Juno News - The Conservative Debate was a MESS

00:00:00.000 The Conservative Party of Canada leadership candidates faced off for a debate last night in Edmonton, and it was an absolute train wreck.

00:00:06.720 I'm Candice Malcolm, and this is The Candice Malcolm Show.

00:00:21.840 Hi, everyone. Thank you so much for tuning into the podcast.

00:00:24.840 So you probably saw we did a live show last night covering the leadership race and the debate that they held in Edmonton.

00:00:32.220 This was the first official debate hosted by the Conservative Party of Canada.

00:00:35.980 It was hosted by former global journalist Tom Clark.

00:00:39.780 All anyone could talk about online last night was how horrible this debate was, how the format was just absolutely incoherent.

00:00:46.580 The host was very, very interruptive, wouldn't let the candidates speak.

00:00:50.560 The format was really off and a lot of criticism towards Tom Clark.

00:00:55.440 So if you watch the pre-debate show that we did last night, I said outright, look, I have a newfound respect for debate moderators.

00:01:03.620 I've moderated plenty of debates in my career and in my life, most of them more sort of like academic debates about ideas.

00:01:10.220 This was the first sort of big political debate that I had hosted.

00:01:13.800 I'm talking about the Canada Strong and Free Conference, the first debate that happened in Ottawa last Thursday, a week ago today.

00:01:21.740 And it's a difficult job. It's not an easy job.

00:01:24.320 And you face a lot of criticism as a moderator no matter what you do.

00:01:27.660 So I have a newfound respect for the journalists that go out and put themselves out there and moderate these debates.

00:01:34.120 And I don't think it's an easy job.

00:01:35.800 I said on air last night that I am rooting for Tom Clark.

00:01:38.260 I hope he does a good job.

00:01:39.540 I hope that he is able to facilitate a good debate.

00:01:42.840 Well, that unfortunately was not the case.

00:01:45.220 And it was very clear from the from the outside, from the very beginning, that this debate was going to be a disaster.

00:01:50.840 And I don't completely blame Tom Clark.

00:01:54.200 I think that he certainly didn't help the way that he sort of interjected himself.

00:01:59.920 It almost felt like we were watching six simultaneous interviews of the candidates as opposed to a debate where they have crosstalk and they exchange ideas and they push back against one another.

00:02:10.760 I say that I don't entirely blame Tom Clark because this was organized by the Conservative Party of Canada.

00:02:17.540 OK, Tom Clark was a person that they chose to sit in the chair and, you know, basically bear the heat and and and keep this thing on time and follow the rules that I believe were set up by the Conservative Party of Canada.

00:02:31.220 I don't think that they wanted a lively exchange.

00:02:33.320 I don't think they wanted the candidates to be able to get into the weeds about their ideas.

00:02:37.040 They didn't want the disputes, the crosstalk.

00:02:39.640 They didn't want the candidates yelling at each other because they were embarrassed by the reaction to the first debate.

00:02:46.560 The one that was hosted by Canada Strong and Free and moderated by myself and Jamil Giovanni, who is a lawyer, writer, former journalist, former radio host and the incoming president of that organization, Canada Strong and Free, which, as you know, was formerly known as the Manning Conference.

00:03:01.860 And I'm going to tell you why I thought I think this.

00:03:04.920 There was a piece in Politico this morning.

00:03:07.160 It says, Pierre Polyev vows to fire Canada's central banker.

00:03:12.000 And in it, there's a little there's a little tidbit here about the debate and about how the room felt.

00:03:17.440 So it says right here how the room felt sedate mostly.

00:03:21.280 Longtime Tory comms guy Corey Han warned the candidates against a repeat of the Ottawa debate where no holes were barred.

00:03:28.960 Civil War, Han said, could haunt the party when future liberal attack ads hit the airwaves.

00:03:34.660 Maybe they listened.

00:03:35.380 And then it went on to say the candidates weren't fired up like they were in Ottawa, where moderators Candace Malcolm and Jamil Giovanni egged on fiery exchanges.

00:03:43.840 The crowd didn't bring the energy largely because Clark forbade applause and threatened to take time away from any candidates who inspired hooting and hollering.

00:03:51.820 Crowd didn't always follow that rule.

00:03:54.340 And so then if you go to Corey Han and what he tweeted, he had a thread last week basically just saying, look, the debate that we just had in Ottawa, the one that Jamil and I hosted.

00:04:05.380 Basically, there's an attack ad ready for the liberals no matter who wins.

00:04:09.980 All the candidates got shots in.

00:04:11.500 So this sort of Tory establishment insider guy is saying, hey, guys, the debate was too rough.

