Consensus as Liberals wrap debates

Only minor disagreements as party nears leadership vote

MONTREAL As political theatre, it will not enter into lore and legend.

The fifth and last debate Saturday among the six remaining contenders for the leadership of the Liberal Party of Canada was not so much a debate as a courteous, deferential exchange of ideas among friends — one that just happened to be in front of several hundred people at Montreal’s Palais des Congres.

There were a few skirmishes, notably between frontrunner and presumptive winner Justin Trudeau and former justice minister Martin Cauchon, on Quebec and the Constitution. Trudeau argued there is no point trying to get Quebec to sign the Constitution, that it’s time to move on to real problems.

After the debate, Cauchon told reporters, “I just thought it would be surreal to have a debate here in Quebec without talking about the Constitution.” He added he would reopen the constitutional issue only with a friendly Quebec premier disposed to signing an accord.

Trudeau and Joyce Murray, MP for Vancouver Quadra, clashed over strategic voting. Murray praised Green party leader Elizabeth May for saying her party would not run a candidate in a byelection in Labrador to replace Conservative MP Peter Penashue, in order not to split the “progressive vote,” the Liberals, Greens and NDP.

Penashue, who resigned after admitting his campaign accepted ineligible donations during the 2011 election campaign, has promised to run for his own seat. Trudeau replied that, although the goal of such strategic alliances is to defeat Prime Minister Stephen Harper, they lead “to (NDP leader) Thomas Mulcair as prime minister.”

Aside from those mild disagreements, the two-hour debate was an exercise in harmony and consensus, albeit a concerted gang-up on Harper and all things Conservative.

In reference to Thursday’s budget announcement that the Canadian International Development Agency will be folded into the Department of Foreign Affairs, led by John Baird, Murray got perhaps the best — and best rehearsed — line of the day.

“John Baird directing CIDA from the Pearson Building (housing Foreign Affairs) is a little like Don Cherry directing the National Ballet,” Murray said to general applause.

The Conservative government, and Baird in particular, use foreign aid as a partisan and ideological bludgeon, Murray said, when it should use it to further the cause of girls, women and gays in countries that deprive them of rights.

Candidates often finished each other’s sentences and often said “I couldn’t agree more” with the previous speaker. Most of the candidates nonetheless insisted they were in the race to win. Only Toronto lawyer Deborah Coyne admitted later to reporters that she would not win the leadership and was in the fight to make sure her ideas were heard. All six leadership candidates accused Harper of fostering a new Canada “based on the politics of division and confusion.”

Canada used to be perceived as a model by environmentalists, but that has changed 180 degrees under Harper, several candidates said, largely because of the oil extraction from Alberta’s tarsands. But that became a delicate issue with Toronto MP Martha Hall Findlay, who said she supported the oil extraction, if done “in a responsible and environmentally sustainable way,” as well as supporting a pipeline to the west coast.

On strategic voting, Trudeau said later he “wouldn’t ask the NDP or anyone else anything” in the next federal election. “We’re going to win.” Most candidates favoured the decriminalization of marijuana for personal use, which would, they said, take a lot of business away from criminal gangs.

The weeklong voting process starts April 6. The winner will be announced on April 14 in Ottawa.