DEATH TO DEBATES
Voters shouldn’t be distracted by the UFC of politics.
Who should get to organize the leaders debates? The consortium of CBC, CTV, and Global? Maclean’s, the Munk Centre or TVA in Quebec? Elections Canada? And who should be in them? Elizabeth May? Bloc Québécois Leader Mario Beaulieu? The answers are: None of the above. There should be no leaders debates.
Canada managed until 1968 without leaders debates though there had been a TV in practically every home for several elections before that. Social Credit, though it still held three seats in 1968, was not admitted, though the Créditistes were given a look in at the end.
The inspiration of leaders debates is the Kennedy-Nixon debates of 1960. Ford debated Carter in 1976. Since then they have been a fixture of American politics. At least the candidates are running for the same office. And often one of them — Carter in 1976, Dukakis in 1988, Clinton in 1992 — is, despite the lengthy nomination contests, new to the national scene. And the presidential debates do little to aggravate the already obsessive focus of American politics on the presidency.
In Canada, the leaders are not running for the same office. Elizabeth May knows she is not in the running for Prime Minister, or even Leader of the Opposition. And the office some of them aspire to is at least supposed to be very different from the presidency. We hear a lot about party leaders being too powerful. The leaders debates reinforce this tendency and give a distorted view of the election, which is between upwards of a thousand serious candidates in 338 ridings. Ninety eight per cent of us can’t vote for any of the participants in the leaders debates.
With over four months to go before the election, the debate about the debates has dominated the political news. It is even suggested that there be debates in August, before the official election period starts.
All politics is a debate. When Harper speaks in Victoria on Monday and Trudeau speaks in Montreal on Tuesday and Mulcair in Toronto on Wednesday, they are debating. They have all been at it for years in the House of Commons and the media. To bring it all down to several stilted hours in TV studios is a grotesque distortion of our politics. And out of a contrived fairness the debates distort election campaigns by giving leaders an almost conscript audience that they should earn by their work, support and persuasiveness.
The media like the debates because either they are running them, or all they have to do is turn on their TVs and pontificate. Covering the details of the campaigns or covering Parliament and politics generally between elections seems beyond them now.
Being able to give an account of what you stand for and defend it against contrary positions is a necessary qualification for politics. But it is not all that matters in a politician and being able to do it in the particular arrangements of a televised debate is no test at all of a politician’s worth.
We should all by now have the measure of the party leaders. And we should have some interest in and understanding of the issues and be taking a look at our local candidates. To allow the performances of the leaders in debates to influence our votes would be irresponsible. The media will have their earnestly undecided to comment on the debates but anyone who can pretend to watch the debates earnestly and still be undecided must have been goofing off in the last few years.
The consortium claims that 14 million people watched the leaders debates in 2011. Don’t believe it. That’s almost as many people as voted. I didn’t watch a second of them. Perhaps that many passed by the debates looking for a hockey game. Or was it that millions who didn’t vote tuned in and were turned off or just thought it was some weird reality show.
Despite the prospect of more debates on more channels, with various Web options for whole damn debates or snippets, we now have so many media options that most voters won’t be watching the debates and most who do will be committed voters watching to see how their party’s leader does.
So fixated have we become on the leaders debates that it is seriously suggested that Elections Canada should regulate them and the courts have been asked to intervene in them. It’s a free country. Anyone can debate anyone under whatever arrangements they like. Or not. That it should be suggested that a government body require politicians to debate under such arrangements — camera angles, makeup and all? — as it might decree shows how far we are being distracted. The next step would be to make us watch them and deny us our votes if we don’t.
Read the papers. Watch the news. Go to a rally. Go to all-candidates meetings in your riding. Don’t be distracted by the UFC of politics.