00:04:20.000 The candidates were given too much of a leash to say what they actually believe, to debate each other, which is, of course, the purpose of a debate, not only to be entertaining, but to learn about the candidates, to find out where they stand on the issues, to see their vulnerabilities,

00:04:31.340 to see how they react on stage when being challenged by a formidable candidate, right?

00:04:36.800 This is what's going to happen in the general election.

00:04:39.220 This is what's going to happen.

00:04:40.720 Whoever faces off against the liberals, we might as well see it now.

00:04:43.800 These Tory insiders don't want that, though.

00:04:45.880 They're paranoid and absolutely scared of any potential liberal attack ads.

00:04:51.200 So they want the candidates to be completely sanitized.

00:04:53.840 They want everyone to follow liberal talking points, essentially.

00:04:57.000 And they want a very unentertaining debate.

00:04:59.380 And that is what we had last night.

00:05:01.560 We had a debate where the candidates were strangled.

00:05:05.040 You couldn't understand what they wanted to say because of the format.

00:05:09.480 So I'm going to go through some of the biggest criticisms of the format.

00:05:13.440 And there were a lot.

00:05:14.800 And again, I don't blame Tom Clark because I think he was given direct orders from the Conservative Party and that a lot of the restrictions were probably from them as opposed to, you know, his own ideas of what he wanted to do.

00:05:25.280 But that being said, the whole thing was just uncomfortable to watch.

00:05:29.100 And many, many people that I saw commenting on social media said that they just couldn't watch it.

00:05:33.720 It was just so bad they couldn't watch it.

00:05:36.680 So the first thing that happened was Tom Clark set out these ground rules that basically said that no one in the audience could say anything.

00:05:43.960 You're not allowed to react.

00:05:44.940 You're not allowed to clap.

00:05:45.740 You're not allowed to boo.

00:05:46.540 You're not allowed to show any emotion.

00:05:48.140 We had our own Andrew Lawton on the ground in Edmonton.

00:05:50.680 And he reported that there were somewhere between 800 and 1,000 people in the room in Edmonton.

00:05:54.980 So picture this.

00:05:56.440 They have a debate in Edmonton, Alberta.

00:05:58.300 They fly all the candidates out there.

00:05:59.660 They fly the moderator out there. 0.52

00:06:01.100 All of the campaign teams, all the insiders go to Edmonton.

00:06:04.900 They sell tickets to this thing.

00:06:06.520 They fill up a room.

00:06:07.360 It's filled with conservative volunteers, activists, insiders, people who love politics, political junkies.

00:06:13.540 They all travel to Edmonton.

00:06:15.220 You know, people drive from the suburbs.

00:06:16.700 People drive from rural Alberta to be there to see this thing.

00:06:20.240 They fill up a room with nearly 1,000 people.

00:06:23.020 And then they order everybody to be completely silent.

00:06:27.440 They weren't allowed to talk.

00:06:28.640 They weren't allowed to react.

00:06:30.120 What is the point of having all those people in a room?

00:06:32.460 The purpose of filming these things in front of a live audience is to capitalize on the energy, having people react, knowing where the base stands, you know, who has the loudest applause lines.

00:06:44.420 These are politicians.

00:06:45.420 They react to applause, right?

00:06:48.280 You're giving a speech, a public speech in front of 1,000 people.

00:06:51.100 And you don't know what's resonating because you can't.

00:06:53.900 People aren't cheering.

00:06:54.740 People aren't allowed to cheer.

00:06:55.640 So this whole idea that Clark set up here, that there was no, that there was silence, mandated silence of the audience was just terrible to me.

00:07:05.900 Like, there's no point in doing a live debate if you are not going to allow the audience to be part of the debate and feed off of their energy.

00:07:14.740 So that was very brutal.

00:07:16.500 And then, worse off than that, when the crowd sort of ignored Tom Clark and continued to do what they're going to do, which is, hey, this is politics.

00:07:23.660 We want to cheer.

00:07:24.900 We want to let the candidates know what ideas we like and what ideas we don't.

00:07:29.580 Well, Tom Clark, the moderator, jumped in and penalized Pierre Polyev because someone booed Jean Charest.

00:07:36.300 So here's the first clip I'm going to show you.

00:07:38.200 Jean Charest made a point.

00:07:40.140 The audience booed him because he didn't agree.

00:07:41.940 And for some odd reason, Tom Clark, the moderator, penalized Pierre Polyev because some guy in the audience booed Jean Charest.

00:07:50.140 Unbelievable.

00:07:50.760 You can't make this stuff up.

00:07:51.660 Let's play that clip.

00:07:52.280 But on this issue, let's, can we be clear on one thing?

