Canadian Election: Harper looks like PM in second debate

Last night was the second and final national english language debate among the leaders of the four main parties. While all of the party sites claim their candidate won the debate, there didn't really emerge a clear winner.

The Conservative party has experienced a surge in recent polls and had the momentum going into the night. Stephen Harper needed to not lose the debate and he did just that. While he didn't hit back hard enough against Liberal charges that he is a Republican puppet, it was Harper not Martin that looked like the Prime Minister of Canada last night. Harper clearly laid out his five priorities for his vision of Canada, he was statesmanly, confident, and for the first time on national tv he responded warmly to the camera and audience instead of his usual bristly demeanor. It seemed to me that there has been a transformation of sorts, from Harper the Leader of the Official Opposition, to Harper the Prime Minister.

Martin leveled three charges at Harper. The first, that he looks to the American right for inspiration, which is only damaging inasmuch as their is rampant anti-American sentiment in this country. It is not a substance charge. Harper, trying to remain statesmanly, responded only by saying that for six-generations the Harper family has conducted it's business proudly under the Canadian flag. This is a back handed slap aimed at Martin who flies foreign flags on the ships of his company Canada Steamship Lines (CSL) to avoid paying taxes. This is something that really strikes me, the PM of Canada won't fly the Canadian flag, becuase he would incur higher taxes, yet has the gall to call into question another leaders patriotism. The second charge is that the Conservative plan spends more money than Canada has, this is untrue, and Martin knows that, but he is banking on the fact that the average Canadian will take his word on the matter. Fact is that the Conservative plan has been meticulously costed out and "...has been independently verified by the prestigious Conference Board of Canada." The third charge is that Harper isn't Martin, the great defender of the charter of rights. Martin used the debate as his own press conferance to anounce that if elected he would move to strike down the not-withstanding clause. This was done to try and get people to talk about the Liberal party without using the words RCMP, investigation, or scandal. It is yet another bad idea. The not-withstanding clause allows the Parliament of Canada to disagree with the Supreme Court of Canada. So if the Supreme Court were to say legalize the euthanization of babies in the first week after they were born, then the Parliament could use the not-withstanding clause to over rule that decision. This is of course an extreme example, and that is what the not-withstanding clause is used for, to balance the power of the Supreme Court only in extreme cases. For most of the night Martin looked more like the toothless drunks you can find on Whyte avenue here in Edmonton than he did the Prime Minister of Canada. With his wild gesticulations, and non-sensical blubbering, I felt more like giving Martin my spare change than I did my vote.

I mentioned earlier that there wasn't a clear winner and the reason is Jack Layton. The leader of the NDP gave his best ever "debate" performance last night. Layton cannot debate. He's not good at it. When he does get into more heated exchanges like in the 2004 debates and the first debate of this election before Christmas he starts to resemble your friends annoying shitsu that sits on the couch beside you and barks it's head off. Layton cannot debate. So last night he utilized the joint press-conferance style of the debate to his advantage and every time he spoke reframed the question around his party being the "third-choice." He tried to lump Conservatives and Liberals into the same camp, but Harper easily deflected that by laying out a clear, concised, and intelligent platform.

Gilles Duceppe who is a master debater was there, but seing as his focus is Quebec-centric he was mostly a non-issue. I think that Conservative support will continue to rise in Quebec, but mostly at the cost of the Liberal party. Duceppe hammered Martin on a number of issues including national unity which casts doubt on Martin's claim to be the only one able to keep Canada together. More and more it looks like the Liberal party is moving Canada further down the path to Canada and Quebec.

The Conservative party will keep the momentum, but they will probably start to level off in the polls and barring any twelfth hour comments by Uncle Klein they will probably form a minority government on January 23rd. The biggest thing that Harper did last night was to look, act, and talk like the PM and I think that people are starting to say "Prime Minister Harper", gee that does have a nice ring to it.