There were no knockdowns, no heavy punches and no rubbery legs. In the end, it was a fight fan’s worse nightmare: a draw.
Journalist Paul Wells asked workmanlike, unremarkable questions, sparking for the most part predictable debates among the leaders, featuring familiar mantras and little new information. Wells is no Steve Pakin, but for a non-broadcaster, he was more than adequate to the task.
From the parties’ point of view, though, everyone was successful — because no one dominated. Nobody landed a telling blow. Nobody took one, either. So what we got was not so much a debate as an Irish argument: each leader took out his watch and declared the time, and the one who did it with the best flourish looked a little better than the rest.
By that measure, Green Party Leader Elizabeth May looked a little better than anyone else last night — perhaps because people have forgotten just how intelligent she is. She was first to arrive with her daughter and grandson and was the only leader to speak to the press. She reminded people that they need to think about their vote, that Canadians are electing a Parliament, not a U.S.-style president.
May did particularly well on the economy section of the debate, stressing that Canada is now in a recession, making it the exact wrong time to practice the austerity preached by Stephen Harper. One of the unexpected dividends from May’s overall strong performance is that it makes the decision to exclude her from other debates looked patently foolish. The Munk dudes need to seriously think it over.
Justin Trudeau, who did some real sparring on the morning of the debate, also performed well last night. He was articulate, substantive and just feisty enough to get in Stephen Harper’s face on the economy. In one of his better jibes, he implored Harper to stop sending government cheques to millionaires. (An old line, but effective.) Trudeau scored points by reminding the often smug leader of the Conservatives that Canada is the only country in the G-7 in recession.
The man with the most on the line last night, NDP Leader Thomas Mulcair, put in a good enough performance to keep his mojo going into the next phase of the campaign.
As frontrunner, he had to know that most of the ambushes would be laid for him last night. With the exception of an exchange with Trudeau on the Clarity Act — where Mulcair was put on the defensive by the allegation that he has made it easier for Quebec to separate from Canada — he slipped most of the punches sent his way, including the charge that his minimum wage plan amounts to false advertising.
Mulcair was also deft in his critique of the Harper record on the economy, reminding Canadians that the country has lost 400,000 manufacturing jobs on Harper’s watch. Insisting that the Harper plan isn’t working and that the country’s debt is growing while wages are flatlining, Mulcair renewed his pledge to give tax breaks to small and medium-sized businesses, and to create one million childcare spaces. He also claimed that Harper owns the worse job record as PM since the last world war.
And that brings me to the man the others all want to beat. Harper didn’t do much last night. In fact, on his big issue — the economy — he tanked. After all, it’s pretty hard to make your rallying cry “stay on course” when that course has brought us to a recession, oil prices more deflated than Tom Brady’s footballs, and stagnant wages.
And if he tanked on the economy, Harper belly-flopped on the environment. He was the only leader whose love affair with big oil continued to totally blind him to the crisis in the environment. While his opponents talked about the environment and the economy going together into the 21st century, Harper seemed locked back in 20th-century thinking, which includes the notion that carbon taxes are always, everywhere a bad idea. In a nutshell, Harper just doesn’t give a hoot about carbon emissions.
If there is comfort in repetition, the Harper crowd must have been snoozing by the time he finished his familiar litany of soothers. He will keep Canadians safe, the others don’t take terrorism seriously enough; he will cut taxes, the others will turn us into Denmark; on a planet of uncertainty and threats, Canada is bastion of order and the envy of the world. The supporting evidence is apparently in the mail and signed by Jenni Byrne.
But here’s the thing. Harper’s people thought he won last night’s debate because they know a thing or two about boxing metaphors and politics. They know that if the contender is going to beat the Champ, he usually has to knock him out. If it comes down to scoring the fight on the judge’s cards, the decision usually goes the Champ’s way.
No one knocked Stephen Harper down last night. And that may explain why the Conservatives were missing from the apres-debate scrums. Thomas Mulcair, Justin Trudeau and Elizabeth May remained behind to take all questions that came their way. Not even Kory Teneycke showed up to represent the boys in blue. They didn’t have to. Their man barely worked up a sweat in coming across as tired but plausible to his beloved base.
If any of the people who got in the ring with Stephen Harper last night want to strip away his championship belt, the attacks will have to be a lot sharper than anything on offer in the first debate of Campaign 2015.
Original Article
Source: ipolitics.ca/
Author: Michael Harris
No comments:
Post a Comment