00:07:56.140 Every candidate in this race needs to tell the women of Canada where they stand, whether they're pro or against. 0.86

00:08:02.320 They, the women of Canada, deserve to know where they stand. 0.88

00:08:05.740 And Mr. Polyev's answer, quite frankly, does not fit that test.

00:08:10.300 Okay.

00:08:14.060 We will be taking 10 seconds away from Mr. Polyev, but Mr. Acherson, get in.

00:08:18.060 I think that, uh, it's a, yeah, Mr. Acherson, please go ahead.

00:08:23.620 So, so, so, so that part of the debate was terrible.

00:08:26.860 The other part was that the, so part of the problem with debates and with political candidates is oftentimes they're too scripted, right?

00:08:34.000 They, they, they prepare too much and you don't really get the off the cuff responses.

00:08:38.220 You don't get the reactions that you want.

00:08:39.820 And it's, it's just too, uh, it's too scripted and, and, and it's too robotic.

00:08:43.840 And that's not what people want.

00:08:45.600 People want to know the authentic opinions of the people on stage.

00:08:49.180 But, but in this debate, it was the opposite because we heard from Tom Clark, the moderator, that the questions were given to the candidates in advance.

00:08:56.160 So he had an opening question and a closing question that were to do with a candidate's vision of the country, which they were given advance.

00:09:04.300 So rather than hearing the sort of, again, authentic views of the candidates, uh, we just got scripted, basically reading of speeches, which is just, again, this is something that the conservative party of Canada probably wants because they want a boring scripted debate where candidates don't go off message.

00:09:19.960 And that every, everyone is really disciplined, but as, as a voter and as someone who's trying to determine who the best potential prime minister would be, again, it's not what you want.

00:09:28.300 So, so again, just an, another unnecessary, uh, thing that made the debate even worse.

00:09:34.680 And then there's the gimmicks, right?

00:09:35.820 There, there were all of these weird gimmicks that we had.

00:09:38.260 So first off, we learned that the candidates weren't allowed to talk about Justin Trudeau.

00:09:42.860 They weren't allowed to talk about the prime minister and they weren't allowed to talk about each other.

00:09:45.780 And, and if they did mention the prime minister, they would get interrupted by a weird sound effect.

00:09:51.300 This is like a game show.

00:09:52.400 This is straight out of like talk radio or something.

00:09:54.400 This sad trombone would play, which means that the candidate was not allowed to talk anymore.

00:09:59.880 So fortunately this only happened twice in the debate, but it was incredibly cringy. 0.97

00:10:03.620 So here is a clip of the stupid trombone interrupting Scott Aitchison, Scott Aitchison, uh, for the crime of mentioning the prime minister of Canada during a political debate. 0.99

00:10:15.780 You can't make this stuff up. 1.00

00:10:16.860 Here's that clip.

00:10:17.840 How do you take the politics of division out of the equation?

00:10:21.040 Uh, the, it's the divisive rhetoric that we need to take out of this, out of our discourse.

00:10:25.620 We, when, and, and, and all parties are guilty of it.

00:10:29.220 I'll give you the most obvious example.

00:10:30.700 And I'm going to use the name of, uh, of another party leader now.

00:10:33.120 Oh, but if you look at the way the prime minister used vaccine mandates and actually divided Canadians by demonizing.

00:10:40.260 Sorry, Mr. Aitchison, you know the rules and you just broke them.

00:10:42.880 We're moving on.

00:10:43.600 Okay.

00:10:43.900 Again, what's the point of a debate?

00:10:46.220 If you can't mention another political candidate, that's the point of a debate.

00:10:50.520 That's a point of politics to criticize the people in power to say the way that you would do things better.

00:10:55.680 I don't understand, uh, uh, a format that would say that you can't mention other politicians. 0.99

00:11:00.760 It was so dumb. 0.93

00:11:01.920 So, so right off the bat, you know, we had these weird restrictions, these weird gimmicks. 0.98

00:11:06.400 We had a format that wasn't going to enable, uh, the, the sort of organic and authentic type of discussion.

00:11:13.360 The, the energy was sucked out of the room.

00:11:15.680 It was just sort of turned into this very insufferable, very serious, very quiet debate where there was no flow.

00:11:21.920 So, so it wasn't looking good.

00:11:24.240 And then things got even worse, things got even weirder because the moderator would continue to impose, like, very short time limits.

00:11:33.460 So they would be asked a very serious question, like, like, what is the biggest problem facing Canada?

00:11:39.200 And then they were given 15 seconds to reply, 15 seconds to reply to that question.

00:11:43.880 What is the biggest threat facing Canada?

00:11:46.080 And then that's it.

