Election 2011: Leader’s Debate Time Warp

The talk about last night’s televised leader’s debate will be all about which party leader did best. And what that might mean for the rest of the campaign. Note that much of what the leaders were bickering about comes from decades past. It is as if Canada fails to work out these issues, and so we revisit them every election.

So, Let’s Do the Time Warp Again!

	The health care portion was an almost blow-by-blow repeat of the 2008 debate, minus Green leader Elizabeth May going on about bizarro court challenges in which American corporations would take over Medicare. But Canada passed the Medical Care Act in 1966, and we’re still having this tired old public versus private health care argument. More like, avoiding this debate, with every party planning to protect a health system that in fact many Canadians, when asked, are not that fond of!
	A student asked the leaders about multiculturalism (shocker: not a question about the high cost of tuition!). Multiculturalism became mixed in with the Canadian national identity thanks to Prime Minister Trudeau. We didn’t know what it was then, and we still don’t really know what it is today. We think it might be more than Canada Day celebrations with kids singing songs in different languages. We know we like it. Or, maybe not.
	Quebec’s language charter (Bill 101, 1977, actually) was discussed in the debate. I know, I was surprised, too. This made Quebec unilingually French. In officially bilingual Canada! So, sovereignty referendums. And court cases, the patriation of the Constitution in 1982… more and more constitutional wrangling. We’re not done with this, yet.
	Gun control was debated last night. The Liberals created this gun registry boondoggle way back in 1995, when Coolio was rapping about a ‘Gangsta’s Paradise.’ And we can’t figure out if it reduces crime (though crime is going down, but maybe for some other reasons). But we have been figuring out gun control is and was expensive to try to oversee. Or maybe the billions blown are worth it, just in case: all a leader must do, as Ignatieff did, is mention the 1989 École Polytechnique massacre and the debate continues.

My comments on this (kind of rough, I was interviewed only 2 minutes after the debate ended), on Opinion250.com

A better way to do debates (from this blog)?