In this episode of The Pipeline, The Western Standard's senior editor and editor-in-chief, Nigel Hannaford, and co-host, Erica Baroutes, discuss the Debates Commission's handling of the first debate.
00:02:07.400So we're going to talk about the debate that took place last week.
00:02:12.500Much of you have already seen it or you've seen the clips of it and heard some things,
00:02:15.380but now that we got a little distance from the debate, we want to kind of zoom out,
00:02:20.340talk about what happened and also the complete breakdown of order and any ability to reasonably
00:02:29.760inform the public uh that came from the debates commission uh the controversy of some independent
00:02:36.420media versus some of the legacy media we're going to talk about that now that we've had some time
00:02:40.660to breathe and digest it all we're gonna talk about um the liberal platform talk a bit about
00:02:46.500the conservative platform, but primarily the liberal one, which Mark Carney is running on.
00:02:51.280As it turns out, it was written by the Liberal Party before he was the leader. In fact, it was
00:02:57.920written while Justin Trudeau was the leader. They've just taken it and cranked, taken Trudeau's
00:03:02.760platform and cranked it up to 10 on a few things and made a couple of nips and tucks for some of
00:03:06.400the less popular parts like the carbon tax. And is this the end DP? That's my dad attempt at joking
00:03:15.680about the potential complete collapse and destruction of the NDP as an electoral force
00:03:21.540in this election. Projections have them on track for the worst showing in that party's history,
00:03:27.440potentially, next week. All right, let's get into it. We're going to begin with Erica.
00:03:35.960Erica, the debate sucked. I put it to you. Yeah, I mean, I think we're done. I think that
00:03:42.560captures it perfectly. So if people didn't watch us do our debate pre and post, which I was,
00:03:49.840you know, sitting with you gents from afar in Edmonton, or if Derek, what you said at the
00:03:56.080start of the show made no sense to anyone, which is me half the time, I will give a quick synopsis
00:04:00.640of kind of what happened. So there was obviously the debate. I think Steve Pagan is the winner of
00:04:06.720the debate he ended up being a very fair moderator unfortunately as you alluded to the
00:04:14.080debate commission i think kind of went rogue and screwed up a lot of opportunity for media what you
00:04:20.960were talking about before is that on the first night last wednesday we had the french debate
00:04:26.320and rebel news managed to get the the spots at the beginning of the podium which was totally fair
00:04:32.400However, they, you know, was argued by some of the mainstream and other individuals there that, you know, let's let's kind of play nice and and have more order and more discrepancy about like who who can be at those podiums.
00:04:44.680So long and short, it did kind of cause a frouhaha that we focused on last week because of like, why can the commission just all of a sudden deem a security breach at the end of the English debate and not have media outlets ask questions of the candidates like they did the night before?
00:05:04.820So last minute, they kind of pulled the rug out from all the media individuals that had been there, including Jen, who had been there all day to stand in line to get their fair question and to do what the media is supposed to do, which is report.
00:05:18.380And so I think that that actually, you know, maybe gave the most color besides Francois Blanchet to the debate.
00:05:24.500Otherwise, I think that the popcorn that we were all eating while watching was the most entertaining part of that overall debate.
00:09:02.680Because otherwise, if you did do a lineup, I could see the fights getting worse.
00:09:06.380I could see it if they see that it's stacked again with a bunch of one particular outlet over another in the front.
00:09:11.520And people who, in good faith, legacy or not, came to get a question in and realizing they're not going to make it to the front of this lineup.
00:09:19.720Plus the fact that they allowed the questioners to put in lecturing preambles.
00:09:24.740Yeah, there were some of them, some of them, not all of them, but some of them had a bit of a monologue.
00:09:29.040And again, as a viewer, I was frustrated with that.
00:09:32.120Look, I'm viewing, I understand a slant that an outlet's going to come from and that you want to give a bit of a preamble.
00:09:38.300But if you're going to spend, you know, four minutes getting to the point on a question, I want to hear from the answer, not the questioner.
00:09:45.480But again, these things should have been able to change on the fly.
00:09:48.080Instead, they just thought the easier thing to avoid conflict there is just to pull the plug on the whole works.
00:09:52.380And maybe four years from now, we'll try something again.
00:09:54.600It was a terrible failure on their part.