00:11:47.420 You know, they had their 15 seconds.

00:11:48.760 Tom Clark cut each candidate off right when they were making interesting points.

00:11:52.020 They each had an opportunity, 15 seconds.

00:11:54.740 And then he just moved on to a totally different question. 1.00

00:11:56.960 And you had serious questions intermixed with the stupidest questions that you have ever heard. 0.99

00:12:02.820 So if you watched Monday's show where I reacted to media criticism of the debate that I moderated, 0.99

00:12:08.200 one of the things I mentioned was that Tom Clark sort of became infamous for this interview that he did with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau,

00:12:16.080 back when Justin Trudeau first became leader of the Liberal Party in 2014. 0.98

00:12:20.200 I said that Tom Clark asked Justin Trudeau this really, really stupid question about what kind of shampoo he used. 0.96

00:12:25.800 We couldn't find the clip online. 0.97

00:12:28.080 Luckily, our friend Ezra Levant had the clip and he shared it on Twitter.

00:12:31.120 So I'm going to share it with you now just so that you get the idea of the sort of journalist that Tom Clark is not necessarily known as like a hard-hitting guy.

00:12:41.560 He's more of a conversationalist.

00:12:43.580 And you can see from this question, which many conservatives took to be sort of like, again, just the cringiest thing.

00:12:49.020 Like the Prime Minister of Canada doesn't wield serious questions. 0.84

00:12:52.040 He wields ridiculous softball questions from a fanning media.

00:12:55.680 So here is that old clip from 2014 of last night's moderator, Tom Clark, asking Justin Trudeau, yes, about his hair.

00:13:03.540 So I guess the first thing I should ask you is, are you feeling lucky?

00:13:06.920 The entire country wants to know.

00:13:09.660 What shampoo do you use?

00:13:12.800 What a disappointing answer this is going to be.

00:13:15.360 Whatever happens to be hanging around at the time.

00:13:18.920 I just love that clip because Justin Trudeau laughs, right? 1.00

00:13:22.340 So the stupid question comes out of Tom Clark's mouth, Justin Trudeau laughs, and you kind of expect Trudeau to say, come on, Tom, that's such a silly question. 0.98

00:13:30.120 But instead, Trudeau takes him completely seriously and says, oh, everyone's going to be super disappointed to learn that I don't use some fancy shampoo as if anybody cares, as if anybody in the entire world cares one iota about Justin Trudeau and his hair products. 0.99

00:13:44.940 So, again, just Justin Trudeau's ego being fed to an extreme there.

00:13:50.460 But I show that clip just to show you the type of mindset of the moderator, Tom Clark.

00:13:56.820 And he brought that mindset to the debate last night. 0.72

00:14:00.240 So we had a whole slew of just absolutely ridiculous questions that were being thrown at these candidates.

00:14:07.200 It was demeaning, it was demoralizing, it was insulting to the intelligence of the people who bothered to watch this thing.

00:14:13.340 I don't think very many Canadians bother to watch this kind of stuff, mostly because it's so in the weeds and it's not entertaining.

00:14:19.480 But this just made it even worse, right?

00:14:21.180 These are the kind of questions that you might be interested to hear, you know, if it was a longtime politician who was retiring and you were doing like a farewell interview.

00:14:31.180 Or if you had one of these people over to your house for a dinner party and you're trying to get to know them in a different kind of way.

00:14:37.380 These are not the questions that you ask a leadership candidate who is trying to lead the country, especially when you cut them off when they want to talk about the important issues like what is the biggest threat facing Canada? 0.98

00:14:48.480 You cut them off after 15 seconds and then you spend all of this time asking the stupidest questions I have ever heard. 0.98

00:14:55.000 It was almost like it was designed to embarrass these candidates. 1.00

00:14:58.180 It really, really was bad.

00:14:59.580 We heard a question, what book are you reading?

00:15:03.100 Look, these guys aren't reading books.

00:15:05.080 And it was pretty obvious and that was pretty embarrassing for everybody.

00:15:07.700 None of these candidates are reading books.

00:15:09.320 And that's fair enough because they are campaigning.

00:15:11.720 They are in the midst of a fight for their political careers, the biggest opportunity that they will ever have in their lives likely to lead the Conservative Party and face off against Justin Trudeau in the next election.

00:15:22.060 They are working their tails off.

00:15:23.360 They are campaigning.

00:15:24.340 They're going from event to event to event.

00:15:25.980 When they have any downtime, they're probably making phone calls to donors and trying to, again, just work on their strategy, work on their speeches.

00:15:33.760 They don't have time to read.

