1. It’s Not a Debate: Prepare Content Accordingly

First, all of the leaders must keep in mind that, despite the name given to the event, it is not a debate at all. Consider the format:

• There will not be any lecterns, and nobody will be standing. The participants will be seated around one table.
• Only one microphone will be active at any given time, so no person will be able to shout-down another (which should discourage most attempts to do so). Assuming nobody smashes the conch, we can expect a fairly civil discussion.
• The organizers have described the protocol for each debate as follows:

All questions will be posed by Canadians via videotape…The moderator will pose follow-up questions. Each candidate will have 45 seconds for an opening statement and 45 seconds for a closing statement….Each leader will have 45 seconds to answer each question. This will be followed by approximately eight minutes of open debate.

• There are five leaders participating such that, on average, each leader will have 96 seconds worth of microphone-on time during the 8 minute “debate” portion for each question. Each debate will be moderated, so the moderator can split up the 8 minute debate period into fairly even-sized portions, allowing each of the five participants the opportunity to speak his/her mind in each 8 minute segment. All told, each leader will have about 2 minutes, 21 seconds to talk with respect to each question.
• The order of responding to the first question has already been picked for each debate. In the French debate, the order is: 1. Bloc Québécois, 2. Conservative Party of Canada, 3. Liberal Party of Canada, 4. Green Party of Canada, and 5. New Democratic Party of Canada. In the English debate, the order is: 1. Green Party of Canada, 2. Liberal Party of Canada, 3. Conservative Party of Canada, 4. New Democratic Party of Canada, 5. Bloc Québécois. Presumably, the order will advance with each additional question: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 becoming 2, 3, 4, 5, 1 on the second question, and 3, 4, 5, 1, 2, on the third, etc.

Clearly, this is not a format compatible with a real debate:

• there is inadequate time to make a response detailed enough for any prudent voter to evaluate its logical soundness;
• there is even less time in which to critique another candidate’s response, unless ones contribution is little other than a critique;
• during the 45 second response segment for each question, there is not even an opportunity for leader X to critique leader Y’s response if leader Y’s response comes after that of leader X;
• a debate usually requires a person to agree or disagree with some proposition, but I fully expect some or all of the questions to demand not agreement or disagreement, but a fill-in-the-blank response. Moreover, for those questions that do demand agreement or disagreement, getting any of the leaders clearly to agree or disagree will be as difficult as herding cats. Each leader will want to reframe the proposition, say the proposition is not really relevant to him/her, or pretend he/she is taking a stand while actually fudging. There’s only so much a moderator can do to force a politician to answer the question before time concerns demand that he move on to the next question.

No, this will not be a debate. It will be more like episodes of TVO’s “The Agenda” (which, hint hint, is hosted by the English-language debate host, Steve Paikin) that are taped at the Monk Centre, except with political party leaders instead of journalists and professors; more like an episode of the earlier format of Michael Coren Live! (to see what I mean, have a brief look at some of this footage from a year 2000 episode on government funding for the arts).

That is not to say that it will not be revealing or interesting. It is only to say that the content prepared by the leaders should be less focused on detailed logical argument, and more focused on the creation of easy-to-understand – and to feel – impressions or mental images. The question is not whether “expected revenues of $XB will, given our best estimates of future rates of inflation, continue to cover the anticipated costs of item 16 in my election platform”. The question is (for example) whether a sociologist has the qualifications to determine the economic wisdom of his own platform. Any comment made must be clear, powerfully succinct, and memorable if it is to rise above the inevitably forgotten white noise of the event.

To see what I mean, have a look at the interplay between myself and Larry Solway starting at about 55:30 in the aforementioned video on arts funding. Larry tells a tale of personal financial misfortune, expecting me to change my position in order not to appear insensitive to his self-inflicted loss. He wants to put me on the defensive. Instead, I stick to my guns and reply: “Bad business choice”. Three words, easy to understand, packed with meaning and implications, but hardly even a sentence, much less a detailed logical argument. You can agree or disagree with my response to him, but there is no doubt that it is one of the few things that people will more easily remember from that 1 hour broadcast.

