Debate shows we’ll all lose when Ontario votes

Well, that was depressing. The Ontario election’s first leadership debate was more like an episode of The Jerry Springer Show than a serious political discussion.

Doug Ford, Kathleen Wynne and Andrea Horwath spent much of the evening talking over each other, exaggerating their opponents’ defects and making dubious assertions, and yet, in just over a month one of them will be our premier.

Partisans of all three parties will claim their leader won the debate, as they always do, but it’s clear that the real losers are going to be the people of Ontario.

Their choices are the leader of a Liberal government with a record of gross incompetence, the leader of an NDP party promising big deficits and bigger government, and Doug Ford, who knows as much about the provincial government as the average person does about astrophysics.

But, that said, the only fair way to assess the debate is to look at how successful each leader was in achieving his or her goals. While they are all going for the same job, each faced a different challenge.

For Ford, job one was not to scare off those who already support him. He had to seem neither completely out of his depth, nor dangerous. He accomplished that, just. He did fall into a Wynne trap when she asked him which province has the lowest per capita spending. Ford will be surprised when he learns that it really is Ontario, but that’s a far cry from saying the government is efficient or spending money on the right things.

In his first debate as leader, Ford faced a withering crossfire from Wynne and Horwath, who were apparently in a competition to see who could use the word “cuts” most often. The other two were trying to provoke him and he didn’t take the bait. It would have been better

Horwath got her own ideas out better than the other two. She also came across as more genuine and likable.

if Ford had pointed out that the other parties’ plans to provide services with borrowed money are unsustainable and unrealistic.

Strategically, Ford should be lumping together the Liberals and the NDP. In the latest poll this week, Horwath is ahead of Wynne and only 10 points back of Ford. He can’t afford to ignore her.

Horwath’s challenge was to persuade voters who like NDP/Liberal policies that she is the one who can deliver them. She gained some ground Monday night. Horwath got her own ideas out better than the other two. She also came across as more genuine and likable, and would have done even better if she had resisted the temptation to interrupt incessantly.

If voters came away from this debate thinking, “I could vote for her,” then it’s mission accomplished for Horwath.

Wynne needed to show that Ford would be a disaster for Ontario, or at least a type of disaster that is worse than the one her own government created. At the same time, she had to persuade people that she is preferable to Horwath, a leader who is more popular and has policies that are similar, and arguably better. Wynne failed on both fronts. She tried to get Ford to talk about cuts, but he wouldn’t, so she speculated about how many nurses Ford would lay off. She must be hoping Ontarians have forgotten that she froze hospital budgets, which cut jobs.

Surprisingly, Wynne spent time defending her government’s economic record, which is not what this election is about. She said little about her complex, multi-part election platform. Knowing that likability is her greatest weakness, Wynne only succeeded in reminding us why. She came across as a preachy know-itall who has yet to make her first mistake.

When she looks back, Wynne is likely to conclude that she should have spent more time attacking Horwath, instead of literally turning her back on her. Realistically, Wynne is fighting to come second, and right now, she’s not succeeding.

In terms of meeting their challenges, Horwath did best, followed by Ford, with Wynne a distant third.