Current location:	3340 grant road, regina, canada
Current mood:	:d hungry
Current music:	Jeff Cliff - Water Flows Downhill
Entry tags:	canadian election 2008, canadian elections, canadian politics, leaders debate, leaders debate 2008

The Leaders Debate
I have taken some notes as the Leaders Debate played, and have posted them on my PirateBay blog.

Edit: Oh, and thanks saskboy: yes, indeed I do work for the NDP. No I don't intend to mislead anyone by not including this; I just keep forgetting that this is indeed true; I haven't internalized my doing so at all. But he's right in that I should be mentioning it. I work for the NDP team but I am not an NDP member(crazy huh?), and since I am not a member my views aren't even guaranteed to be remotely close to the NDP. But realistically this changes very little of what is in here, except for the fact that Janice Bernier was there while we watched it.



Before I get to the highlights, there are two main things I should point out. Depending your riding, your choice will be different. My choice in wascana is up for grabs a little; I haven't heard back from Dane, so either he's not paying attention to me(plausible)/is too busy, or maybe he really doesn't have a case, and he's volunteering/working for goodale for personal reasons and we shouldn't vote for goodale(even if voteforenvironment suggests so). Saskboy on the other hand, and I, still seem to disagree on which party to vote for, and yet we seem to agree on everything else. So technically it is logically feasible, despite working and now possibly volunteering for the NDP that in Wascana, that the greens may also be the best choice for me personally. But although logically possible --- I wouldn't as of yet say that it's true -- I have instead put my stake in the ground for the NDP, Stephen Moore locally, Jack Layton federally. And I stand by that, and recommend for all of you who don't know who to vote for, or who just trust my opinion on this(hah!) to do the same, unless you find information to the contrary at bare minimum. As I suggested in my letter to Jack Layton this debate was his spotlight to lose, and he really didn't lose it---Although he definitely had (to) appeal to interests that were not mine...he would make a fine Prime Minister, and for everything else, probably does want to fight for your family against harper and his allies.

No one wins a debate like this, so if Dion does well in one thing, May does good in another, it doesn't matter. Hell, I expected harper to do something well...but he didn't even manage to convincingly look like a victim (4-on-1) to me--he was a total flop as far as I can tell, unless you are lost in fantasy land or something you should recognize that.

Highlights

• in the last 10 seconds, after saying that farmers have chosen their way out of the CWB, and how things would be better if farmers could buy/sell on their own without going through the CWB, harper suddenly turned an about face and said that (not sure if it's a direct quote but pretty close:) "a strong canadian wheat board is what we want"


• while watching the debates, one of the questions asked of the debates was 'What would be the first thing you did if you got into office'. Janice Bernier, who was in the room snickered and said "Fixed Election Dates". She has such the quick wit.


• Harper "we can't afford that" (income splitting for married couples, to not penalize married couples for getting married). Shows how much harper cares about the institution of marriage since he wants to set up a 5 billion dollar a year penalty on married couples in Canada.


• As far as the debate itself, Dion was actually by far the most civil and responsible debator, Harper would have gotten extremely low marks there(for being dishonest) although the 4-on-1 nature of the debate, although not nearly as bad as some conservatives would have you think(since he got more time anyway, since he was called on to defend himself against accusations constantly), should certainly cover for this much, at least. But Dion was respectful, collected, with a clear plan on the economy and issues which his party supports. Layton, unfortunately, interrupted harper and caused the moderator to intervene a few times. That being said, some people *want* this and consider these things as boldness and courage and as leadership qualities. Personally, on the level of debating, I think Dion was the best. As far as policy, historical record and my own interests; Dion is definitely not the answer. He is very, very far from the answer. And I think even Dion would admit this; I have nothing in my bank account for him to protect, I rent my house, which I'm more worried about falling apart (with me in it) than the bank taking it away due to mortgage nonpayment, and I don't own any stocks, bonds or money market funds. I don't even eat at the kitchen table, so Layton certainly doesn't seem to care about my interests too much. I definitely aren't served by the special interests of Duceppe and Harper...who does that leave? Elizabeth May.