2. Look Good

More important than anything any of the leaders will say is how good they will look sitting at the table. A few thoughts:

• The fact that the leaders will not be standing means that their heights shouldn’t be a big factor: being the tallest probably won’t buy anyone the presence that a stand-up debate normally helps to buy.
• The fact that the leaders will not be standing means that the movement of their bodies will have almost no effect. What remains: face, back, arms and hands. They are sitting together at a table, so they had better have the courtesy to look at the other participants, especially the one that is speaking at any given time (what would you think of a person who is looking down or away while you are talking at the holiday dinner table?). Backs should be straight (with their jackets tucked under their respective behinds to prevent their jackets from bunching up or creasing around the neck and shoulders: you want crisp, straight lines): posture matters in a person who expects to lead a country. They should not be overly expressive with their arms: coming too close to other participants could be perceived as rudeness. They should not fiddle with their fingers. The right approach: Pat Buchanan’s gentle hatchet chop when making emphasis, and his gentle relaxation when not stressing something.

3. Sound Good

John Wayne put it best: “Talk low, talk slow and don’t say too much.” The best leaders never explain everything. They leave the impression that they know everything that needs to be known. The reason is simple: they, not the governed, are making the decisions, and most of the governed want it that way. Most people want to be reassured, not taught. The best way to reassure, of course, is to appear competent. Normally this will require one actually to be competent, because most people can detect a pretender.

4. Get Face Time While Rising Above the Boors

I have participated in this sort of discussion numerous times and I can tell you that, although the discussion is moderated, the bulk of the time will go to those who correctly seize the opportunity to speak. Do not forget: this broadcast has to have at least some entertainment value, and there is nothing less entertaining than the absence of conflict.

During the 8 minute “debate” segment of each question, the participants must not ask for the opportunity to speak. They must impose themselves immediately after the completion of another speaker’s sentence.

They should avoid “Can/May I just say something?”. Prime Ministers do not ask: Canadians expect them to tell. If candidate X merely asks candidate Y if candidate X may say something, candidate Y is well-advised to ignore the question and keep speaking.

Candidates should avoid childish calls for “turnsies”: they should avoid “fair’s fair” playschool nonsense. Someone worthy of being Prime Minster fights for what is right: he/she does not ask for, or voluntarily permit, what is right to be given a voice on a 50/50 basis with what is wrong/stupid/evil.

At the same time, all leaders should have a store of 3 or 4 statements that they can make when interrupted; statements that make the person who interrupts appear boorish. The key is to appear more civil than the person who interrupted. Something like: “Pardon me sir/madam, but please show some courtesy and allow me to finish” or “You’ve made your point sir/madam, please do not interrupt mine”. And, if the interruptions from boor X continue, have a zinger ready like: “Mr./Ms. ____, if you expect Canadians to believe you will listen to them, you might consider what your incessant interruptions of others on this stage are revealing about you.” But, whatever they do, the leaders should not ask the moderator to intervene or assist them: it would be a show of weakness. No “Mr. Paikin, can I just say something?” should be uttered.

5. General Themes for Each Leader

The entire presentation of each leader should have an over-riding message or theme (whether implicit or explicit).

Stephen Harper (Conservative): He is Canada’s Prime Minister. Canadians really are not too too upset about the way he has governed. He needs only portray himself as the leader who (a) knows what one needs to know in order to make Prime Ministerial decisions, (b) has not done Canada any major disservice during his reign, (c) loves Canada and is protecting Canadians even as he speaks, and (d) knows that the other parties’ wild proposals for change are, at the very least, imprudent given the delicate nature of Canada’s still-successful economy in the face of American and world-wide turmoil. The image: the time-tested uncle who has demonstrated that he has the experience and judgment to take care of things that few understand. The target: ambitious party leaders who have never sat in the Prime Minister’s chair and who, for lack of experience in that role, do not realize the complexity of the system that they want to change with their sweeping proposals for change.

One word: avuncular.

