Roundup: No knockouts in the TVA debate

Posted on by

The first official debate took place last night – TVA’s “Face-à-face” which was a debate in a slightly more behaved format than we tend to see with the consortium/commission debates. All four leaders displayed adequate French – though Erin O’Toole’s accent and pronunciation started to degrade the longer it went on – and it was broadly organized around three particular themes: the pandemic, social policy, and the Canada of tomorrow. As with most debates, there was no “knock-out punch,” the leaders largely held their own, and unlike 2019, no one got cornered and slaughtered as what happened to Andrew Scheer.

There were contentious issues – early on, the other leaders tried to gang up on Trudeau about the “unnecessary” election, which Justin Trudeau countered Yves-François Blanchet’s accusations with a reminder that on four occasions Blanchet voted non-confidence in the government and obviously wanted an election. O’Toole also claimed that Parliament was working together and that made the election unnecessary, but that was a complete lie, and there were five months of procedural warfare brought on by his MPs to drive that point home. Trudeau also made the point that the twenty percent of the population that remained unvaccinated shouldn’t be able to stop democracy, and that our institutions were robust enough to deal with it. Blanchet laid into O’Toole about his plans to cancel the child care programme and withdraw the promised money from Quebec in exchange for tax credits that won’t help create any child care spaces. Blanchet and Jagmeet Singh also got into it on a few occasions, particularly around who called whom a racist in the House of Commons, and on any issue that touched on race, Blanchet kept insisting that Quebeckers weren’t racist. It being a Quebec-centric debate (as opposed to inclusive of francophones outside of the province), it had its moments of parochialism, like the moderator demanding assurances from each of the leaders that the future Moderna plant will be built in Quebec and not Ontario.

While everyone is going to assert that either Blanchet won out of natural advantage, or that their own preferred leader “won,” just because I did want to make a couple of observations. Trudeau is still having difficulty articulating the need for an election – most especially around the toxic parliamentary session in the spring. Erin O’Toole kept repeating that he has a plan, and that he has a “contract with Quebec,” and just repeating those assurances, ad nauseum. He also did most of the interrupting and talking over others throughout the evening. Blanchet was chippy and peevish for much of it, while Jagmeet Singh would dodge direct questions in favour of his usual tactic of reverting to some kind of an anecdote about someone he allegedly met. And here are a collection of quotes from the evening, for what it’s worth.

On the campaign trail:

  • The three main leaders were prepping for the TVA debate, with Justin Trudeau first doing some mainstreeting, and Jagmeet Singh serving some “Punjabi poutine.”
  • Erin O’Toole did reiterate his plan for “free trade with free countries” and CANZUK (which is largely redundant) in advance of his debate prep.
  • Annamie Paul accidentally endorsed the Liberal climate plan in a press conference.
  • Here is some more comparison between the Liberal and Conservative child care plans, and graphic proof that the Liberal plan will drastically reduce prices.
  • The Liberal platform proposes Australian-style legislation to force social media companies to negotiate paying for journalism.
  • Economist Trevor Tombe checks the Conservative promise to balance the budget in ten years with no cuts.
  • The Star’s fact-checker tries to verify O’Toole’s claim that Canada’s oil sector are “environmental and social leaders” (and is once again way too generous).
  • Here’s a look at the Dean of the House, Bloc MP Louis Plamondon, as he campaigns in the COVID era – his twelfth consecutive campaign.
  • Paul Wells wonders where the Conservatives’ costing information is, as the PBO releases from the other two parties have been appearing on his website.
  • Justin Ling gives his take on the TVA debate.

Good reads:

  • Robert Hiltz is unimpressed that vaccine mandates and certificates are the wedge in this election rather than bold ideas about making the future better.

Odds and ends:

Want more Routine Proceedings? Become a patron and get exclusive new content.

One thought on “Roundup: No knockouts in the TVA debate”

  1. Did the CPC really release an attack ad with the PM intercut with the Taliban? Seems gross.

Comments are closed.