's - Should be 20' longer. They have the horsepower, yet top out around 15 kts. Frigates were designed on a CAD, that's great. Now go talk to an engineer about maintenance on the systems; human hands were not figured in, get the torch out. Anyone want to fly a Griffon into a hot LZ? How about taking a Sea King up over 2000'? The Iltis? Our CC-130's? You get the idea, the kits arguable, depending upon who you ask. Love it or not, its what's in use, so deal.

The numbers of the platform don't add up. I don't agree that tax cuts + health care/military spending can be balanced out by curtailing government employment; Liberals have done this in BC, and we're for sale. So the concept of being promised so much more by the PC without a current defence policy in place (one that actually has merit and intent) makes me uneasy. And I'm in no way in favour of NBMD (the Soviets are currently working on hypersonic missile technology to defeat it, resurrection of another arms race; does the world really need it?) nor ultimately do I want a neo-con PM sucking up to a neo-con President.

This is the toughest election to call in years. The stakes are high and the candidates are not by any means stellar. I don't believe any of them, for history doesn't support them.

What to do? I had hoped that the debates would have produced someone who would rise above. I was disappointed.

I'm in a unique situation though. We have some Green candidates who may have a shot at gaining at least one seat in the west. I'm curious to see what that could eventually do to the status quo. There's no way that they'll take the election; but honestly, could they do any worse? So I'd like to see at least one of them get in, the system can afford it. Question is, can it afford not to?

As for the prime party? As with so many other issues, it comes down to the interaction with the Yanks. Layton would pull away. Harper will cozy up. Martin will favour the middle ground. How close do you want the nations to be? That seems to be the prime issue, all else is promises. And with that and $0.93...

 

[Cdn Blackshirt]

Enzo,

Do me a favour and pop open the linked document and flip to page 14, then let me know what you think....

http://www.conservative.ca/platform/e.pdf

Cheers,



Matthew.  

 

[Enzo]

Ok, I read p.14. I'm still not on board. $35-70k wil receive a reprieve whilst all else will only increase at 1% above inflation? How does that account for the 30+ billion that's going into the proposed federal budget? Through "proper" management of the federal employees? Granted, I'll have to read the remainder of the .pdf on this, but its almost 2am, so it'll have to wait.

I'll take a better look at this tomorrow.

Cheers...

PS

As a thought, I'm not in favour of any of these jokers, I don't see anything particularily worthy in any, so it's a matter of the lesser of the evils. Just my opinion :

 

[karpovage]

I stumbled across the English debate last night on C-Span and as an outside observer to this and not knowing the intracacies of Canadian governence here's what I took away.

Harper was impressive. Cool, under control, confident. had backbone. I liked his views. And especially on revitalizing the CF.
Duceppe was impressive as well. Didn't get a clear understanding of his stance.
Layton seemed slick. He did smile too much. Kind of weird. Unnatural. Saw through him.
Martin was on the defensive, dodged questions. Seemed unsure. And I couldn't stand the fact that he didn't look at the other leaders. It seemd very arrogant and disrespectful. Cleary it seemed he was a source of problems.

These were impressions from never seeing or hearing from these individuals and based on the debate alone.

It was interesting to hear their perspectives on U.S./Canada relations too.

My 2 American cents.

 

[Enzo]

K - Interesting take on the English debates.

Duceppe didn't really give a fig about the English debate, he represents the Bloq Quebecois - a regional party in Quebec that doesn't have any candidates running outside of Quebec, so the French language debates were more important to him - and he isn't considered a factor outside of Quebec. Nothing to lose, so he was in a unique position.

Martin is the current Prime Minister with an administration that has recently had to (unsuccessfully) account for a series of scandals. He was the target of the night and had to defend from the other 3 for the majority. These are televised debates, their focus is to the camera's, showing themselves to the people, etc...

Layton does have that "smile"  which drives one to distraction. His party has much to gain and he is aiming to be the centralizing influence in the House of Commons if a minority government emerges. That seems to be their goal.

Harper was following a safe script (as they all were for the most part) allowing for the control.