00:09:56.480Nigel, I, you know, I kind of parted away from a lot of, you know, conservative leaning types with the establishment of the Debates Commission,
00:10:06.120because i i think uh leaving it to just the legacy media big networks has got its own set
00:10:13.540of perils it tends to be more arbitrary the rules about who's in and who's out change every time
00:10:18.520so you wouldn't want to leave it to the whole times to decide no certainly not uh those are
00:10:23.040not the people who should be deciding but uh you know we have uh you know so like the rules about
00:10:30.560who's in and who's not is so arbitrary uh and sometimes they make sense sometimes they don't
00:10:35.780makes sense i thought well okay the the debates commission uh will be imperfect but at least we
00:10:43.640can establish some consistency at least between elections so like here's the benchmark to make
00:10:47.740it in do you have to elect someone first you have to have a certain number of mps first i'd be
00:10:52.500polling above a certain amount whatever it is now they they seemed to tweak those rules from time
00:10:57.400to time to ensure that the green party is in and the ppc is out uh but at least it was it was more
00:11:32.560That was just one outlet, so you didn't have
00:11:34.040bunch of cooks in the kitchen every every network trying to get their airtime so to speak um i don't
00:11:40.120know is it time to abolish the debates commission reform it uh or continue on all right i just i
00:11:46.760just think it's time for them to do a better job i had a look at their website to see exactly what
00:11:51.720we were dealing with here and there are a number of retired politicians who are the sort of the
00:11:58.440governing board as it were and then you they have a staff of three that's quite a lot of people
00:12:04.840to actually sit around the table and say how are we going to do this in a way that is fair
00:12:11.160to the candidates and also to the media and perhaps consult with some of the media
00:12:19.320including the independent media and say well what would work i mean i was making a facetious
00:12:25.800comment about a pack of cards well actually it's not that bad that would have done better than what
00:12:31.560they did it's perfect but it'd be better yeah so uh it's uh there's a there's eight
00:12:39.560clever people some of whom are well paid for being there they should be able to fix this and
00:12:46.440it just takes a good look at that footage from the other night they'll see why i also think if
00:12:53.080If we're going to keep the Debates Commission, and I know a lot of people are saying get rid of it, probably get rid of the people on the commission.
00:13:01.660At the very least, we've got a clean house from it.
00:13:04.140And I'm sure not everybody there is bad, but I think this is such an epic gargant.
00:13:09.000Everybody on all sides of the political spectrum agreed this was a total, complete failure.
00:13:13.660Not even talking about the debate itself.
00:13:15.320Its format was, I mean, it was for tiny, little soundbites.
00:13:21.020Well, we already get that on social media.
00:13:22.200This was for something a little more long form, more interactive, where you're going to be testing under fire these leaders in a form, because none of the leaders do big, outside of French media, where it's still important, none of the major leaders have done a sit-down accountability interview where they're really tested.
00:26:18.840What could the Conservatives do to make this stick?
00:26:22.500Because nothing else has stuck so far.
00:26:24.480Yeah, and I agree nothing has really stuck, unfortunately, because I think they're right.
00:26:30.760They're right that this man is ultimately, whether he's trying to or not, he's doing a masterful job, Mark Carney of catfishing Canadians.
00:26:39.780And he is selling how great he is on resume and that he's going to be more conservative. He's not Justin Trudeau. And the conservatives have tried and said, no, it's the same, same. Like, it is not different. It's the same people. You know, it's not this knight in shining armor that's going to make the Liberal Party actually centrist or even close to right ascender.
00:27:00.800Like Justin Trudeau moved it into socialist territory and that's where they're going to stay. And even with the platform, I think that the I'll give the liberals credit. They waited so long to do it to after the debate to release their full costed budget because they know how bad it is and they know what this is.
00:27:18.800I mean, I know that the Privy Council released a report basically saying that we're going to like be in Hunger Games style under the way that we're currently going.
00:27:28.780And that's even expedited by Mark Carney.
00:27:31.620So what do the Conservatives need to do?
00:27:32.880I think they need to keep talking about that.
00:27:34.540And hopefully to those that haven't voted yet, that message is getting through.
00:27:38.840But I do think that the Liberals are good at campaigning by like being shiny object.
00:27:45.760I'm, you know, in the first week looking to be a conservative and now I am pulling full socialist agenda and I'm going to catfish and everyone's going to wake up the next day after the election and realize we made a horrible decision.
00:27:59.420Should the liberals win? And I don't really know what the conservatives can do or if the runway is just a little too short at this point to close that gap.
00:28:09.800Wishful thinking. I'm just hoping that conservatives don't answer their phones and answer the polls and will be surprised.
00:28:15.420But if we're going off of current statistics, it looks like the runway's getting a little shorter.
00:28:20.880I do have to push back on one thing you said, though.
00:28:23.640You know, you said that the Liberals did not release their platform until after the debate.
00:28:28.340You know, so people would be kind of too late to change their minds for many who were voted.
00:28:33.160But the Conservatives also did not release their debate.
00:28:36.300They waited until after the debate as well.
00:28:39.100There's, I mean, depending how charitable or not we're being, there's different reasons for that.