• Layton: "We will Absolutely Not have an imbalanced budget"--this was a sticking point. He was really pissed off when he said this---I personally don't think he could fake this one, he could be lying/not willing to pull through on the other things he said; but this was core to his NDP identity--Tommy Douglas kept the budget balanced, despite expanding the health, safety and economic security of people under him. Layton sees himself as following in that path, and by god he will. It's these sorts of things that make me think he would be actually a decent PM, if by some miracle he was elected. For all his isolationist, makework, and anti-prairies bent, he would balance the budget, and keep food on the table, and quite possibly improve the state of affairs for the lowest income Canadians.


• A family making 20,000/yr is in poverty, according to Dion. I guess I wasn't poor last year, but I probably am again this year.


• May brings international context in more than a few times, but specifically on Ch11 of NAFTA; like Duceppe showing that debate on healthcare is sidestepping issues(in his case, that healthcare is in fact a provincial issue) that determine what happens in healthcare; the real issue is if the US can determine healthcare under current laws to be something that the government of Canada can be fined by its sustaining, something is horribly wrong. She also quotes OECD reports against harper, shows international consensus on other issues(green shift), and pointed out that we are even worse than the bush administration on obstructing UN proceedings since harper. Oh, and Duceppe asked harper for the cost-benefit analysis to be made public, so that they would nkow what "effective" is to a conservative. The conservatives declined(remember; Duceppe was an ally of Harper at the time, although I guess you could almost say the same of Dion)


• Dion thinks we should be having more fun.


• harper reallocates funding within the arts community to his own definition of "effectiveness", and then basically tries to make the claime "there is no ideological bias", layton points out that the programs getting cut are exactly the ones which push the ideological envelope, which will be most revolutionary in character, and it is those ones which need protecting most.


• In one of the most ballsiest statements I've ever seen, May calls out a citizen asking a question for purposefully misleading candidates; correctly states that violent crime is down, it is only the media which is getting better at making it seem like violent crime is up. This is a non-crisis. The other 4 parties mostly made party-line statements, with some honesty from Layton. The
  
• indeed, Layton wants guns to only be in the hands of law enforcement, except for hunters/farmers/etc. But even then, nothing that you could start a revolution with, certainly.


• Notice that every time violent crime or other crime is brought up, harper turns it into an argument(or tries) about property crime. And also remember that harper considers copyright to be property. We can only deduce from this that when harper talks about mandatory minimum sentences, and tougher lives for criminals, that he really means teenage girls who want to listen to brittainy spears, and computer geeks who want to play their iTunes AACs on their xbox through their linux running television or whatever.


• Layton gives a sweet deal to copyright holders who may be inclined against the NDP for taking a pro-user stance on copyright; the first 20,000$ made on copyright royalties is tax free.


• Harper tries to claim that the afghanistan mission is a UN mission. May corrects him, correctly stating that this is NOT a UN mission, and that it just has UN approval. Layton claims that the afghan mission distracts from reducing poverty worldwide(may points out that CIDAs budget is being sucked by the afghan mission)


• something I'll have to check out...is it actually true? Do the conservatives not even have a platform up this year for us to hold them accountable to??? " "the sweater is nice, but there’s no promises for you to even break"-Layton on Harper's lack of telling us what he is even standing for. The party leaders all seemed to agree on this...but still. Harper even referred to the platform in one of his arguments...which would be hilarious if he hasn't actually got a platform yet.
  
• The very last clip shows (I'm pretty sure) jack layton hugging elizabeth may. Awwww.

edit -- I was trying to think of ways that Harper has done well in the debate...and I did come up with one possibility; he seemed sincere in his love of the democratic institutions which he happens to have been chosen with. But I cannot take this seriously, and the reason can be summed up in two words: Fixed Elections. It is hard to trust such a blatant liar, one who has used their post with such contradiction between what they say is law and what they live up to. Elizabeth May put it best "Your word is law is no way for a Prime Minister to behave".