Columnists
The tennis versus the debate
It’s all Justin Trudeau’s fault. If he hadn’t precipitated the federal election, there wouldn’t have been a leaders’ debate last Thursday night. And that would have avoided a viewing conflict between the debate and the remarkable win of Layleh Fernandez to advance to the U.S. Open women’s singles final.
Msl. Fernandez took the scalps of three of the top ranked players in the world in swift succession. And she did it with grit and grace. With grit, she pulled off come from behind wins that showed she had deep reservoirs of fortitude and self-belief. With grace, she thanked her family and the spectators for her success; and after losing the final, extended her condolences to New Yorkers who were marking the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 tragedy. She also added a dash of wit and diplomacy, putting in a plug for Canadian maple syrup as the secret to her success. All in all, she showed remarkable poise for someone who has just turned 19.
So there I was, flicking back and forth between the tennis and the debate, saying to myself that I had to watch the debate in case I missed an ‘aha’ moment—where Jagmeet Singh pulled off his beard to show it was just a stage prop; where Erin O’Toole came wearing moccasins rather than sneakers, as a gesture of reconciliation; where Annamie Paul acknowledged she was going to lose her bid for election, and with it the leadership of the Greens; where Yves-Francois Blanchet admitted he liked to go camping in the Rockies; and where Justin Trudeau acknowledged that while he said he had Canadians’ backs, he never said he had their fronts. However, my channel flicking became so intense that I was on the verge of placing Mr. Trudeau in a baseline rally and expecting Ms. Fernandez to outline her policy on affordable housing. So I had to choose one or the other.
I chose the tennis. And I am surely glad I did. The debate was just awful—a frenetic mishmash of formats with insults flying back and forth. Nobody had the opportunity to make an uninterrupted presentation of his or her party’s platform. Nobody offered measured analysis of an opponent’s position. The biggest flap of the night involved not one of the leaders but the moderator, one of whose questions to Mr. Blanchet implied that Quebec’s language and culture statutes might be characterized as racist. That didn’t sit very well.
So there were at least three things wrong with the debate. One, it needn’t have happened in the first place. Two, the format was too complicated and restrictive. And three, the leaders didn’t treat each other respectfully.
As to the first point, Mr. Trudeau called the election on his own initiative, not when he had lost a confidence vote and not when the other parties had indicated they would no longer support him. So his major consideration had to have been that the timing was right—for the Liberal party. He deserves the criticism he has received for calling the election in the midst of the COVID-19 resurgence and the Afghanistan crisis.
It is interesting to note that our new governor general did not, so far as we know, challenge Mr. Trudeau to show her that parliament wasn’t working. She could have told him to go back and make it work; or she could have invited Mr. O’Toole to form a government. Instead, we got an election by Liberal party request, even though we have a statute that commits us to fixed term elections. Maybe she was advised that there was sufficient precedent to require her to comply with Mr. Trudeau’s request, and that it was best to let Mr. Trudeau bear the political consequences of making it.
As to the second point, having five people on stage to debate one another and answer ‘gotcha’ style questions from eager to perform journalists as well as members of the public and the moderator was almost inevitably going to cause the debate to collapse of its own weight. The public are entitled to a decent presentation and comparison of the parties’ platforms. Maybe it’s time to give the debate regulation authorities a freer hand in establishing standards.
Hundreds of years of British parliamentary tradition notwithstanding, there is something odd about a system by which party leaders ask us for our vote, but we can’t give it to them. Instead, we have to vote for a local candidate as their proxy. The only option open to us is to join the leader’s party and hope the leadership is put to a members’ vote.
As to the third point, it is within the power of our current leaders, under pressure from all of us, to dial up the civility meter. If they need a role model, I suggest they could take some lessons from Leylah Fernandez.
Comments (0)