Post your comments at the end of this articleI was struck by two interesting contradictions, one by Stephen Harper and the other by Gilles Duceppe. Before I address those, however, let me say that I think all of the leaders stepped their performance up a notch compared to the french debate the day before. If I had to pick a winnner, though, I would say it was Jack Layton this time.
The first interesting contradition I will mention came from Harper's comments about dealing with MPs who switch parties. Proclaiming a first hand understanding of this problem he said no one was more frustrated by it than he (though I think Peter McKay had to deal with a few more 'frustrations' regarding this than Harper did). But let us really think about this. There use to be a bunch of MPs under the banner Reform. Then, in an attempt to form some grand coalition, they became Alliance MPs. No one really bought that as any type of coalition, so it really was nothing more than changing party names. But then the Alliance MPs, formerly Reform MPs, joined with the Progressive Conservative MPs to form a new party called the Conservatives. I will have to check my history books to be sure, but I do not believe we have ever had so many MPs switch parties at the same time in all of Canada's history. And ironically, guess who played an important behind the scenes role in this major party switching event. If you guessed Belinda Stronach you would be correct.
To Harper's credit, he does seem to recognize the problem of creating a system that penalizes MPs for breaking with their party by forcing them into a by-election. We elect MPs to represent us in Parliament and make decisions. There are times that the best decision they can make on our behalf is to switch parties. I can understand why the public would want there to be some hindrance in place to that decision, but they should know that there already is. It takes years before MPs recover from such a decision on a personal level. Their new collegues do not trust them for some time. And they are persona non grata with their old collegues, often for ever. On a professional level MPs who cross the floor typically do not get re-elected. In my humble opinion these obstacles are more than enough because I believe there are too many cases where an MP should have left their party because their party's stance was no longer consistent with the best interests of their constituents. Any additional obstacles to this will only make matters worse.
The other contradiction that got the biggest laugh from me out of the whole debate was when the issue of gay marriage came up and Duceppe said that the decision was made and it should therefore not be revisited - Parliament should move forward. Well, he and other separatists do not seem to take the same view on Quebec's neverendums. Twice now Quebecers have said yes to Canada but Duceppe still believes there should be another referendum. My guess is that he believes this should constantly be revisited until Quebecers say yes to separation - though in the last two referendums they did not really ask a question clear enough that it could give them that answer.
If there was a loser tonight it was Duceppe. And that surprises me given his excellent performance in other debates. I would say that the reason he lost is that he got dragged into topics like separation when he should have been avoiding these topics since it played right into the Liberal strategy in Quebec; however, I cannot really say he got dragged into it because he seemed very willing to talk about these issues.
None of the leaders seemed to have done what was necessary to significantly improve their performance. Having said that, watch the NDP's polling numbers to see if they get any bounce from this.
The Truth Hurts: Canadian Political Blog
(The image to the upper left is from the NDP Web site.)
