Yesterday the candidates in the Canadian election debated in French. Tonight they will debate in English. Overall, it seems to me that Paul Martin, the current Prime Minister, did not crash and burn the way I expected him to, and Stephen Harper, the contender for PM, did not score any major points. But Harper, while his french his decent, is not as comfortable in French and is also aware that he isn’t going to win anything in Quebec in any case. So tonight’s debates will have more at stake.
Yesterday the candidates in the Canadian election debated in French. Tonight they will debate in English. Overall, it seems to me that Paul Martin, the current Prime Minister, did not crash and burn the way I expected him to, and Stephen Harper, the contender for PM, did not score any major points. But Harper, while his french his decent, is not as comfortable in French and is also aware that he isn’t going to win anything in Quebec in any case. So tonight’s debates will have more at stake.
The one comment I want to make on the debate yesterday was about a particularly stupid and ideological question from the media. The journalist asked the politicians whether they could promise not to raise taxes. So every candidate had to go through the ritual of saying — of course we won’t raise taxes. Low taxes are raised to a higher plane, more important than health care, the ecology, education, and so on. I was hoping that at least Jack Layton, the NDP candidate, would take this on head on, and say: no, I can’t say I won’t raise taxes, in fact taxes are far too low for the wealthy and corporations and the public sector is endangered because of a revenue crisis as a result. He didn’t do that, instead talking about how the NDP platform offers tax relief for low-income earners. That’s fine, but the ideology of tax cuts has gone on for too long. Any progressive changes that are going to take place will necessitate overcoming the revenue crisis caused by decades of useless tax cuts. This isn’t a battle radicals should have to fight — it is a battle that liberals and progressive reform types should be taking on.