00:15:35.240 So the question of what book are you reading was almost like it was just designed to embarrass them because obviously none of them are reading books right now. 0.99

00:15:41.920 And we also heard just stupid questions that nobody cares about.

00:15:44.360 What kind of music do you like? 0.99

00:15:45.840 What kind of television shows do you watch?

00:15:47.560 Who do you want to have dinner? 0.99

00:15:48.580 What historical figure would you want to have dinner with?

00:15:51.160 Who's your political hero?

00:15:52.580 Like these are not questions that people care about.

00:15:55.400 They're not.

00:15:55.900 I know maybe in the world of sort of liberal puff media, they want to know, oh, Justin Trudeau, what's your favorite virtue?

00:16:03.140 Or what country do you admire most?

00:16:05.780 For most people, those are not the questions that we care about.

00:16:08.960 We do not care about what kind of music Pierre Polyev listens to.

00:16:12.160 I'm sorry, I don't, and I don't even believe the answers that they gave were genuine.

00:16:15.720 I mean, it was just so bad.

00:16:17.360 I really, really wanted one of the candidates to just stand up to the moderator at some point during this ridiculous charade and say, listen, Tom, these are not the important issues facing our country.

00:16:27.260 Our country is at a crisis right now, and it is not appropriate to be wasting time on the stage with frivolous questions about what kind of movies we watch.

00:16:36.200 Canadians want to know how we're going to deal with these crises, and let's talk about that.

00:16:40.660 Let's have more time to talk about, again, the biggest crises facing Canada or our positions on a variety of issues.

00:16:46.880 They didn't even talk about housing prices.

00:16:49.000 They didn't talk about the media.

00:16:50.260 There were so many things that they didn't talk about.

00:16:51.700 They barely talked about health care.

00:16:52.760 And instead, we wasted this time at what, trying to get to know them.

00:16:56.980 Again, just a huge, a huge fail on behalf of the organizers and whose ever idea it was to include this ridiculous slew of superficial questions.

00:17:06.640 So here are some of the worst questions that were asked at the debate last night.

00:17:10.860 With Mr. Charest, and Mr. Charest, the very first question I have for you is, what book are you reading now?

00:17:16.600 What book are you reading now?

00:17:19.620 Oh, I'm with Mr. Acheson, I wanted to ask you and give everybody a chance.

00:17:24.460 There's a question, and there's a twist to the answer.

00:17:27.060 I want to know who your political hero is, and you cannot say Winston Churchill.

00:17:34.820 Thank you all very much.

00:17:35.860 That was actually really interesting to hear all that.

00:17:39.880 Dr. Lewis, I'm going to start with you, and then, of course, everybody else gets a chance.

00:17:43.280 I know you're all busy.

00:17:44.320 I know that you've got stuff that you're doing right now.

00:17:47.260 But when you have the opportunity to sit down and listen to some music, what do you listen to?

00:17:53.960 I would say...

00:17:54.840 I want to go to a question, maybe a little more lighthearted, getting to know you a little bit more.

00:18:01.020 And there are a lot of people who want to know this.

00:18:04.100 It's not just me, trust me.

00:18:06.240 But, Mr. Baber, what was the last thing that you binge-watched on TV?

00:18:15.900 What historical figure, from any time, anywhere, would you most like to have dinner with you?

00:18:22.520 Okay, one final quibble that I have with the format, which, again, just ruined any chance of a good debate last night.

00:18:28.600 And things did sort of get interesting here, where they moved on to the actual debate part of the debate.

00:18:34.940 There was no debate whatsoever in the first hour.

00:18:36.920 It was really just a Q&A, and it could have been one-on-one personalized interviews with Tom Clark and these six candidates.

00:18:43.260 The debate really started in the second hour.

00:18:45.960 And so each of the candidates were given a paddle.

00:18:48.280 We were told that they had five opportunities to interject.

00:18:51.240 They each got to have a topic.

00:18:52.760 They would get to choose who they would face off against.

00:18:55.400 So to those of us who actually wanted a debate, this is presumably when it was starting.

00:19:00.300 I sort of, you know, I was falling asleep during the first part of the debate, and I didn't care.

00:19:05.360 I didn't even want to watch it.

00:19:06.520 And this is where things started to get more interesting.

00:19:09.440 And, you know, everyone sort of perked up and said, okay, here we go.

00:19:12.720 The only problem was that the way that this thing ended up unfolding was that everybody wanted to take a shot at Pierre Polyev.

00:19:19.340 Pierre Polyev is the frontrunner.

00:19:20.700 He is the favorite.

00:19:21.760 He has the most support.

00:19:22.940 He's the most articulate.

00:19:23.920 He's the most established.

