The debate over the debates for the next election is becoming quite silly.
For some reason, many media outlets are portraying the Conservative rejection of the broadcast consortium’s debate proposal as meaning Stephen Harper is running away from debating NDP Leader Tom Mulciar and Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau.
Let’s be clear on something:
Due to the Conservative Party’s position, there will be at least five election debates this fall, not two like in the last election.
Additionally, Harper has already agreed to four proposed debates – a Maclean's debate, a Globe and Mail/Google/YouTube debate, a Munk Centre debate and a French debate hosted by the TVA network.
Mulcair has agreed to all of those, plus the consortium debates and has said he will debate Stephen Harper anywhere he can.
Trudeau has only agreed to debates hosted by the broadcast consortium.
The leader of the third party has also issued demands, more demands than the prime minister or leader of the official opposition.
So now that the facts have been laid out, who is really avoiding the debates?
Face facts:
The main broadcasters are throwing a hissy fit because they have lost control of the debates. They can still air any of the debates that have been set but that isn’t enough.
They want to run the whole show, select the moderator, the terms, the questions and the awful set.
(Why are the sets always so bad...?)
It is being portrayed as some kind of national crisis by some, an idea I just don’t get.
This morning I was on the radio with the usually level headed Phil Johnson at AM 1150 in Kelowna for our weekly political chat. Phil was in high dungeon that Harper would skip the consortium debate.
As we can read over at Huffington Post, the NDP weren’t too happy with the first proposal either. They didn’t want to have the debate at a university, saying that would not be a neutral venue.
What really isn’t neutral is the coverage coming from Canada’s major broadcasters. These supposedly neutral observers and imparters of straight news are now using their bully pulpits to try and force the Conservatives to agree to their debate terms.
Look, I don’t care who hosts the debates. Let’s just have some and please: let them be better than the last several I’ve been forced to watch, often in person, as I have covered them.
If the broadcaster consortium really just wants to make sure as many people as possible get to see the debates as possible then they will air the debates put on by other media outlets. Otherwise, they are simply acting like spoiled children that are not getting their way.
Do you agree? Talk about it in the comments!
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Well I am glad someone else noticed that. I have been noticing this trend happen since Feb 2006 when Harper took office.
There have been from left wing “pundits” and the MSM accusation after accusation leveled at Harper one right after another since 2006 and almost all turned out to be false, but you never hear an apology or a retraction from the left. The accusation just quietly fades away. But it actually does not really fade away altogether because it leaves an overall impression on those who do not follow politics closely (most of the population) that Harper is doing all these things wrong, but is not at all.
I have lost count on how many people that when they said to me they would not vote for Harper I asked why not, they could not give me an answer to anything specific.
This is a dirty game played by the left, make accusations and make them loud and public, but when proven false, hush up it and then go on to the next accusation. I have never seen the right do anything like that. Just more leftie creepiness.
This 1150am a$$ clown trying to tie Brian to the MSM is just one of the liberal pig agenda pushers.
troodo is just making the debate “deal” so difficult to resolve that is just may not happen – problem is that troodo and the liberal pigs are a fringe party.
Priorities for me(and the cause of most problems people have with government) has to do with the unsustainability of 2 things – social program liabilities and growing government – you can have one or the other but not both – I have been waiting many years to see a party/leader address these and offer a visionary plan to sustain core responsibilities and have government live within its means – I’ve yet to offer my support to any federal election agenda I’ve seen in decades. Part of the problem is the leaders/parties/media always debate what is important to them and most of the time that is divergent from what the majority of tax payers want.
So the liberal pigs of Canada made up a few thousand conditions to a debate so, they have an excuse to not show up.
Smoke another fatty troodo – we know you’re good at that. Where’s gerald butthead in all this? Oh right, he rolls.
If it involves Tom Mulchair it is not a debate…it is a performance of kabuki theatre…..if it involves Justin Trudeau it is theatre of the absurd and living proof that “those that can do and those that can’t teach”.
Steven Harper attempting to put forward reason in such a “debate” will be a futile exercise in casting his pearls before swine.
I doubt very much that anyones vote will be changed or swayed by this process.