Federal Leaders Participate in First Debate

Thursday’s debate could turn out to be the only time four leaders – let alone five – gather on the same stage to trade barbs in English during the campaign.

The experts seem to agree: no clear victor, no knockout punches. Did any leader do anything to knock himself or herself out of the race? Canada’s unemployment rate is a not-objectionable 6.8 percent. The Munk Debates, a semi-annual series of debates on major policy issues held in Toronto, is planning a leaders’ exchange on foreign policy. Thomas Mulcair and Justin Trudeau duelled on Quebec separatism and Elizabeth May had a well-placed attack about the Senate.

The latest proposal is likely to stoke more debate and questions. Many die hard card carrying Liberals cut up their membership cards after that one. “If they do nothing, we’d be pretty happy with it”. A Bloomberg article published this week observed that the NDP had moved sharply further right under Mulcair’s leadership so as to prepare for government. And they were.

The first debate of the federal election has wrapped up with the general consensus being that there was no clear victor. “And actually, Elizabeth May did very well up in the territories”. All of those things happened.

Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper jumped the gun Sunday and made an early call for parliamentary elections on October 19.

The two have traded barbs, in particular over the Harper government’s refusal to help Ontario introduce a mandatory provincial pension plan. He says he will do that by lowering the tax rate for small businesses to 9 per cent from 11 per cent at a cost of $1 billion a year to the federal coffers and then kick-start the next generation of “good-paying” manufacturing jobs by investing in innovation and clean technologies.

Mulcair echoed Trudeau’s claims, saying more needed to be done to tax big business. Harper was “repeatedly on the defensive” according to the National Post August. 7.

Mulcair, who has a solid following in Quebec, made it known that he supports the Sherbrooke Declaration of 2005.

Mulcair can’t change this position, which he inherited from Jack Layton, who adopted it in 2006 in an attempt to appeal to the soft nationalists who backed the Bloc Quebecois. She said a prime minister has to work with the provinces, for the good of the whole country.

Prime Minister Harper eventually joined Trudeau in this slam.

But Trudeau saved his harshest words for Harper. Harper blamed low oil prices for the slumping economy.

Mulcair is probably right. If you would like to discuss another topic, look for a relevant article. A heated debate on the Keystone XL pipeline also entered the picture. This time, you’re really going to be seeing the Conservatives fighting both the Liberals and the NDP, the Liberals fighting both parties, and the NDP doing the same. He referred to those as “streamlining” in defense. Mulcair does, however, support a west-to-east pipeline for moving oilsands crude to market.

The proposed law would see national security agencies tracking Canadians who travel to those areas, and force those returning to Canada, or to a country with which Canada has an extradition treaty, to prove they were in the region for humanitarian reasons, or as a journalist covering the conflict. It was moderated by Paul Wells, a political editor for Maclean’s Magazine.

There will be several more debates during the 77-day campaign.

“Last night’s debate showed the people of Canada and Sault Ste”.

Former colleagues of Harper say his long-term goals are to kill the once widely entrenched notion that the Liberals — the party of long-time leaders Pierre Trudeau and Jean Chretien — are the natural party of government in Canada, and to redefine what it means to be Canadian. Clearly, the tried and true Tory blue are slipping away.

“We should have that discussion, but do I think we’ll have it?” he said”.