Inadequate election debates fail us all
This campaign season, French-speaking voters will have three chances to witness the major parties’ leaders face off against one another. They’ll see them as unscripted as it gets, and hear them pressed on the day’s major issues with no opportunity to pre-vet journalists or dodge questions without looking like they have something to hide. Two of these events are televised debates, the first taking place last night, while the other was a block of back-to-back hot seat interviews on Radio Canada.
However, English-speaking voters will only have one such occasion — a government-mandated debate on Sept. 9. In a country with two official languages, it seems only right they’d have an equal number of debates, particularly considering 75 per cent of the nation lists English as its first official language. And, to be clear, in a healthy democracy, that number should total more than one.
Candidates are more eager to debate in French because Quebec is perceived as a swing province where anything might happen. It’s gone red, blue, orange, and Bloc over the years. Polls suggest the outcome in 2021 is anything but certain, so leaders see upside in Quebec whereas, anywhere else, they see more debates as unnecessary risks. Further, a gaffe made in French is less likely to impact a candidate’s overall chances the same way one in English might. Ultimately, the audience is capped
and, to an extent, so is the potential downside.
But debates aren’t about bolstering leaders’ chances of victory or protecting them from self-inflicted disaster, they’re a bedrock of democracy and one of the public’s most useful tools in taking the measure of candidates. One debate isn’t nearly enough to address the wide range of issues at play, now more so than ever. There could be an entire debate centred around COVID-19 response and recovery, another on the economy, and yet another on social issues.
Debates are also often a reflection of the moderator and journalists who ask the questions. More debates mean more moderators and participants, which, when done right, should equal more diverse perspectives and lines of questioning.
Seeing candidates face a variety of journalists in real-time is one of the most valuable aspects of the U.S. presidential debates (same goes for their leadership debates, another opportunity Canadians miss out on thanks to our comparatively closed-off nomination processes).
In 2015, there were three unofficial English-language debates. Despite the formation of the Leaders’ Debates Commission in 2018 with the supposed goal of promoting more and better debates, they held only one in 2019 and it was widely panned for being heavy on personal attacks and light on actual substance. At times, it was less of a debate and more a series of individual rants. Quebec’s controversial Bill 21 took up an inordinate amount of time while other regions of the country went unmentioned.
The commission is officially charged with creating a minimum of one debate in each language, and it seems it’s content to scrape by with the bare minimum. Some point to the reluctance of traditional broadcasters to give up primetime slots, but it is a private broadcaster, TVA, that is hosted the extra French debate. And in today’s digital age there’s no shortage of options for airing such events. Leaders may even find they (gasp!) reach new demographics this way.
It was Justin Trudeau’s Liberals who created the commission and gave it this paltry mandate, and it’s also Trudeau who seems the key barrier to holding more English-language debates. In 2019, Maclean’s and Citytv held a leaders debate but Trudeau declined to join, so only Andrew Scheer, Elizabeth May and Jagmeet Singh participated. Munk Debates also attempted to hold a foreign-policy debate that year, but called it off after Trudeau was the only one of the four major party leaders who refused to attend. For someone who claims to care so deeply about Canadian voters having a say in their future, he seems remarkably afraid to help the electorate become better informed.
If it turns out Trudeau is still RSVP-ING “no” this time around, I hope some debate organizer has the gumption to place a cardboard cut-out of the Liberal leader behind a podium. We like to play nice in Canada, but organizations shouldn’t hesitate to draw attention to an incumbent who roadblocks democratic progress. In a five-week campaign, particularly one where in-person events are limited, there should be multiple opportunities to really get to know the candidates beyond their own campaign safety bubbles.
CANDIDATES ARE MORE EAGER TO DEBATE IN FRENCH BECAUSE QUEBEC (IS SEEN) AS A SWING PROVINCE.