00:19:25.240 He has, you know, such a reach on social media.

00:19:28.260 Our reporter, Andrew Lawton, who was in the room, was interviewing people.

00:19:30.980 He said that the overwhelming majority of people that he spoke to supported Pierre Polyev and that Pierre is clearly the frontrunner.

00:19:37.620 So because of that, all of the candidates were taking shots at Pierre.

00:19:41.380 Pierre, if he ever wanted to actually respond and have his own rebuke, he had to use up one of his paddles.

00:19:47.680 And so because of that, Pierre used up all of his paddles.

00:19:50.020 He had five paddles, according to our researchers here at True North, at the one hour and eight minute mark of a two hour debate, Pierre was silenced.

00:19:57.980 Pierre's last paddle was used in a reply that he wanted to make to Patrick Brown.

00:20:02.180 And then he was done.

00:20:03.340 And that was it.

00:20:03.840 And he wasn't allowed to talk again for the rest of the debate, except for his closing remarks.

00:20:08.500 So you had a two hour debate in which the main frontrunner candidate, the guy who has the most support out of everyone, is effectively silenced an hour and eight minutes into a two hour debate, which left almost 45 minutes at the end where Pierre was absent.

00:20:24.200 And he was just standing there and he couldn't talk and people were attacking him.

00:20:28.560 The other candidates were attacking him and he didn't even have the opportunity to defend him. 0.98

00:20:32.120 I cannot think of a stupider way to organize a debate. 0.97

00:20:36.380 And I can't help but blame, again, the Conservative Party of Canada for letting this charade carry out. 0.99

00:20:42.260 And so, OK, it isn't just me.

00:20:44.020 It isn't just independent journalists that were complaining about the debate, the format and how bad it was.

00:20:50.020 The legacy media jumped in as well.

00:20:52.160 And we saw a lot of legacy media journalists also noting how bad and cringey this debate was.

00:20:58.800 So Rosemary Barton, who I'm no fan of and I don't usually quote her in any form of agreement, but she on Twitter was right.

00:21:06.560 She said, and now the format is going to lose me, she tweeted.

00:21:09.980 She also said, the sad Trabone is apparently part of the debate.

00:21:13.100 Oh, dear.

00:21:14.140 Althea Raj of the Toronto Star and the CBC likewise said, having been involved in three debates as a moderator, federal election 2019, federal NDP,

00:21:22.160 leadership and Ontario PC leadership, this one is a bit more like a game show.

00:21:27.120 So that's a very polite way of saying this thing is not a very serious debate.

00:21:31.700 Evan Solomon of CTV, who has also moderated many, many debates, and, you know, he's good at it.

00:21:37.300 He's fair.

00:21:38.120 He's tough.

00:21:38.980 He is someone who is very credible on these issues.

00:21:42.780 He said, why would the Conservative candidates agree to not mention Justin Trudeau's name in opening statements or get cut off by a weird buzzer?

00:21:49.540 You'd think this would be welcome.

00:21:51.420 Now, a question on Ukraine that demands a yes or no.

00:21:54.340 I wish these were not overly simplified.

00:21:56.840 He said, got to say, I could not stop watching the first unofficial debate.

00:22:01.020 Even all the nastiness, at least the debate was about the candidates.

00:22:04.560 Tonight, the format is getting in the way of the flow of any debate, and it's bogged down.

00:22:09.120 The refs aren't the game. 1.00

00:22:10.460 The players are.

00:22:11.940 He continued.

00:22:12.780 He said, I think this debate will have little impact on the campaign and makes the organization and the campaigns more important.

00:22:18.540 This helps Pierre Polyev and maybe Patrick Brown, but hurts Jean Charest, who needed the debate to make a punch through.

00:22:25.020 So it is kind of interesting to see that I think it was pretty clear that the format of the debate was designed to hurt Pierre, to take away his momentum, to not allow the room to cheer him on, and then to cut him off arbitrarily at the one hour and eight minute mark of a two hour debate so that the other candidates could have more of a chance.

00:22:41.500 And then here you have Evan Solomon saying the exact opposite because the debate was such a mess, such a gong show, such a train wreck that it won't actually have the impact that the organizers would have wanted, other than maybe the fact that there's no attack ads being cut, which is apparently the only priority of the conservative debate of the conservative party.

00:23:00.120 They don't want attack ads.

00:23:01.580 And there was more criticism.

00:23:02.860 Don Martin from CTV said, far from giving candidates the latitude to compare and contrast their positions, they were shoehorned into soundbites with fairly strictly enforced time limits.

00:23:13.500 You simply can't beat a clock, which divides one minute into multiple answers from competing candidates and expects a vote swaying answer from anyone.

