That awkward moment when you say you’ve read the Trans-Pacific Partnership
An interesting moment from the all-candidates debates at UNBC in Prince George last night.
During discussions on the Trans-Pacific Partnership, NDP candidate Trent Derrick asked Conservative candidate if he’d read the deal.
“I absolutely have,” Doherty replied.
“You’ve read the TPP, all the fine details?” Derrick pressed.
“Yes I have,” Doherty affirmed.
At this point, audience members and the other candidates began to murmur. The complete version of the Trans-Pacific Partnership hasn’t been released to the public.
“You’ve got it, Todd?” Derrick asked again.
Doherty: “We’ve got the copies of it.”
At this point the moderator jumped in to get clarification from Doherty, who told the room.
“We’ve got the summary of the document.”
“That’s not the fine details, Todd,” said independent Sheldon Clare. “He asked you a specific question, you didn’t give the right answer.”
The Liberal candidate Tracy Calogheros agreed.
“My problem is what you just did. You were asked a direct question about whether or not you had read that document. You said that you had read it in detail. No one has seen that document in detail. You come back and say you’ve read a summary. You answered a question, falsely, and then tried to pivot. It’s not right.”
“That’s not true,” Doherty interjected.
“No, it is true, it’s exactly what you just said. You’ve told this room, you’ve sat here beside me and told this room you had read a document that has never crossed your desk. You read a summary, that I’ll give you. But you didn’t read that document in detail, but you led this room to believe and would have happily allowed them to leave this room believing that you had read it in detail if you hadn’t been called on it.
“That’s not right. It is isn’t right, it isn’t honest, and it’s why this country doesn’t trust your government.”
Given a chance to respond, Doherty cited what he believes to be the benefits of the deal.
“So I have read the summary document. And it does create more access to 53 more countries, 60 percent of the world’s economy. It brings Canadian consumers and manufacturers more opportunity for job creation. More opportunity so we can pay for education. I have read the summary document.”
A couple of other heated moments between Doherty and other candidates last night.
Early in the night, he grilled Derrick on whether he supported opening up the constitution to abolish senate. When Derrick didn’t give a direct answer, Doherty jumped in: “Just answer the question. Yes or no. Yes or no,” before the moderator jumped in.
And later, after independent Sheldon Clare told the audience why he would be a benefit to them, Doherty declared he didn’t think Clare would be effective, prompting an “oooooh” from the crowd.
This was the second debate of the night. Earlier, Conservative Bob Zimmer and the NDP’s Kathi Dickie vying for a seat in the Prince George-Peace River-Northern Rockies had an emotional exchange on missing and murdered indigenous women.
“I grew up in Canada. I was subject to societal racism from the time I was born.”medium.com
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