Words, Mots, Words
The Diary of a First Time Canadian Voter: Part 2
Welcome to Part 2 of my mini-series on being a first time Canadian voter.
This article is not a comprehensive review of every debate question or response from September 8th & 9th, but rather an introspective snapshot of how my voting decision was affected by the debates as a new and undecided voter.
If you missed Part 1: “An Informed Decision” — it took us through my enrolling experience, observations on leadership candidates, perusing my local electorate, and, explained my free ‘Election / Candidate Voter Tool’
Part 3 — “Heavy is the Fed that Wears the Crown” continues the enthusiastic analysis and is all about election day, the festivities, and of course, the outcomes.
Part 2 — Words, Mots, Words
French Language Debate, Sept. 8th, 2021
The evening opened with a game of “everyone attack leaders named Justin” for calling an election. Trudeau’s candid response was that the election was necessary to form a government that represents all Canadians in a rapidly changing climate. It was clear the Prime Minister was going to have to play defence, primarily against NDP leader Jagmeet Singh who did not let up at all. In both debates.
Our first theme was the Pandemic & Healthcare, which continued the NDP & Conservative Trudeau-bashing as expected, this time on the speed of COVID-19 testing and the unknown cost of vaccines.
The second theme was Public Finance and Life Expenses, starting with labour shortages. Most parties agreed that using immigration and other similar mechanisms was best, with Trudeau successfully deflecting Blanchet’s calls that the Canada Recovery Benefit (CRB) and Canadian Emergency Response Benefit (CERB) both caused labour shortages.
O’Toole saw this as his first opportunity to take a swing at the progressives — using a somewhat tired old conservative trope that NDP/Liberal governments will cause spending to skyrocket when course-correcting the money handed out for COVID-19 relief.
When it came to Quebec childcare, one spicy highlight from the Bloc Quebecois leader was branding O’Toole as all words (“plan plan plan plan plan”) and doubling down on Trudeau’s daycare system being a Bloc idea.
O’Toole attempted to defend their National Plan, which signalled Trudeau’s slamming of the Conservatives leader for not understanding Quebec daycare, saying that throwing tax credits at everything isn’t going to work. By this point, the PM was slightly leading the debate for me.
Singh continued to try and hit Trudeau about calling the election which felt out of place, and Paul smartly interjected stating that if there were more women leaders to handle an issue that mostly affects women, this would have been dealt with already.
The third theme, Environment, started out on reducing Canada’s fossil fuel reliance. The net zero emission target d*ck-measuring contest was about to begin.
It was Trudeau who launched into the Liberal’s bigger emission cut targets, slapping O’Toole for lazily taking Harper-era Paris Agreement targets. Blanchet called them both cowards, saying they won’t even go as far as the American targets, kicking off a heated tirade about pipelines, indigenous sovereignty, and provincial jurisdiction.
I was starting to like Blancet’s tenacity standing out, specifically when it caused O’Toole to show vulnerability when confronted by the Bloc saying it’s impossible to reduce emissions while increasing oil use. The moderators and other party leaders also caught onto this tagline, pressing the Conservatives leader further who claimed putting money in people’s hands for doing the right thing through his Carbon Savings Account was the way to go.
The fourth theme was Indigenous People, Identity and Culture which kicked off with uncomfortable answers and zero concrete commitments to making First Nations, Inuit and Metis languages official Canadian languages.
Singh and O’Toole teamed up on Trudeau about breaking promises on clean drinking water, and Paul called for more diversity in politics to drive these issues. It wasn’t until Blanchet questioned Trudeau’s integrity as a Quebecer for the fireworks to come out.
The Liberal PM saw red, all but yelling at Blanchet, demanding that just because his party only cares about Quebec does not mean he has a monopoly on representing Quebec. I liked this show of passion from the Prime Minister.
The fifth, final, and somewhat scattered theme was Justice and Foreign Affairs. Fittingly, Afghanistan was at the forefront, with all sides hitting Trudeau yet again for calling an election while this was happening. Singh continued to be off-beat with his Trudeau-haranguing, while the PM was accused of being forgotten by US President Biden. O’Toole took this as an opportunity to highlight his party’s firm stance on how Canada is seen on the world stage.
In a strange turn, the theme ended with an open debate on gun-control, something I thought felt completely out of place. The night fizzled to a close.
What the media said:
- LaPresse (translation) focused on Trudeau freaking out at Blanchet about being a Quebecer, something that Macleans thinks will polarize Quebecers to vote Liberal
- The Globe & Mail focused on Trudeau’s attack on O’Toole about misunderstanding Quebec childcare
- Macleans believes O’Toole had a lot of holes in his costed platform
- The Toronto Star thinks Trudeau’s attacks didn’t stick, Jagmeet was constantly on the offensive
- The National Post (hilariously) challenged the purpose of having TV debates at all
My initial impression:
On the debate itself: when I tuned into YouTube on Wednesday night hoping for an entertaining and thought provoking evening of subtitled French debate, I did not expect real-time overdubs. Hats off to those folks, it can’t be easy to translate fighting politicians, however I would have almost preferred to hear the French and read the english. While I found the debates a little jarring and somewhat overdone, the French edition was passable for a new voter such as myself.