00:23:21.420 Perhaps if the goal was to discourage discussion from the constant quest for a knockout blow for campaign ads, all that's left to make a show of it are game show questions.

00:23:32.120 That's exactly right.

00:23:32.840 And so I don't necessarily blame Tom Clark, although I do definitely feel for him because he is getting a lot of heat online there.

00:23:40.100 Again, lots and lots of criticism about him.

00:23:41.980 Okay, so I know I spent the majority of the show talking about how much I hated the format and how it really, really got in the way of a good debate.

00:23:47.920 I'll spend the last few minutes of the show here just talking about the substance of the debate because it was honestly equally as bad.

00:23:55.680 The substance of the debate wasn't very good, especially from a conservative perspective.

00:23:59.420 What we basically had here was all of the candidates or most of the candidates most of the time doubling down and mirroring and mimicking liberal talking points.

00:24:07.660 So we heard that the conservatives, mostly aside from Lesley Lewis, all agree that abortion is great and that there would be no limits on abortion right up until the point of the baby being born.

00:24:18.300 So in Canada, none of the front runners in the Conservative Party are willing to even say that they oppose things like late-term abortion, things like sex-selective abortion, a real, real lack of courage, lack of interest in talking about this stuff.

00:24:31.500 It was almost like they were all competing and trying to out-compete one another as to who is the most in favor of abortion, which is, again, so far off from where the base is on this issue and where most Canadians and most conservatives stand.

00:24:44.200 When it came to immigration, we heard that they all wanted record-high immigration.

00:24:49.160 They were all enthusiastically in favor of Justin Trudeau's record-high immigration numbers.

00:24:55.420 If anything, Patrick Brown said that they should be even higher.

00:24:58.400 The only person who had an ounce of common sense on the immigration question was Jean Charest, who mentioned that, hey, there's no point in having large immigration unless you're going to focus on integration,

00:25:09.960 which is making sure that the people who come to Canada settle into Canada, acclimatize to our culture, to our values, and that we have jobs and opportunities for them.

00:25:19.300 So at least it was a little bit, what Jean Charest said was a little bit helpful and constructive, but basically these guys are all in favor of Justin Trudeau's reckless immigration policies.

00:25:28.600 When it comes to supply management, most of the candidates are in favor of our centralized government-planned, government-orchestrated dairy cartels are all A-OK, according to this crop of conservatives.

00:25:41.840 And there was a question, one of the very first policy questions of the whole debate was about Ukraine, which to me is sort of a moot point,

00:25:49.940 because none of these people on the stage are going to be leader during this conflict.

00:25:53.740 This conflict presumably will end, and so the whole idea of whether you want a no-fly zone or not is completely irrelevant.

00:26:01.100 And yet that was the first policy question that was put to them.

00:26:03.600 It was sort of cringy to hear all these politicians answer that question.

00:26:06.860 The absolute worst answer was Patrick Brown, who enthusiastically said, yes, he would be in favor of a no-fly zone,

00:26:14.660 which essentially means that he's in favor of American jets shooting down Russian jets,

00:26:19.220 which would turn a conflict into a hot World War III between two nuclear powers,

00:26:24.740 an insanely reckless position for a politician to take.

00:26:28.140 Totally, totally out of touch as well, because it doesn't matter if Canada wants a no-fly zone or not.

00:26:33.760 That's the United States' call.

00:26:35.300 Canada is pretty irrelevant when it comes to leading the charge on this war, leading the charge of NATO and a no-fly zone.

00:26:42.080 So an irrelevant question, an incredibly reckless response by Patrick Brown, but again, because of the format,

00:26:47.820 they didn't have the actual opportunity to have a reply.

00:26:51.580 Again, there wasn't really a lot of opportunity for explosive moments.

00:26:55.020 I think this is as close as we came.

00:26:57.080 Here is a clip of Pierre Polyev really putting it to, sticking it to Jean Charest over his record as Premier of Quebec.

00:27:05.400 Here's that clip.

00:27:05.880 Mr. Charest, Mr. Charest, why didn't you take a moment to acknowledge that you're the only one on this stage

00:27:09.820 who actually voted for a law that would recriminalize abortion when you were part of the Mulroney government?

00:27:14.640 You did. You did.

00:27:16.120 And you can take a moment now to renounce your earlier vote if you've changed your mind,

00:27:20.060 but that was your position.

00:27:21.500 You seem to have forgotten it.

00:27:23.080 You've forgotten a lot of things about your record.

00:27:25.080 You forgot that you brought in a carbon tax.

00:27:27.020 You forgot that you raised the fuel tax, the sales tax, the health tax.