Stéphane Dion (Liberal): Dion must find a way to get the public to disregard his less-than-intimidating appearance and his nervous, thin-skinned/over-sensitive nature. He has to convince people that he sees what too few people, including Harper, can. Think “Revenge of the Nerds“, and you won’t be too far off the general idea of the script. He is better-off playing the victimized genius than the macho hero. Does Harper’s appearance of confidence and relative masculinity mask what is, in fact, a lack of understanding? Dion better make us think so.

Arguably, the best way for Dion to accomplish this is not to say that Harper will change things that should not be changed (which is his party’s present, misguided approach: see Michael Ignatieff in this regard), but that he will fail to change things that must be changed. Attack not Harper’s alleged “hidden agenda” for change, but his demonstrated unwillingness to take “absolutely necessary” proactive steps. Most of all: make it possible for voters to admit to their friends and family, without feeling embarrassment, that they voted Liberal.

One word: bright.

Jack Layton (NDP): Layton has to get much quieter about policy. He must avoid talking about his plans to fight poverty by 2020 and other such tired socialist nonsense. He has to learn that people want signs of good judgment, not proof of good plans. He must make use of the winning face (is it possible to get a picture of this man that is not complimentary?) and posture. In short: he must make us see him as a face worthy of being on our $100 bill. He must promise to represent Canada with a strong (an adjective well harmonized with his chin, eyes and mustache) but peace-loving (the smile) face, and to heal relationships strained by years of war, so that Canada can get back to living the way it did before 9/11. He must agree that Canada is not facing the same economic crisis currently faced by the USA, and must convince us that he would never even consider a change that would undermine Canada’s relative economic security in the face of U.S. economic turmoil.

He must not say that he is campaigning to be Prime Minister. Instead, he must campaign in a way that makes people think he would be a good Prime Minister. He must not demonize Harper. Harper has governed while Canada has kept a fairly even keel and, if Layton wants us to believe that he is Prime Ministerial material, he must be prepared to honour the records of all previous Prime Ministers (even if disagreeing with some of their policies), including Harper. Instead, he must suggest that Canada is capable of doing more than just treading water – as it has under Harper’s reign – and that what is needed is a more Canadian/less American way of doing things; a vision influenced less by U.S. concerns and more by the unique and preferable set of factors facing Canada; more by the NHL and snow boards than by the NFL and surf boards. If this vague, touchy-feely stuff all sounds like BS, that’s because it is BS. Nonetheless, it will sell really well if well-delivered to that portion of the electorate that just does not like Harper and who, faced with Dion, is looking for some hope.

One word: peacetime.

Elizabeth May (Green): May has already said that she will not pretend that she might be the next Prime Minister. This being a de facto debate among Prime Ministerial contenders, there is little she can now do to convince people she is the right pick for the post. The most she can hope for is the official opposition but, in reality, she should really just aim to save face and not end up with zero seats in Parliament. If she has internal polls showing she has candidates with a shot of winning their seats, she should focus on whatever has made those candidates popular in their ridings. She should mention those candidates’ names and, stating that “Canadians want a government that will ____”, she should fill-in the blank with the chief concerns of voters in ridings where the Greens stand a chance of winning a seat.

One word: aware.

Gilles Duceppe (Bloc Quebecois): Duceppe needs merely to do what he always does: say that his sole mission is to champion the cause(s) of Quebec within Canada. Only he can afford to favour one province over others and, as he already knows, he needs to focus upon how his single-minded advocacy of all things Quebec is favourable to representation by parties who feel it necessary to balance Quebec’s concerns with those in other provinces.

One word: Quebec.

6. “Win”

In truth, there is no winning in this format. You do not “win the debate” on Michael Coren Live, and you do not lose it either. Instead, each and every participant presents himself/herself well or poorly. If one does well, one will get “X is my hero” or “he/she really did well”. If one does poorly, one will get “I didn’t think much of X”. If one is exceptionally rude or embarrassing in some way, one will get “What’s with X?!” or “What an ass!”. As proof, consider the comments written at YouTube in respect of the aforementioned episode on government funding for the arts. “Hero”, “ass”, “pompous”, “ridiculous”, “bravery”, etc. are the sorts of words used to evaluate peoples’ performances in formats like this, not “won” or “lost”.

