So, I Watched a Political Debate

So tonight my mom dragged me to a political debate.

It wasn't for the prime minister candidates, just for the candidates we vote for in our riding, which meant that most of the issues talked about were mainly municipal. I actually understood a lot more about what they were talking about than I expected to (thank you, Socials 11. Good class. Actual useful information, there). It helped that they preceded each question with some supplementary information, but still, it was nice to know that I'm actually not as politics-dumb as I thought I was.

Anyway, there were five debaters there, which surprised me: MP candidates from the Conservative Party, the Liberal Party, the NDP and the Green Party were a given. I wasn't expecting to see someone representing the Libertarian Party.

As it turns out, that was for good reason.

If you'll allow me to describe his side of the debate in metaphor, I'd say that it was basically like watching someone have their back turned the entire time because they thought the camera was behind them. "Look this way!" call the other candidates onstage. "The camera's over here!" "No," he says in return, "you're wrong, it's here. I know it is, even though you all are telling me and the audience is telling me, but I know I'm right."

It was amusing at first. Then it wasn't so much.

But, good Lord. The way he was talking, you'd think we live in an Orwell novel. "The government is imposing its decisions on us without our consent!" "The government is stealing our money and we never get it back!" I'm not sure if he ever actually used the word "totalitarian" or if my brain self-inserted that into his monologues, but either way, it was sort of like giving that crazy guy with the "The end is nigh!" sign two minutes to say his piece into a microphone.

And when he wasn't going on about how the government is screwing us over every chance it gets, he was completely off-base on all the issues. "What would you do to advocate for aboriginal people?" asks the mediator. "I think I'd leave them alone. We've done enough to them."

Fun fact of the day: advocating for people actually necessitates acknowledging them, and doing nothing will change nothing about their station.

"Would you advocate to have municipal governments recognized in the Constitution?" asks the mediator. "Oh good," I think to myself, "I learned all about this in Law class already, what an interesting question! I never really thought of the implications of not having municipal governments constitutionally recognized, but surely it must complicate jurisdiction issues and the like."

"I never heard that municipal governments weren't in the constitution until now," says Libertarian Guy.

I don't know, I feel like a high school student three weeks into a Law course shouldn't know more about the Constitution than someone who calls themselves a politician.

"What would you do to help the environment?"

"Well, I think that global warming is just silly nonsense."

Oh, yes.

And when the crowd booed, he accused everyone of being ignorant.

He later complained about it being a "hostile crowd".

I WONDER WHY.

Anyway, I've said enough about him. He was just annoying, but it's not like he matters in the scheme of things.

So, the Conservative MP candidate.

Boy, can this guy talk. On and on and on he talks, until I start to zone out. Eventually, I start noticing this. "Don't zone out," I think to myself. "That's what he wants you to do. Listen. Form an opinion. As Jon Stewart has trained me to do, pick out the bull." So I started making more of an effort to pay attention.

First of all, he starts off every one of his things with, "This is a very important issue." Yes, we know it is. If it wasn't important, I'm sure we wouldn't be asking you about your position on it.

And then he talks. For a long time. Without really saying anything, though, that's important. He reiterates, in a lot of different and varying fashions, that the issue is important. He states, in very general terms, sort of what the Conservative party can do and/or is doing about it. He brings up local examples, which usually fall apart as soon as open discussion starts and the NDP starts ripping him. I'll get to her later, though.

I didn't learn anything about the Conservative party I didn't already know. I get the impression that he was trying to appeal to a mostly Liberal/NDP leaning audience without ever actually saying anything his party wouldn't approve of, leading him to very general statements with a distinct lack of actual substance.

Basically, think of a kid writing a two thousand word essay about a book they didn't read. Long, well-written, proof-read, certainly; but does it say anything worthwhile? Probably not.

Next we come to the Liberal MP candidate.

I forgot he was there half the time, to be honest, and that's something, considering he was literally in the center of the stage. He could have been invisible for how much I noticed him. I'm sure he was saying things that were decent, but could I tell you any of it? Not really.

