Better debate behaviour and more responsible spending - please!

SwP thumbnail graphicBy Pepper Parr

October 15th, 2019

BURLINGTON, ON

 

Things to keep in mind as you think about where you want your ballot to go on Monday.

Worth noting is that the number of people who voted in the advance polls increased by 25% over the last election. Some clearly wanted to register their vote.

Will the numbers for 2019 exceed the vote count in 2015?

The issues are pretty clear.

Justin scheer debate

Prime Minister Trudeau debating Leader of the Opposition Andrew Scheer – it got nasty at times.

What I find myself thinking about is the debate behaviour and the spending promises.

These are all educated people who can read without moving their lips. Their parents surely taught them some manners.

The public wants to hear what they say; we want to hear sound, solid, supportable, cogent arguments. We didn’t get much of that.

Could the moderators not have threatened to cut off the microphones of those who talked over another speaker? There were a few occasions when one of the female moderators clamped down on a speaker. It needed to happen more often.

Jagmeet and BLOC debating

Yves-François Blanchet leader of the BLOC debates Jagmeet Singh, leader of the New Democrats.

The people who moderate have a responsibility to first set out the rules, warn what will happen when a rule is broken and then enforce the rules.

Can you imagine the behaviour change if a moderator turned off the microphone of a speaker who kept butting in on another speaker’s time?

May and Justin debating

Green Party leader Elizabeth May goes after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau during an English language debate.

The public deserves better, the process deserves better. Demand better.

Now – the spending. These people are asking to be THE leader of the country while they throw your money around like confetti at a wedding and give the public quickie accountings as to just how they are going to pay for those promises.

This is irresponsibility at a dangerous social level. The politicians give us what they think we want to hear – we applaud them, elect them and then complain bitterly when they fail to deliver on those ‘promises’.

There are lessons here for both the elected and the electorate.

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2 comments to Better debate behaviour and more responsible spending – please!

  • gfraser

    “These are all educated people who can read without moving their lips. Their parents surely taught them some manners.”

    Well, I know one candidate who blamed his ‘privileged upbringing’ for his lack of racial insight. As for being educated, that question has been easily decided given his antics.

    gfraser

  • Stephen White

    Drunken sailors on 48 hours furloughs demonstrating reckless abandon don’t spend as much money as this cast of characters.

    The policy wonks in their respective party headquarters in Ottawa must have been working overtime to dream up this ever expanding list of expensive promises and ideas to hoodwink the electorate. The costs to implement and manage this plethora of new programs being trotted out (e.g. universal medicare, free tuition, increases to pensions, tax credits for fitness and cultural activities, increases in daycare, etc.) are going to cost mega billions. Not only do the leaders have no clue how much these programs are going to cost but they have even less conception of how they will fund them, or alternatively, what government programs or economies they will eliminate, or taxes they will increase, in order to pay for them. Once they get elected, reality dawns anew, and they soon realize the practical realities of governing don’t allow them to fund and implement a tenth of what they promised the electorate during the campaign.

    And they wonder why the voters are cynical and jaded.