The goal of the debate, therefore, is not to make anyone think you’ve won. Rather, it is to come out having an acceptable brand or, best case scenario, an “heroic” brand. The leaders go into this debate like blank coffee cups. They come out labeled as “Starbucks”, “Tim Hortons”, “McDonald’s”, or “No-Tell Motel”. And, ultimately, they expect voters to carry one of their branded cups around in public until, on, and after, voting day. The worst thing that can happen is to make it embarrassing for people to do so. The best thing that can happen is to leave them proud to do so.

Summary

All leaders should calmly and succinctly invoke memorable images rather than making detailed logical arguments, should look good and relaxed, should demand attention, and should one-up others on masculine civility. Where masculinity comes up short, an unusual depth of understanding and foresight must at least be feigned. Harper must be the trusted uncle, Layton the man who will restore normality, Dion the undervalued intellect, May the only person listening to voices outside of the mainstream, and Duceppe the only leader who fights solely for Quebec’s interests. “Winning”, if such a term applies in this sort of event, means that a leader has made it possible for voters to vote for his/her candidates without feeling embarrassment, and without facing any anger or laughter. A knock-out: making someone feel proud that they support that leader and his/her party…like carrying a well-branded cup of coffee along Front Street while wearing ones best attire.

There are those who cling to such arbitrary philosophies as intellectual ammunition for their assertions that rationality – the strictly logical consideration of the evidence of our senses, and their logical implications – is not an effective tool for determining how one ought to live ones life, what decisions one ought to make, and how one should be governed. However, most politicians who have plans to engineer society to their liking have an almost instinctual ability to make up their own philosophy as they go, according to the expediency of the moment. They tend, therefore, to dispense with all of the pseudo-philosophical mumbojumbo offered up by Hegel and Kant, and instead simply jump to those philosophers’ ultimate conclusion: that everyone – except themselves – is stupid.

The same cannot be said the Green Party of Canada’s Elizabeth May. Specifically, she simply cannot exempt herself from her own conclusion.

On February 22, 2007, May participated on a panel on the popular TV Ontario (TVO) program “The Agenda”, hosted by Steve Paikin. The program was broadcast live, and had a studio audience. On member of the audience asked “why is there so little political will for a carbon tax?”. Hand in the air, eager to answer, May delivered the following in a tone and manner befitting a person who just wants to cut the bull; who just wants to say what she thinks everyone is thinking:

“All the other politicians are scared-to-death to mention the word ‘tax’, and I think Canadians are stupid and cannot – and I fundamentally agree with that assessment – but most politicians think that if you say that ‘we’re going to put on a carbon tax, and reduce your income tax, they don’t think they can sell it. It’s all about votes.”

I do not recall anyone saying anything about her comment back in February of 2007. Arguably, that is because the best exploding cigars are best lit at election time. On September 10th, 2008, Canada’s major television networks reversed their decision not to include the Green party leader in its televised leaders debate: by alleging that the decision makers were all sexist men and by falsely and smearing them with the false allegation that their decision was based upon the fact that she is a she, May had slandered her way into the debate. As an aside: apparently, Liz White, the leader of the Animal Alliance Environment Voters Party of Canada dropped the ball by not playing the sexism card: she, like several merely male political party leaders, was not invited. Anyway, that same day, a YouTuber by the name “stimpyloveseggs” (which, I am led to understand, is the YouTube.com handle of blogger Stephen Taylor) released a short video using the audio from the above-quoted TVO video clip, and the blogosphere erupted.

May speaks quickly in the clip, and some (including May) assert that what she really said was not “I think” but “they think”, as in:

“All the other politicians are scared-to-death to mention the word ‘tax’, and they think Canadians are stupid and cannot – and I fundamentally agree with that assessment – but most politicians think that if you say that ‘we’re going to put on a carbon tax, and reduce your income tax, they don’t think they can sell it. It’s all about votes.”

