Canadian Leaders' Debates

[Aggie]

In case anyone is interested in what a 5-way debate looks like:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=crdk8Vns2BU
[youtube=425,350]crdk8Vns2BU[/youtube]
(part 1, will post more on request or go find it on YouTube)


The moderator literally asks the opposition leaders "whether you think Conservatives are barbarians" around 7:30 in part 7. 

[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

That looks frankly refreshing. My son came into the room asking about it and was surprised to find 5 candidates in the table. The dialog looks a bit less canned and the format is far more open and (surprisingly from a US perspective) civilized. Better yet, Harper can say that there is a surplus and debt is being paid!

You seem to live in a parallel universe.

[Aggie]

Better yet, Harper can say that there is a surplus and debt is being paid!

You seem to live in a parallel universe.

Ayuh, and he's the Big Evil Conservative.

Perhaps you see why Canadians are often more interested in American politics than Canadian politics...  it's political rubbernecking - we don't understand why it happens like that down there, but we can't look away.

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I was planning on voting Green anyways (protest vote, mostly....) but I was quite impressed by Elizabeth May's performance.  I'm less shy about having the Greens take on a bit more power in the future, and having her participate will definitely help.

The last question of the debate came from a disenfranchised (non)voter, and was asking how one could trust politicians....  very interesting.  It's at about 5:25 in Part 12, continuing through Part 13:

[youtube=425,350]k0VzW-zQBpY[/youtube]
[youtube=425,350]u8fMO2rfbyk[/youtube]

[Griffin NoName]

Not totally off topic, there've been interesting rumblings about GBrown's new finance council along the lines of committees that size never achieve anything. Unconnected but coincidentally I just watched a programme about King Edward III (of England) and his establishment of the (300) Knights of the Round Table (he wanted to be King Arthur). They researched his building construction of the round table and discovered it was so massive - think of the size of a circle with 300 people sitting as the circumference - and decided it could never have been intended for debating. In actual fact he abandoned building it and founded the Order of the Garter* (max 24) instead.

As a serious aside, presumably research has been done into effectiveness v. number of people involved ?

*just means crony of the monarch (!!)