XPost: can.politics, bc.politics   
      
   National Post - February 26, 2015   
      
      
   Bring on the debates - the more, the better   
      
      
   It is long past time the debates were taken away from the networks and the   
   parties, and entrusted to an independent body - Elections Canada springs...   
      
   Then it's settled.  There will be five televised leaders' debates in the coming   
   election campaign.  Or there will be two.  Unless there are three.  The Green   
   Party will be included.  Or it won't.  As for the Bloc Quebecois, as a   
   spokesman told the Huffington Post, "the Bloc Québécois must participate in   
   the   
   debate.  For us, that is not debatable."   
      
   One thing for certain: it will all be decided by "the consortium."  How many   
   debates does Justin Trudeau think there should be?   
      
   According to the Toronto Star, the Liberal leader "is open to whatever   
   proposals are pitched by the consortium."  Who should be in?  "I look forward   
   to having discussions about that with the consortium."   
      
   What about Tom Mulcair?  What does the leader of the Offical Opposition think   
   about all this?  "That is something that is completely left up to the   
   consortium, and I will follow whatever they decide."   
      
   Excuse us for asking, but is this any way to run a democracy?   
      
   Televised election debates have been a central part of Canadian election   
   campaigns for the better part of 50 years.  Think of Brian Mulroney lecturing   
   John Turner ("you had an option, sir, you could have said No") in 1984, or Jack   
   Layton's smackdown of Michael Ignatieff ("most Canadians, if they don't show up   
   for work, they don't get a promotion") in 2011.   
      
   Yet we persist in treating them as if they had just been invented, throwing   
   them together at the last minute and leaving their organization to ad hoc   
   negotiations amongst the three main parties and that shadowy "consortium" - the   
   television networks who stage these events.  The results have for the most part   
   been vastly disappointing: if the quips we mentioned stand out, it is only   
   because the rest of what was said has been so forgettable.  Or at least, we are   
   doing our best to try.   
      
   Typically the debates in any campaign are restricted to one in each language.   
   Knowing they have just one chance to make an impression, the leaders tend to be   
   both over-scripted and over-caffeinated - not least because of the media's   
   habit of scoring the whole thing like a prize fight.  Segregating the events by   
   language, moreover, frees the leaders of the obligation to make their case to   
   the whole country at the same time.  The French debate, in particular, is   
   routinely the occasion for all of the leaders to pander to Quebec.   
      
   So the debates, so full of potential to illuminate the voting public on the   
   character of the party leaders and the content of their programs, have instead   
   mostly had the opposite effect.  It is absurd to be deciding democratic   
   elections on the basis of who "won" or "lost" an all-party shouting match.   
      
   That's never going to change so long as we leave the terms of the debates to   
   such monumentally vested interests to decide.   
      
   It's intriguing to hear, for example, that the Conservatives are pushing to   
   have as many as five debates this time out. But this is dictated strictly by   
   their interest, as they see it, in matching the battle-hardened Prime Minister   
   against the rookie Liberal leader - which may also explain Mr. Trudeau's   
   reluctance to endorse the idea.  Were the situations reversed, so would be   
   their respective positions.  Quite why either leader should have any say in   
   whether Green Party leader Elizabeth May should be allowed to join them escapes   
   us altogether.   
      
      
        It is long past time the debates were taken away from the networks and the   
   parties, and entrusted to an independent body   
      
   As for us, we'd favour an election campaign with at least five debates: one a   
   week for preference, in both official languages (alternating, that is, between   
   English and French, perhaps every half hour).  More debates would offer more   
   opportunity to scrutinize the leaders; allow the leaders to go into greater   
   depth on each subject; even provide the chance to experiment with different   
   formats.  Best of all, it would calm everyone down.  A bad performance one   
   debate could be recouped the next, while the media, deprived of the longed-for   
   "knockout blows," might be forced to delve into the substance of what was said.   
      
   We'd also favour Ms May's participation, as we would any party leader with a)   
   seats in the House and b) candidates in every riding.  Others, of course, might   
   favour a different rule.  The point is, it should be a rule, set well in   
   advance, not the hasty result of a self-interested cabal.   
      
   It is long past time the debates were taken away from the networks and the   
   parties, and entrusted to an independent body - Elections Canada springs to   
   mind - their broad parameters set out in law, much as the rules governing party   
   fund-raising, campaign advertising and the like are.   
      
   Let's have a campaign organized around the debates, by all means.  But make   
   this the last one in which the debates are organized around the campaigns.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)