00:27:30.560 You forgot that you banned natural gas development in your own province.

00:27:34.520 You forgot you brought in a long gun registry.

00:27:36.540 You seem a little bit forgetful about your record, Mr. Charest, but Canadians now remember it.

00:27:43.580 No, no, no, no, no.

00:27:45.800 You know, you guys know the rules.

00:27:48.200 You know the consequences.

00:27:49.360 Mr. Charest, 30 seconds.

00:27:50.420 I am very proud of my record as a Conservative that stands on its own merits,

00:27:57.600 on fiscal conservatism, on reducing the size of government, reducing taxes,

00:28:03.120 which I did when I was Premier, by the way.

00:28:05.800 Quebecers had lower, a billion dollars less taxes paid and higher disposable income

00:28:11.880 after I finished in government, ladies and gentlemen.

00:28:14.780 And by the way, Mr. Poliev, thank you for at least now telling us that you are pro-choice.

00:28:20.520 We understand that's what you're saying tonight.

00:28:22.520 Please confirm that for us.

00:28:23.960 And Mr. Poliev, you have 30 seconds.

00:28:25.580 I did confirm my position that I will not introduce any law on abortion as Prime Minister.

00:28:30.220 I made that very clear.

00:28:31.220 But, Mr. Charest, you're wrong about your tax record.

00:28:33.760 You raised the sales tax, the carbon tax, the fuel tax.

00:28:36.680 Just like Patrick Brown, you're trying to flip-flop on it and say one thing on the stage

00:28:40.580 different than what you said before.

00:28:41.880 And the overall tax burden in Quebec went from 19% of the economy to 25% of the economy

00:28:48.040 under your government.

00:28:50.060 That is your record.

00:28:51.060 You can't run away from it.

00:28:52.160 I have a clear, solid record as a tax cutter that leaves more money in people's pockets.

00:28:56.780 Thank you.

00:28:57.180 And so that's basically the best that we got out of this thing.

00:29:00.720 It was an incredibly disappointing debate.

00:29:02.580 Not worth your time.

00:29:03.760 Don't bother going back and watching it.

00:29:05.920 Hopefully we'll have better debates.

00:29:07.940 It makes me more excited about the Independent Press Gallery's debate.

00:29:11.020 We are hosting a debate on May 30th.

00:29:13.340 It is being hosted by my colleague, Andrew Lawton.

00:29:16.000 There will be questions put in from several independent and legacy media journalists.

00:29:19.840 We have Sheila Gunn-Reed from The Rebel involved, Derek Felderbrandt from The Western Standard,

00:29:25.140 and Rupa Subramaya from The National Post.

00:29:27.320 They'll all be involved.

00:29:28.380 That event is on May 30th.

00:29:30.060 It's 7 p.m.

00:29:31.480 And it's in Toronto.

00:29:32.520 It's at the Chinese Cultural Center.

00:29:33.940 So if you're in the GTA, you're in Toronto, you're interested in seeing a debate that will

00:29:37.800 be nothing like the debate in Edmonton last night, where there will be

00:29:41.020 I promise you will be entertaining.

00:29:43.040 There will not be the restraints and the restrictions on the candidates.

00:29:46.280 Consider going and checking out that event.

00:29:48.440 You can watch it live.

00:29:49.620 They're selling tickets.

00:29:50.760 Head on over to independentpressgallery.ca.

00:29:54.220 You can get your tickets there, or you will be able to stream it online if you're not in

00:29:57.940 the GTA.

00:29:58.760 I think all of this, again, just underscores the importance of the sort of independent

00:30:02.980 side of the equation.

00:30:03.720 The legacy media proves over and over and over again that they are incapable of organizing

00:30:09.480 things, of asking politicians tough questions, of getting to the heart of the issues that

00:30:13.800 matter to Canadians, that matter in our country.

00:30:16.060 They would much rather put on a game show-like festival like we saw last night than allow a

00:30:21.340 real exchange of ideas.

00:30:23.060 It makes me incredibly grateful for the growth of independent media, for the opportunities

00:30:27.020 that we are having, like the opportunity I had last week to moderate the conservative

00:30:31.600 debate in Ottawa.

00:30:32.440 It was a huge, huge honor for me.

00:30:34.580 And the fact that we have this independent press gallery, one coming up at the end of

00:30:38.200 May.

00:30:38.360 I really encourage you to check that out.

00:30:40.800 All right.

00:30:41.080 Thank you so much for your continued support of True North and of independent media.

00:30:45.420 I'm Candace Malcolm, and this is The Candace Malcolm Show.

00:30:47.260 Thank you.

Juno News - May 12, 2022

The Conservative Debate was a MESS

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