Marked differences show that Canadians have many options
I have covered Parliament Hill for almost 20 years. Generally I find the electoral debates a bit difficult to judge at the time: four leaders (sometimes more) that accumulate through a few dozen problems in two hours, nobody allowed to speak with one thing for more than 45 seconds at the same time.
This was at least a little less chaotic than the previous versions. I imagine that the four party war rooms will feel as if your boy did it well, they had their moments and they learned of their planned points.
Conventional political wisdom is usually that it is the clips, the small comments and exchanges that are repeated tonight and tomorrow, that is important. So we will have to do with what the parts and television networks are hooked.
Interestingly, the fiercest comments could come from the NDP leader Jagmeet Singh when he felt Patrice Roy, the moderator, did not give him enough time.
I will not pretend to know who won tonight (particularly because I am an anglophone), but I think that these two hours could have reinforced at least the fact that there are some quite marked differences between the parties, how they see Trump’s challenge, how they handle questions that involve the development of resources and climate change, how they see the role of the government, etc.