There was hope that some confrontation would happen between the debaters. Some event that would galvanize someone to rise above, or fall behind. It didn't happen, their handlers have done their jobs well eh. The Layton observation makes me wonder about something. In Canada, we don't vote for the party leader. We vote for the candidate for the party we choose in the riding where we live. For example, I live in Victoria, BC, but the riding I live in is Victoria-Hillside, so when I go to my polling station, I choose from amongst the candidates on the ballot for the position of Member of Parliament in my riding. Currently, their are 12 parties fielding candidates in ridings across the country. The "Big Four" were included in the debates as they have the majority of the seats. Liberals/Conservatives/Bloq/NDP. There are also the smaller parties which you may be unfamiliar with: "The Canadian Action Party", "Christian Heritage Party", "Communist Party of Canada", "Green Party of Canada",  "Libertarian Party of Canada", "Marijuana Party", "Marxist-Leninist Party of Canada", and the "Progressive Canadian Party." Of these, the Green Party has the most to gain as there is a chance that they may acquire a couple of seats in the west. The remainder are basically off the map. "The Natural Law Party of Canada" has been deregulated since the last election and these parties have lost their eligibility to become registered: "The National Alternative Party of Canada", "The Ontario Party of Canada," and the "Absolutely Absurd Party."

As you can see, more players on the field than were represented during the debates. For the most part, these parties will absorb a neglible amount of votes, although the NDP feel that the Green Party may take votes away from them in particular, as well as acquire some surprise numbers from people who are disillusioned with the Liberals and do not want to support the Conservatives or the NDP. it's an interesting system eh?

The party that wins the most seats forms the next government and the leader of the party becomes the next Prime Minister. So whether you like Layton, or Harper or Davis (Green), Duceppe, or Martin, you're most likely not voting for any of them unless they are personally running in the riding that you live in.

Hope that helps ya out a bit.

 

[ags281]

The party that wins the most seats forms the next government and the leader of the party becomes the next Prime Minister. So whether you like Layton, or Harper or Davis (Green), Duceppe, or Martin, you're most likely not voting for any of them unless they are personally running in the riding that you live in.

Which is why we need a mixed proportional electoral system in Canada. It separates your vote for your local representative and what party you want to be in power. Hence, if you think the NDP candidate will represent your riding best, but like the conservative platform, you can show that with your vote. You can actually elect that candidate for your riding while supporting a different party.

 

[Infanteer]

Which is why we need a mixed proportional electoral system in Canada. It separates your vote for your local representative and what party you want to be in power. Hence, if you think the NDP candidate will represent your riding best, but like the conservative platform, you can show that with your vote. You can actually elect that candidate for your riding while supporting a different party.

I think proportional representation is too commonly seen as the "band-aid" for Westphalian Parliamentary woes.   Proponents desire to eliminate the need for a simple plurality in a system with 3-5 strong parties, where the Liberal party can take 60% of the seats with 40% of the national vote.   However, I think the disadvantages of a proportionally elected Commons would far outweigh the first-past-the-post system we have in place now.

I would discount completely a strict proportional representative system.   Not only does it remove my access to government through a regionally elected representative, who attends Parliament in my interests, but it further subjugates Canadian government to the politics of parties and their leaders (I would like to see the Commons move the other way) as well as removing the right of an independent to run for Parliament, as he must join a party to gain a reasonable chunk of the national vote.

The mixed proportional system doesn't fare much better.   A system utilized by Germany, it attempts to migitate the extremes of the first-past-the-post ballot by "topping up" the legislative body with seats assigned to a national list.   Aside from the fact that it would create a "two-tiered" system of MPs, this also has the inherent difficulties of proportional systems by causing governments to be too unstable (fractionalized by too many insignificant, bickering parties) or too stable (one coalition bloc that cannot be assailed by any opposition group).

Other proportional systems exist, but they are even more complicated and thus easily dismissed due to their inherent impracticality.

It is not proportional representation that Canada needs, but more checks and balances on what is the most centralized executive system of all the worlds industrialized democracies.   Voting procedures can be amended through preferential ballots or secondary votes to ensure a majority is reached.   As well, the Upper House of Parliament, the Senate, must be brought into the democratic dialogue.   America got rid of its appointed senators years ago, so why do we still insist on maintaining ours.   Any house that is to represent the regions of Canada equally is automatically impaired when the regions are given preferential treatment.   California and Rhode Island both elect 2 senators, so why does British Columbia get 6 while Quebec gets 24?   Party centralism should be curbed as much as possible by allowing free votes and debate on the floor of Parliament, to do this, we should remove the non-confidence vote so the debate can be as open and unclouded as possible.   Set election dates would also help to avoid the politics surrounding the call for elections.