Firlapalooza

I watched the Canadian party leader’s debate last week.  This regular election campaign event always helps to shed light, not only on an extended discussion of the proposed policies of the various parties, but also on characterizing the dynamic between the five personalities involved.  It was important for them to share their actual party platforms at the debate, but the to-and-fro between them tends to be the attention-grabber (nigh-on theater, as discussed here).

Few people would become the leader of the party without ambitiously standing apart from the rest of its members, after all, but from an overall standpoint, I saw the four non-Conservative party leaders basing most of their various responses on how to turn it into an attack on the current Prime Minister, Stephen Harper (although he tended to be quick on his feet and effective in his rebuttals), which may have only helped Harper all the more.  Elizabeth May, leader of the Green Party, came off as the least Prime-Ministerial of the group, regularly interrupting the others (who each have significant and respectable political accomplishments to show for themselves) with an eventually tiresome and predictable litany of invective.  Gilles Duceppe of the Bloc Quebecois is typically persona non importanta in an English-language debate (though as I’ve shown, he could theoretically become our next Prime Minister), but is granted a seat at the debate since he is considered a power-player in the House.  Stephane Dion of the Liberal Party seemed to be the most sincere in his presentation.  However, it was Jack Layton of the NDP that was actually the most interesting to watch, as his feisty demeanour brought forth a number of zingers to the table:

To Stephane Dion, referring to the fact that the Conservative minority government could have been regularly toppled by the opposition Liberal Party, but never was: “I don’t know why you kept him in power so long if you disagree with him so much.”  See the YouTube clip of this exchange, starting at time 6:45, and going to time 7:00:

To Stephen Harper, referring to the absence of an officially-released Conservative election platform, while making a reference to his choice of attire in his party’s campaign commercials : “Where’s your platform? Under the sweater?”

To Stephane Dion, on the subject of how his party would handle budget deficits, made tricky for him based on former NDP Premier Bob Rae’s well-known unfortunate overspending of Ontario’s provincial budget in the early 1990’s, but made easier by Rae’s later switching of party affiliation: “…and the NDP has the best record in power – according to the Department of Finance – of balancing budgets when we’re in power, and that doesn’t include Tommy Douglas’ seventeen balanced budgets in a row. Of course, Mr. Rae is now with you, Mr. Dion.”

Similar to the first zing, but hitting Dion in his potential effectiveness as a future leader: “…if you can’t do your job as leader of the opposition, I don’t know what you’re doing running for Prime Minister.”

I don’t know how much effect these one-liners will have on the election three days from now, but they were mostly fairly cleverly used.  It’s unfortunate that rather than debating the issues and platforms, snappy put-downs and attacks get employed, but it is well known that they are a tool used to help garner media airplay and attention (for example, some memorable lines from U.S. debates are shared here, though we as Canadians do tend to stand apart from the U.S. debate style).  I wonder if any of Layton’s above lines will get into the canon, but this will likely depend on his performance on Canadian Election Day, October 14th.

Otherwise, enjoy your Thanksgiving weekend!  Just when I thought I’d be getting a break from turkeys.

This entry was posted on Saturday, October 11th, 2008, and is filed under Mediums at Large, Political Machines. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site. I reserve the right to delete inappropriate comments.