Saturday, December 17, 2005

The great debate (alternatively titled "Two hours of my life I'll never get back")

Wasn't that election debate a real barnburner last night? What's that? You missed it? You had better things to do on a Friday night? Not me! I watched the entire two-hour debate without a single bathroom break (a few commercials would have been nice). I even took notes.

Here are some of the highlights:

Stephen Harper kicked off the debate by saying he wants a free vote on same sex marriage. Ha, ha. This guy is hilarious. I love his dry sense of humour. If this prime minister thing doesn't work out for him he has a bright future on the stand-up circuit. Oh, wait. He wasn't kidding about same sex marriage. I take it back. He's not funny. He's scary, like a robot with creepy laser eyes.

Next issue up for discussion, gang violence. Paul Martin said he wants a ban on handguns. Stephen Harper thinks longer jail terms will solve the problem. Jack Layton's response? "Send more NDP MPs to Ottawa." Wow. Who knew Layton was such a hard ass?

Actually, sending more NDP MPs to Ottawa was Jack Layton's answer to everything. Health care? "Elect New Democrats." The sponsorship scandal? "A vote for the NDP elects an NDP MP." International relations? "More New Democrats in Parliament means more results for people."

If I had a drink for every time he told us to vote NDP last night, I'd be in the hospital with alcohol poisoning right now.

The best part of the debate was watching ordinary Canadians ask the leaders questions. Like the sociopath from Saskatchewan standing in front of a dozen rifles in his basement demanding to know what the party leaders thought about the handgun ban. Or the woman dressed in scrubs with a stethoscope around her neck who wanted to talk about, you guessed it, health care. The message? Canadian voters are a bunch of self-interested jerks who don't care about anything that doesn't directly affect them.

A university student from New Brunswick asked a question about Atlantic Canada's economy. Instead of answering the question, Stephen Harper launched into a monologue about his family's New Brunswick roots. And then Jack Layton and Paul Martin did the exact same thing. Cool. They all have New Brunswick roots. What this has to do with the election, I'm not really sure.

As for Gilles Duceppe, words came out of his mouth but I wasn't really listening.

Was there a clear winner last night? I don't know. I thought the guy who turned the microphones on and off did a pretty good job.

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