I hate to reduce politics to this, but as it turns out, charisma is important for politicians, and, well, anyone who does public speaking as part of their job. This guy did not have any, and therefore I can't think of a single notable thing he said. Call me shallow, but it does seem important.

Next up, Green Party.

This guy. This guy was smart. This guy was well-spoken. He was also quite involved in our local community, which he wasted no time in pointing out, but that's okay. He talked about the issues properly, actually proposing solutions and stances on subjects that I found other candidates dancing around.

The other thing, of course, that really earned my respect, was him cutting through one of Conservative Guy's monologues with a, "Sorry, what's your point?"

Good. Challenge that dude. I, as the audience, don't want to hear a long-winded anecdote designed to appear to supplement the argument but actually distract from the lack thereof.

Yeah, if I thought the Green Party had a chance, (and if I could vote yet) I might be voting for him, because he seemed to understand what was going on, and how to answer things in a way that seemed authentic without seeming arrogant.

And finally, the NDP, with the only woman candidate! Represent!

Whew. She was killing it.

She was well educated in her opinions, well spoken in her positions concerning them, and was not afraid to point out that her experiences (as a younger woman) were sometimes more relevant to the issues being discussed than the others. It definitely showed. She was also very vocal during the open discussion, challenging people's opinions and forcing them to answer for themselves.

Two things that turned me off: first of all, I heard a lot about how the NDP had a plan for that. They're proposing a plan for this. We're going to fund this, and that, and everything. I found myself asking "How?" a lot of the time. However, I find it hard to fault her for this, because I assume that these are complicated things that take more than thirty seconds to explain.

The other thing is that she, especially near the end, started talking about how much the Conservative government was doing wrong, a lot of which was met with a reply from Conservative Guy, "That's just not true!"

Now, due to my personal biases, I'm more inclined to take her word for it because she didn't beat around the bush like Conservative Guy, and because she has good credentials as a journalist, meaning she's probably pretty good when it comes to things like information. I realized after a while, though, that objectively, it was essentially her word against Conservative Guy's.

And when you think of it like that, you realize that it was sort of like reading a Wikipedia article - I want to trust it, and often do, but at the same time, I need sources. Because the thing is, she could have said, "The Conservatives are killing puppies, isn't that terrible!" Yes, of course that's wrong, and I don't want to support people who do that. But how do I know that what you said is actually true? I don't, basically, not in that moment, and she didn't give anything about how she knew what she knew.

Which, again, is hard to fault her for, as they were very short segments of time to pack in some substantial stuff, but it still read as a little bit... off.

But let's make this clear - her answers did have substance. In contrast to Conservative Guy, who would talk endlessly without saying anything, her answers were short and sweet and answered the question directly.

Basically, NDP gal was slaying.

And, all in all, it was a really interesting experience, and actually rather satisfying. It was nice to discover that I actually understood the issues being discussed, and had an opinion about how to go about them. It was also really interesting because, in Socials 11 (which, as I've mentioned, was an extremely useful class), the course straight-up outlines clear-cut, useful solutions to some of these problems, mostly environmental issues, and it's interesting to see some people dance around them while others - mainly Green Guy - say, "This isn't possible now but we will take steps so that it is possible and in place by 2020" or whatever. It never before occurred to me how much politics is simply a mixture of education and ideology.

Anyway, it was nice to find out that I knew enough to disagree with people on issues and agree with others. It's also interesting because I never really thought of MPs as meaning much except personifying votes for the Prime Minister. However, it became more clear than ever for me that MPs, as being actually part of Parliament, do have a certain amount of power regardless of whether their party wins Prime Minister, and that voting with an MP in mind instead of the leader of their party isn't actually as ridiculous a course of action as I had originally perceived it.

Basically, I learned a lot about Canadian politics that day - a lot of stuff that I knew in theory but had never completely understood in practise. And I'm really glad I did.