Liberal debate suffers from virtual format
We can add political debates to the long list of stuff that does not benefit from going virtual.
The 5,700 or so Liberals and unaffiliated but curious Nova Scotians who livestreamed part or all of the party’s leadership debate Thursday night, came away with a good idea which lane each of the three candidates occupies.
But those who tuned-in hoping that one of the three would separate from the tiny field, rise above his fellow competitors and identify himself as Nova Scotia’s next premier, have already circled next week’s rematch in their calendars in case something like that happens then.
The three contenders to succeed Nova Scotia Premier and Liberal Leader Stephen Mcneil talked a lot but engaged one another in debate hardly at all.
The event suffered from its format — not that devised by the party but that imposed by COVID restrictions. The three leadership hopefuls and moderator Jane Taber were each in their own space, connected only by technology and a common desire to make it through the 90-minute event without a major hiccup — technological or political.
They did, but the result was a bloodless affair — less a debate than a series of monologues of varying length and tedium.
The few cursory shots candidates took at one another were glancing blows at best, and sufficiently obscure that much of the audience would have missed them at any rate.
For example, Iain Rankin opined that addressing climate change is a far sight more important than twinning the highway from Yarmouth to Sydney which, while true, may seem like an odd comparison unless you know that Labi Kousoulis advocates the twinned highway plan.
Kousoulis shot back that he’s long been a proponent of the recommendations contained in the Lahey report but, sadly, the report has languished on a shelf for two years.
As Lands and Forestry Minister, Rankin would have been responsible for implementing the Lahey report, but unless you made that connection the Kousoulis comment, like Rankin’s before it, was a tad abstruse.
Randy Delorey dominated the debate, not by virtue of well-honed arguments or passionate advocacy, but simply by talking more than the other two guys.
Remarkably, it seemed like Delorey’s was the only campaign that thought about how to use the rules to their man’s advantage.
After each candidate responded to a question posed by Taber, the floor was open for three minutes when the candidates were encouraged to engage one another on the topic at hand.
For the early part of the evening, Delorey was not only the first to jump in, he filled most of the threeminute window. That onesided dynamic persisted until Rankin apparently noticed the imbalance and started beating Delorey to the punch.
If nothing else, Thursday’s event brought a little clarity to the lines of demarcation among the three.
Delorey, who many Liberals believe is the front-runner, plays on his experience as health minister and positions himself as the leader for right now; the guy best equipped and most experienced to lead the province through the COVID-19 vaccine rollout and get the place back on its feet.
A bit of a technocrat, he can and will mystify accommodating audiences with the details of getting a vaccine from point “A” to point “Z” and touch on all points in between.
Liberals are, of course, in search of a new leader who will win them the next provincial election, and Delorey’s pitch seems to be that if the government gets the vaccine rollout right, the politics will pretty much take care of itself.
In different circumstances, Rankin, who at 37 is the youngest in the race, would be the man to beat in this field.
Through policy statements and by dint of sheer repetition he’s become the candidate for the future, with an ambitious environmental agenda and a commitment to equity in everything he proposes.
His assertion Thursday night that “our generation wants action” separated him from the steady-as-she-goes posture of his former cabinet colleagues, Delorey and Kousoulis.
A party in opposition and searching for a leader to take them back to the promised land might well see such a leader in Rankin. Whether a party in power will opt for a candidate of change — Rankin — over the continuity that both Delorey and Kousoulis represent, is a question that will be answered in February.
Kousoulis trades on his experience both in government and in business before that.
Where Delorey focuses on getting through the pandemic, Kousoulis looks past it to the economic recovery that we hope follows, and he does so with an unbridled optimism in Nova Scotia.
The party has scheduled two more debates, for next week and again in January. The Liberals pick their new leader on Feb. 6 and he will be sworn in as Nova Scotia’s 29th premier soon thereafter.