On the leader performances: prior to the first debate I was edging NDP based on policy, but Singh left a red mark in my book.
- Justin Trudeau was definitely defensive, at times rattled, but performed positively on night one, and for me was the standout.
- Jagmeet Singh was a little too obsessive about attacking the PM, often missing the mark of speaking about his platform in depth which took him down a peg for me as a potential leader
- Erin O’Toole was passive and thin in a lot of areas, but seemed happy enough to let Jagmeet bash Trudeau as much a she could
- Annamie Paul was really a non-factor, full of platitudes but no policy. The Greens leader stuck to a ‘calm mediator' persona, hammering home that all parties needed to work together and across party lines, a theme she will carry over both nights
- Yves-François Blanchet and his position of “Quebec first" and the “Quebec Nation” was a strange yet fascinating experience for me as a new Canadian, but it was hard to listen to him from there when it came to running the country as a whole
English Language Debate, Sept. 9th, 2021
Coming into the second debate, I had my expectations set on a stronger performance from Singh and O’Toole alongside Trudeau’s continued resilience, and questions about whether Paul or Blanchet could stay relevant as the three bigger parties duked it out. I was not expecting a messy and at times hard to watch affair that left even an eager politics fan-boy like myself struggling to stay engaged.
The first theme of the evening, Leadership & Accountability, proved to be a long and untidy start. The moderator, Shachi Kurl, made her first of many blunders of the night, asking an on-the-nose question to Blanchet about racism and discriminatory laws in Quebec that ruffled his feathers.
A more interesting assault from Kurl was on O’Toole who dug into just how much control the leader has over his caucus. His response was less than convincing. Singh came out strong, hitting his tag lines of the ultra rich paying their fair share when asked how to pay for his platform.
It was in this theme that we saw Trudeau truly squirm, when Paul ripped into him for not being a true feminist, outwardly naming four women who’ve been pushed out of the Liberal system.
He recovered when Canada’s handling of Afghanistan was raised, wading through the slashes of “why did you call an election?” with a riposte that shamed the other leaders for talking down the incredible work that people have done over the course of the war, attempting to tell voters that the election did not get in the way of the evacuation.
The theme ended with our first big Liberal vs Conservative stoush on China, with O’Toole claiming Canada’s voice has been absent on Huawei, Hong Kong, and human rights, lambasting the PM for not maintaining Canada’s status as a giant on human rights and the rule of law.
Trudeau responded by accusing O’Toole of wanting to “lob tomatoes across the pacific” like Harper did, and questioning why he can’t keep the Conservative party in line, let alone China. The other leaders were essentially spectators.
The second debate then moved onto Climate Change where the leaders each spoke to their platform promises. The Trudeau-O’Toole wars continued as the two bickered over voting against climate action and not meeting targets. Singh leapt on this opportunity to offer the NDP as a third solution rather than vote for the ‘least-worse’ which was his strongest showing so far.
When it came to open debate time, despite O’Toole defending being cautious about limiting oil too quickly due to bad actor countries, it was a visibly irritated Prime Minister who aimed his ire at the NDP leader who claimed the Libs had missed their climate targets, blasting Singh for his climate action plan being given an ‘F’ by climate experts.
Thankfully the third theme of Reconciliation cooled things down a touch, with all leaders admitting Canada had failed and that we needed to better to walk this path. For a split-second it seemed like constructive debate could have flourished, until moderator Kurl completely misread the room yet again and hurled another question at Blanchet about systematic racism in Quebec.
While he acknowledged there are problems, the Bloc leader refused to engage in an answer within the aggressive setting. To add salt to the wound, Yves-François was further insulted by the Greens leader who offered to educate him on the matter.
In a standout moment of the night (and perhaps the one that swayed me the most) within a response to the lack of clean drinking water in indigenous communities, Justin Trudeau said something that both surprised and deeply resounded with me:
“One of the enemies of progressive politics, Melissa, is cynicism, is discounting the hard work that millions of people have been involved in over the past years, and yes, there’s always more to do, progressives always know there’s more to do…”
The night moved on to the fourth theme of Affordability, tackling old age care, retirement, affordable housing and childcare. One of Trudeau’s biggest pain points was exposed by O’Toole as he threw a few well-placed jabs at the PM about spending and the fact that the housing crisis has only gotten worse under the Liberal government.
O’Toole was then challenged on why he insisted on giving some families a tax credit rather than commit to $10 a day childcare. Mr. O’Toole claimed dollars in hands gave people more flexibility. Trudeau was then hit with why his most recent budget had no money for national pharmacare to which he claimed they’d started this process with PEI but it was shelved due to the pandemic.
