First provincial election debate had three winners and one loser
Green party exclusion remains a black mark on Ontario’s democratic process
The first televised debate of the 2018 campaign season turned out to be an election doubleheader — two debates in one night.
One debate aimed fire at Progressive Conservative Leader Doug Ford, who came under alternating attack from his two rivals in the CityNews television studio.
The second debate targeted Liberal Leader Kathleen Wynne, who as the incumbent premier had to defend her record against withering assaults from Ford on the right and New Democratic Party Leader Andrea Horwath on her left.
Ladies and gentlemen, we have a winner. Sorry to disappoint, but many voters won’t like the answer — please don’t shoot the messenger, or blame the messaging:
There were three winners. And one loser.
In his first provincial contest, Ford withstood double-barrelled attacks from his two rivals without losing his cool or committing any blunders (beyond making patronizing comments about the premier’s smile). He may have seemed stiff and scripted, but he held his own — which likely means holding on to a massive lead in public opinion polls that, if the trend continues, suggest he’ll be premier in a month.
But Wynne, weighed down by the baggage of incumbency, managed the twin feats of repelling her two rivals while simultaneously counterattacking against the PC front-runner. She didn’t reverse the Liberal slide in a night, but she too held her own in the TV studio.
The third winner, Horwath, benefited from the fact that the others barely bothered to attack her. That cleared a path for the NDP leader to take the offensive against her opponents, and then rise above the fray whenever the others went after each other — casting herself as a winning alternative.
The clear loser, of course, was Green party Leader Mike Schreiner, who hasn’t scored an invitation to any of the televised debates even though his movement is the only other party in the province that runs candidates in every riding and qualifies for per-vote subsidies. And so there wasn’t a single question about the environment during the debate, despite the major upheaval planned by the Conservatives to dismantle the province’s fight against global warming.
“You know me, I’m for the little guy,” Ford said reassuringly at every opportunity, waving off challenges about budget cuts, Greenbelt cuts, health-care cuts, or job losses while accusing Wynne of enriching Liberal cronies.
The province faces “stark choices,” Wynne warned as she castigated Ford on the one hand, dismissed Horwath’s “magical thinking” on the other, and tried to defend the Liberal record of the past 15 years against criticism from her rivals and the studio audience.
“You don’t have to choose between bad and worse,” Horwath offered helpfully every time the other two went at it, promising NDP prescriptions that sounded like panaceas for every problem, ranging from cheaper housing to cheaper hydro rates.
But if all three leaders took shots and then skated backwards, Horwath had the easiest time of it. Largely spared the crossfire between the two other leaders, she offered more structured critiques and folksy appeals — deftly turning Ford’s anti-elitist populism against him by predicting that he would replace Liberal cronyism with Tory featherbedding.
If Ford fumbled, it was when he met Wynne’s direct gaze with a gratuitous comment: “You have a nice smile on your face.”
To which Wynne replied, coolly,
“So do you.”
At another point, he boasted improbably: “Unlike both of you, I’ve actually helped to run a government.” Considering that Wynne has run Canada’s second-biggest government as premier for more than five years, and that Ford has never before been elected to an executive office, it was an odd gaffe, but not one likely to surprise his supporters.
As an opening act, Monday’s debate has set the stage for the campaign to come: The front-runner is almost certainly still far in front, and the other two leaders are fighting it out for second place in hopes of coalescing the anti-Ford vote behind them — but run the risk of tearing each other apart and leading to an even greater PC victory.
If you missed the debate, it’s not too late. Stay tuned, because the campaign is about to heat up.