I caught quite a bit of the Canadian Leaders’ debate on C-Span the other day (then watched what I missed on You Tube). I was floored by what I saw. A debate that can actually include alternative voices to the two major parties (it had the Green Party leader, the leader of the New Democratic Party, and the leader of Bloc Québécois). It reminded me (again unfortunately) that the United States of America does not have a functioning democracy. In our debate we have a right-wing and center-right party debating how much corporate power will be allowed to run roughshod over the country and the beliefs of the majority of the American people for the next four years.
I don’t know precisely what the ideological breakdown is (for the Canadian political parties), but it appeared to me that only one leader in the debate, was talking the kind of conservative rhetoric that we (in America) of course hear from Republicans, and also DLC and Blue Dog type Democrats (heck many other Democrats except for the isolated few progressive ones). Unfortunately for Canadians the man who seemed to be using language that I’m all too familiar with, was their current Prime Minister Stephen Harper (who I think is currently leading in the polls). I can’t count how many times the Canadian leaders said things like, “we don’t want that kind of policy that they have in the United States”, and “you sound like George W. Bush” to Mr. Harper. A few even attacked laissez faire entirely, and said, this is not the direction Canada should go in. Of course, I can’t believe how right-wing my own country is (and I can’t believe anyone can actually believe a lot of what the right-wing believes in), but in Canada a lot less people must buy into this stuff (I am speculating based on what I observed in this debate).
Three of the leaders even suggested having a Buy Canada plan (when was the last time we heard a candidate mention a Buy America plan in a U.S. debate?). There was also a lot of talk of taxing polluters, and lowering taxes on working people (with the new income generated from the pollution taxes). It’s also interesting, there seemed to be a lot of talk, about how horrible it would be for the Canadian health system to become a for profit system like in the U.S. The right here could learn a lot from this, while they fear monger about a government controlled health care system, some Canadians are doing the same, but with a for profit health system as their target! This debate, I think, would be very strange for many Americans to see, the moderator at one point even asked the leaders if they thought all conservatives were barbarians! There was also a lengthy discussion on the arts, and what should be the role of the federal government in funding the arts (I can’t remember ever having heard American politicians discuss the arts, other than the art of applying the death penalty and ginning up foreign wars!).
In general I noticed in the debate that the candidates seemed to listen to the moderator better, and not cut off other people speaking that much (like I observed with McCain and Obama in their first debate, and there was only two of them and there were five in this debate). Also instead of completely disregarding questions from the moderator, and reverting to the usual canned talking points (like U.S. politicians normally do) I thought the Canadian leaders answered the questions put to them much better, and with more specific replies. Perhaps Canadians are more civilized than Americans? I don’t know, but I feel these observations say something important about the differences between the two nations.
When I was searching Google, looking for the video of this debate; I came across a number of articles that said, many Canadians would be skipping watching the Canadian leaders’ debate, and watching the U.S. Vice Presidential debate instead. Having seen both, I’d have to say that was a bad choice (for those that chose to do that). In my opinion the U.S. Vice Presidential debate was a real snooze fest (Palin was her braindead self even if she performed slightly better than with Couric or Charlie Gibson, and Biden as usual wouldn't shut his pie hole, not that much of value was coming out of it), and the Canadian Federal Election Debate showed what U.S. debates could be like, if we can only end the two party dictatorship that the two bankrupt major parties have over our electoral system. George Washington did not believe in political parties, what would he say, if he knew that in America today qualified candidates with important ideas for the country, were excluded from the mainstream media, and the two party controlled presidential debates? This should be a national disgrace, but instead the majority of Americans are letting it happen without nary a word of protest.