By the time we hit the fifth theme of Covid Recovery, I was starting to lose steam. Singh once again claimed he’d tax the rich to pay for his big-ideas platform, O’Toole danced around his National Plan’s mention of private/public healthcare “synergies”, and Paul dodged attacks on why she won’t consider mandatory vaccination.
There was actually one moment of tension that stood out to me outside of the political leaders. Evan Solomon from CTV News seemed to have stolen Kurl’s line for starting the final open debate. The camera awkwardly panned to Kurl for 2 seconds. Words can’t describe her expression, so here it is:
YIKES.
The night closed on an open question from Solomon on what programs the leaders would implement that would lead to faster economic recovery. O’Toole wanted to prop up food, services and tourism, Trudeau believed it would be affordable childcare, and Singh got one final lash in, telling viewers they can trust the NDP to not cut their programs like the Liberal or Conservative parties would.
What the media said:
- Macleans believe it did not go well for Trudeau — it’s likely O’Toole caught a big break, the Libs still can’t explain why we’re in a debate, and that Singh did a good job against Trudeau but isn’t PM material
- Le Devoir and La Presse say that Quebec are mortified by the treatment of Blanchet
- The Toronto Star thinks Trudeau must be second guessing his decision to call the election, as do The Globe & Mail
- The Montreal Gazette thinks [Quebec Premier] Legault needs to cover for O’Toole’s weak debate performance
My Final Impression (of both debates):
On the debate themselves: If the French debate was a nice salad with a glass of red wine, the English debate was a kid in an EB Games store after having too much sugar. The whole thing turned out to be an Americanised over-produced journalist-focused circle jerk.
I hate to say it, but I walked away feeling more irritated by the whole election than before, which in turn makes me even more irritated because I love elections and this seems to have tainted it somehow.
I found the English moderator, Shachi Kurl, almost unwatchable. She was increasingly combative, made far too many mistakes, and was quite frankly a negative stain on the whole affair. The themes were poorly organised, the questions jumped around too much, and I found the leaders could barely stay on topic long enough to generate solid debate.
On the leader performances: prior to the second debate I was sliding away from the NDP and leaning more toward Liberal.
- While he played the watch-dog role well, Yves-François Blanchet almost verbatim told us he’s not interested in leading Canada, but more leading Quebec in its own vision of the future. Perhaps I am ignorant of history on the matter, but why was Mr. Blanchet there in the first place? I understand that he’s going to win seats in Quebec that will fight for Quebecer rights, but he felt more like a Premier throwing shade at Federal leaders for not handing over money than a legitimate rival to the leaders, and he openly accepted that
- Annamie Paul maintained the narrative of “working across party lines” at multiple points of the debate, and had a couple of decent moments against Singh and Blanchet, but nowhere near enough to make an impact on my vote. I would add that the Greens and other small-mid sized parties should continue to get these opportunities as I would consider voting for anyone in the future
- Jagmeet Singh still didn’t land any big punches and failed to get down into the weeds of how his party would execute their platform. Despite my expectations for a better performance in English, I believe the NDP leader is now more likely to have lost supporters to Trudeau’s cause, or pushed them away from progressives entirely and straight into O’Toole’s arms
- Even though it’d take an incredibly incompetent progressive government for me to vote conservative, I always make sure I take the time to understand both sides so I can take stock of how my preferred policies stack up. For me, Erin O’Toole had a few good moments when backing up some of his cornerstone policies in his National Plan (such as the Carbon Savings Account), but for the most part he was passively happy to allow the NDP and Liberals to poke one another toward the big blue conservative bus
- If his mission was to win over the people considering leaving the Liberals in favour of the NDP or Greens, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was the standout winner from my point of view. If, however, it was to keep people from hate-voting him out by tossing their lot in with the Conservatives or Bloc Quebecois, then I think he’ll be very nervous in the lead up to September 20th, especially given the polls are saying the Conservatives are in the lead
So did the debates affect or change my vote?
I believe so.
One thing I don’t like about Canada’s electoral system is that it’s the “First Past the Post” system vs the “Proportional Representation” system that I am used to in Australian politics. I will expand on how this affected my voting decision in Part 3, however it will play a major part in my decision.
I had been teetering between the NDP and the Liberals ever since I performed my ‘Election / Candidate Voter Tool’ exercise from part 1, and the decider was really the debate for me. Here’s what my last result looked like:
While it looks likely I’ll vote Liberal for a number of reasons, it is still ridiculously close to the NDP, and there’s still over a week until election day. I will be keeping a close eye on the final moments of each leader’s campaigns to catch any late Hail-Marys that would sway me either way.
What do you think?
I love feedback, questions and discussion. Did you watch the debates? Did they reinforce your choice or leave you even more confused? Leave your questions, comments, and feedback below, or hit me up on twitter — @pappy182
