Some comments on the Globe and Mail 'Leaders' debate

If you live in Canada you may or may not know that last night was the second leader's debate for the 2015 election took place last night. The highlight of the night, unfortunately, was taking place elsewhere on the internet where Elizabeth May, the firecracker that she is, live tweeted her own video responses. The Green leader, just like in 2011, was not invited to participate in the leader debate, which unfortunately reflects their decreased momentum after their 2008 6.8% share of the national vote. By 2011 they received only 4%, which I would gesture to guess has a great deal to do with their young adult following who decided to just not vote in the 2011 re-election. May tweeted some pretty cute quips and delivered clear concise responses to the moderators questions, and given her physical absence, wasn't caught in a shouting match like the other party leaders. Some clever individual started the hashtag #glibandmale to highlight the obvious oversight of only inviting the white male leaders to the party. Damn I love the internet. After the obvious success of May in the last debate, it seems totally shirt-sighted that she wasn't invited to this one. The Globe and Mail really showed their cards last night...

from cbc.ca

Here is my take-away from the televised debate and the entire campaign so far in 6 points:

1. What are old stock Canadians? Are they...indigenous peoples, Mr Harper? No? Just white guys, eh?
2. Harper thinks that we can balance out budgets without raising taxes and without running a deficit. Obviously he believes in magic (or, more accurately, he believes its totally cool to cut social spending in favour of balanced budgets during a campaign). Meanwhile, Trudeau thinks we should run big deficits and raise taxes for the wealthy 1% in order to "invest in the future". Mulcair is pretty unclear on how much a balanced budget would cost but he does think it is irresponsible to leave a butt ton of debt to future generations - his party's costing report is more clear on their approach, but damn it would have been nice if he's actually spouted out some of those figures.
3. The environment is completely absent from the mind of our current loathsome leader - and he claims that they have reduced emissions during the last year...did you catch that? Harper is taking credit for a symptom of economic downturn. Emissions didn't go down because of anything the conservative government did directly. They just effed up so bad that we're in a recession again and we can't afford to do the crap that produced all those emissions. What clever politics they play. Meanwhile, Trudeau seemed to not have a ton to say about the environment, except that part of the deficit the Liberal's would run would go to investing in clean water and clean energy. Good for them! They are on a better moral footing, at least, than the conservative on this front. Mulcair and the NDP have a plan to put a cap and trade system in place to reduce emissions, which has actually worked pretty well in Ontario where Wynne and her Liberals did the same earlier this year, following Quebec's lead. Critics argued that this would lead to higher consumer pricing and a bunch of other negative side effects. Can I also just say that cap and trade is not a tax? Are the other party leaders morons or something, or do they just think Canadians are? 
4. It is shocking (if entirely expected) that women’s issues were mentioned only once during this debate, by Mulcair when he noted the NDP’s plan for affordable child care. Maybe is May had been present this wouldn't have been the case, but to be honest, perhaps gender just doesn't matter to our politicians anymore, even though women still make significantly less money than men in this country, and represent a sizeable chunk of the unemployed, underemployed, and impoverished population. 
5. It is also nut surprising that during the last month of campaigning the death of the so-called “bathroom bill” seems to not have even crossed the minds of any of the party leader’s, least of all the conservatives, who saw to it that the bill would fail (thanks to a conservative majority senate). The bill would have made some important amendments to our charter to protect gender minorities in Canada but was first gutted by the conservative senate -  in an example of classic fear-mongering and hateful anti-queer propaganda they added an amendment that stated for the safety of women and children transgendered and transsexual people wouldn't be allowed to use the appropriate public restroom - and then let to die when Harper called for his far-too-long campaign. Coincidence?
6. I am shocked at the obvious incoherence in all of the leaders’ economic policy proposals…I am so tired of politicians thinking that their constituents aren’t smart enough to understand intelligent, thoughtful debate grounded in real facts and figures. Perfectly planned sound-bites and catch phrases (let me correct the facts anyone? Or that is simply not true Mr. Harper? Or let’s not put more debt on the shoulders of future generations?) It’s insulting and exhausting. Canadians are not stupid but politicians seem to feel the need to pander to a population of uninformed voters that simply …don’t exist. Voters in general are not uninformed…non-voters are. And let’s be honest, if politicians stopped treating non-voters like they are uninformed idiots, maybe they would become more informed and actually vote. But we can’t seem to get clear answers out of our party leaders that sum up their actual plans for the future of Canada. How are the 50% of Canadians who don’t vote meant to make a remotely informed decision about who to vote for (and why it matters who wins or loses) if our party leaders don’t actually tell it like it is?

That's all I have to say about that, for now. 

Happy Friday!

-J