To verify this quote, and to decide for yourself whether she said “they think” or “I think” you can watch the TVO clip on a blog entry at the Western Standard, here. However, whether she said “I think” or “they think” matters little, because she followed up the “stupid” assessment with the words “and I fundamentally agree with that assessment”. Or, at least that is how its sounds to people who trust their senses and their intelligence.

On September 12, 2008, she was again the guest of “The Agenda”, where she was eager to explain that you should not trust your senses or your intelligence. On the September 12th show, host Steve Paikin and May replayed the 2007 clip and then had the following exchange:

Paikin: Okay, that was the exchange. Let’s just clarify here what you did and did not say.

May: Right.

Paikin: Because some people thought you said ‘I think the Canadian public is stupid’.

May: Which I obviously wouldn’t have ever said, and didn’t say. What I said was I said the reason that there’s no political will, is that the other political parties think that Canadians are stupid and I fundamentally disagree with that assessment. And you do as you explain, you go forward and people will accept it.

Paikin: Okay, but I thought I heard you say ‘I fundamentally agree with that assessment’.

May: No. I know it’s funny how it sounds, but I said ‘fundamentally disagree with that assessment’. So, it’s my problem of talking to fast.

Paikin: You do talk quickly.

May: I do talk quickly. But if you look at my lifetime record as uh, from my first book published in, in the late, uh, in early 1980 actually, all the way through my writings, it’s a constant plea that democracy works; that the electorate is responsible, intelligent and should be engaged; that people must shake off cynicism and apathy and get involved; and that Canadians and the voting public of every electorate, in every democracy, are far more intelligent, and far more able to accept a complicated solution than most politicians will give them credit for.

May explains that, after attending the February 22, 2007 show, she went home and, watching the rebroadcasted tape of it, said to herself “Oh! What happened there?”. On the September 12th show, she gave the following excuse:

And I remember the beginning of when I’m talking the mike wasn’t on, and then it came to me. And it ended up raising the volume on one part of my sentence and somebody else said something, so I was fundamentally disagreeing with that assessment, but turning away.

And with that, ladies and gentlemen, we have justification for concluding that Ms. May is lying, and does, indeed, believe that you are stupid:

1. First she said that she was “fundamentally disagreeing” with what she herself had said, about Canadians being stupid. Then she changed her story and said that she was fundamentally disagreeing with something said by some other panelist. Which of her statements is false? It doesn’t matter. It cannot be both, so one of the two has to be false.
2. First she said that the problem was that she speaks too fast, and that that made us all hear “fundamentally agree” when she actually said “fundamentally disagree”. Then she switched to some nonsense about her microphone being off at the beginning of a sentence. Which one? It doesn’t really matter because:
   1. it is clear to anyone with normal hearing and intelligence that her microphone was not off at the beginning of her sentence about Canadians being “stupid” and was not off at the beginning of her sentence about fundamentally (dis)agreeing with “that assessment”; and
   2. even had the microphone been off at the beginning of a sentence, the meaning of the relevant sentence would not have been changed. The sentence about Canadians being stupid began with: “All the other politicians are scared-to-death to mention the word tax”. Even had the microphone been off for that beginning part of the sentence, she makes no allegation that the middle of the sentence – where she says that “…I/they think Canadians are stupid and cannot – and I fundamentally agree with that assessment…” – was somehow affected by microphone volume levels. Of course, the beginning of the sentence is not only perfectly audible, but occurs well before the “stupid” comment and the “fundamentally agree” comment. It is simply not credible that the microphone made us hear what she did not say.

Anyway, if there remains any doubt about the foregoing analysis, it luckily does not matter. Leaving aside May’s theory that some deus ex machina combination of a motor mouth and alleged microphone volume changes conspired to make the sentence fragment “and I fundamentally agree with” sound like “and I fundamentally disagree with”, let us follow May’s suggestion and let her prior writings stand as testament to what she really thinks about the intelligence of her fellow Canadians.

In October of 2005, May gave a speech titled “Can Civilization Survive Climate Change?” (until very recently – perhaps as recently as the commencement of the election – it was available on the Green Party of Canada web site). The speech began with a quote from Bertrand Russell:

Ever since Adam ate the apple, man has refrained from no folly of which he was capable. The end.

