Debate Report Summary (reconstructed)

Just finished watching the second hour of the English-language party leaders' debate on CBC.

Overall impression of the leaders:

Harper: Tired and beleaguered

Dion: Sensitive and desperate

Layton: Aggressive and smug

May: Blunt and knowledgeable

Duceppe: Just there to disturb shit

Steve Paikin (moderator): Pretty good at keeping the candidates within their time limits and preventing the debate from devolving into a shouting match.

That said - who the hell thinks 45 seconds is an adequate length of time to respond to a question? Seriously.

Layton's quote for the night: "Where's your platform? Under your sweater?"

I'm really glad someone brought up the culture question - I know a lot of people who are involved with the arts, and not one of them can afford to do it for a living, much less attend these mythical fucking galas Harper claims are going on all over the place.

Dion's quote for the night (on culture): "First, it's fun. It's bringing us beauty, emotions, a beautiful novel, a beautiful movie. We need to have more of that, certainly." I mean, it wasn't a great quote in and of itself, but it came across as disarmingly honest. Making a case for art as a purely aesthetic value in it's own right without saying how much it contributes economically or how it helps define our national identity is something I can totally get behind. And saying that your party is in favour of more fun is just plain cool.

Wow - that dude from Toronto who asked what the leaders were going to do about crime was totally and obviously a Conservative plant. Way to go Jack for calling attention to the huge rate of incarceration among young Aboriginal Canadians and what the underlying causes are (lack of education, lack of opportunities, shitty facilities on most reservations, to name a few).

Ooh - the Afghanistan question. This is one of the few policy issues I'm seriously ambivalent about. On the one hand, if we pull out and the Taliban take over again, life is going to seriously suck for half the population. On the other hand, the Canadian military don't have the money or the gear to protect our soldiers from jury-rigged roadside bombs, much less anything more substantial. Booyah to May for arguing in favour of a broader UN mission with more emphasis on humanitarian aid. And another booyah for bringing up the fact that a huge chunk of our foreign aid budget (such as it is) is being poured into Afghanistan at the expense of Africa and other seriously impoverished areas of the world.

Sealab 2021 moment: "Oh, that tears it! How many more times am I gonna have to hear the phrase 'kitchen tables' today?!"

The "building a shed" guy sounds like a plant too, but damned if I can figure out for which party. Maybe he's just making the most of his 15-odd seconds of fame among the small subset of Canadian voters watching this debate instead of the no doubt riveting trainwreck of the U.S. vice-presidential debate.

I'm really glad May brought up electoral reform, although it could be argued that it's kind of self-serving, as (sadly) it's the only way the Greens are likely to get enough seats to be taken seriously. Regardless of motivation though - hells yeah, let's get proportional representation in Parliament. I'm sick of feeling like my vote doesn't count (see earlier discussion of dressing up orangutans and running them as Conservative candidates in Alberta).

Duceppe quote of the night: "I know I won't be prime minister, and three of you won't be prime minister neither. Some of you know it, but you won't say it."

Okay - I know I've got some heavy screaming pinko lefty bias going on here, but even so it looked like May was the clear winner. She'd done her research, and unlike certain other party leaders (Jack, I'm looking at you), she wasn't constantly getting into slanging matches with Harper. Harper just looked like he had better things to do than be there. Duceppe really didn't need to be there. Layton came across as a better politician than any leader the NDP has had since Broadbent, but I'm not sure that's a good thing. That, and he was kind of acting like a dick, especially when he went after Dion for things previous Liberal governments had done. I just feel more sorry for Stephane Dion than anything. He's inherited a real basket case of a party (thanks a lot, Jean), and it's probably going to be at least two more elections before the Liberals get their shit together.