The meaning of the passage, at least to the extent that it is compatible with May’s speech, is that man’s rational faculty allows him to change his surroundings, but that reason does not confer upon man the ability to know a smart course of action from a stupid one, such that man’s stupidity knows no bounds. In other words: man is stupid when he bases his decisions upon the results of his own rational conclusions. Shorter still: to think is to be stupid. Shortest: man is stupid.

In the speech, May effectively states that humanity is not important:

To gain some perspective on humanity’s importance, if you place the 3.8 billion year span along a time line one kilometer long, humanity (homo sapiens — the self-proclaimed smart species) make our appearance 2 centimetres from the end.

First, note the “self-proclaimed” bit. Such redundancy – who but man could “proclaim” anything at all? – implies it is written and said with the emotional equivalent of a sneer or a rolling of the eyes. Clearly, “self-proclaimed” is intended to imply that man’s evaluation of his intelligence is based not upon any objective criteria, but upon a delusion of grandeur.

Second, judging the importance of man by the duration of his existence is a bit like saying that the space shuttle is less important than syphilis, because the latter has been around for longer. And it leaves unanswered the two key questions that make such evaluations meaningful: important to whom, and for what purpose? Presumably, May does not mean that man is not important to man, and I do not believe that May thinks value to be separable from valuer or from the valuer’s purpose. Clearly, she means that man is relatively unimportant to nature.

Without entering into a full-scale debate about metaphysics and epistemology, let me just point out the obvious. The word “nature” refers to the universe; to “everything”. “Everything” – all existents referred to collectively – is not an entity: it lacks identity, epistemologically-speaking. “Everything” is not distinguishable from “nothing” because “nothing” is that which does not exist (query whether the world would be better off without the word or concept “nothing”). Existence is identity, consciousness is identification. Nature, lacking identity, lacks consciousness. Such being the case, nothing is important or unimportant to nature, and nature does not identify anything as being important or unimportant to itself.

In her speech, May paints a picture of humans as evil entities. She mentioned two books, explaining that “Both chronicle the self-destructive tendencies of the amazing primate known as ‘man.’”

May laments that, since the commencement of the industrial revolution, humans have “…taken the life-giving, life-creating, life-nurturing systems of Planet Earth and pushed them into reverse.” In other words: the time-saving, standard-of-living improving inventions that result from human rationality are contrary to nature, and are life-taking, life-destroying, life-murdering systems of man.

Making it clear that she believes the Garden of Eden actually to have existed – she refers, straight-faced, to the “location of the Garden of Eden” – she concludes her speech with a hope that “we can re-write Russell’s History of the World to say that humanity rejected folly and that we returned to the Garden”. May is telling us that she hopes we can come to realize that it is wrong for man to seek knowledge of the world around him and to modify the world to suit his needs or wants; that she hopes we can, instead, live off of whatever God’s Earth provides naturally to man; that she hopes we are smart enough to dispense with pride and reason, and hold ignorance as a virtue.

In her speech, May, an anti-abortion Christian theist, is implicitly speaking of man’s relative unimportance to a supernatural being, and is regarding all of “creation” as being important to that being. Man, in her view, is an abomination at odds with the rest of God’s creation; the animal that must learn that thinking for himself earned man a one way ticket out of paradise on Earth; the animal that must learn to stop thinking, and to start living at one with the rest of creation, according to God’s plan.

Taken to its logical conclusion, May’s message is a demand for an anti-human atrocity: a return to hunter-gatherer living, and the short life spans and smaller populations it implies. Her belief, founded not on reason but on faith, is that the fruit of rationality – knowledge – leads us always to sin, so we must outlaw productive thought and action, return to a state of naked ignorance, and have a supernatural being provide for us when, where, how, and to the extent that he wants to.

In the end, it matters little whether May said Canadians are stupid. May’s beliefs about man’s nature make it clear that she believes that Canadians – in fact, all humans – are stupid; stupid, because they think. And, clearly, she believes that stupid people should vote Green.