00:28:42.480I get that maybe you want to make most of your announcements throughout the campaign and then release.
00:28:47.540If I was the Conservatives, I would have. Yeah, I would have done it as the Conservatives before the debate.
00:28:53.580And I think it would have added. Totally. The morning of was when the NDP did it and that helped the UCP year win because it was a horrible budget.
00:29:02.460He was hiding the Conservatives. I think with their plan, that's actually quite good and quite in contrast to Carney should have released it early.
00:29:11.200and even just saying we're not going to care what these guys say and they might funk some numbers up
00:29:16.320to try and not make it look so bad but so what you asked me what they could do versus what i think
00:29:21.220they should have done i would have gotten that budget out before the debate all right uh so
00:29:27.100we'll talk about the guys now that nobody including us is really talking about very much
00:29:31.820uh is this the end dp yeah i i really thought i was clever for that one today uh so give me a slow
00:29:40.480clock from home if you're watching. That was actually a headline in 2019 after the NDP
00:29:46.260loss. So I don't know if we can give you any credit there. So to me, at least, it's an
00:29:54.140original headline for the Western Standard. I have not seen it. Okay. All right. Corey,
00:30:01.680the NDP here are, I mean, it's just polls, but polls are a snapshot of where people are
00:30:08.600at today does not mean it's what they're going to do tomorrow, but it's pretty good indication
00:30:12.880of at least trend lines we're on. The trend line we're on is for an absolute train wreck for the
00:30:18.440NDP. 338 polling aggregator, not perfect, but they have a pretty good reputation. They're
00:30:26.060generally in the ballpark. They've got the NDP around six seats, maybe even less. I mean, how
00:30:30.920things go uh you need 12 seats to be an official party in uh in parliament um six seats uh people
00:30:39.100can check on wikipedia correct me if i'm wrong but i i think six seats might be the uh would make it
00:30:45.320the worst result in the history of the ndp uh i think you might even have to go pre-ndp to one
00:30:52.280of its predecessor parties the canadian commonwealth federation to go back into you know the early
00:31:27.660And even, you know, the most hardcore of loyalists will have to admit that after this election, whatever the NDP has to do, they got to change their leaders out.
00:31:47.140So there's kind of a number of things that hit that worked very badly for Singh.
00:31:51.880Part of it was he just found himself in lockstep and constantly supporting the Liberals.
00:31:56.280So to the point of people saying, well, if he's just going to be with them all the time, what's the point of bothering with a separate party? Anyhow, he's the same thing. Trudeau took the liberals to the left. He was not a conservative liberal leader. So again, that started eating a lot of Singh's lunch, slowly but surely.
00:32:14.400Another thing that happened was it's almost a boomerang effect with the polls, if we looked four months ago,
00:32:20.020looked that there was going to be a super majority of conservatives,
00:32:23.020that Pierre Polyev was going to be the prime minister with an unstoppable force coming in.
00:32:28.800And center-left supporters of the NDP said, well, boy, I'm going to strategically vote.
00:32:35.780I would still rather have a liberal group in there rather than letting Polyev take off with this.
00:32:41.300And they migrated to the Liberal Party.
00:32:43.280So just everything came together for a terrible electoral outcome for the NDP in this particular election, on top of which Singh has just not been an effective leader.
00:32:53.760He hasn't been inspiring people to come out and support him or vote for him.
00:32:57.100And I don't even know if he's wanted to.
00:32:59.600I mean, his performance has been so bad, whether it's the debates or campaigning in general, you'd almost think he's throwing the race.
00:33:06.700Yeah, I mean, I do not think he is an agent of the Liberal Party.
00:33:10.580but if he was an agent of the liberal party he would be doing exactly what he has been doing
00:33:17.120for years now so i do i didn't know that's not true i think if he's an agent of the liberal
00:33:24.660party he might be in not third place in his own writing he'd be doing better right now because
00:33:30.040he'd be running under a different umbrella this guy's gonna lose his own seat well i mean like
00:46:45.160A Métis woman, descended from buffalo hunters, La Chassigurie, and Red River Fire, dismantle the settler colonial rot you clutch like blood-soaked treaty.0.99
00:46:58.380Pope Francis is dead, but the church's genocidal legacy lives on in every stolen Métis child, every unmarked grave, every whisper of residential school.0.99
00:47:07.100I am a Métis woman. No, she says women. I am a Métis woman, so she's also now plural.
00:47:15.160Okay. I do not forgive. I do not forget the Vatican falls in my name. I think it means Fitz.
00:47:22.760Okay, so just from factual errors alone, woman, Métis, and women, plural.
00:47:30.100I'm referring to herself in the plural.
00:47:31.660I mean, at this point, I mean, referring to herself in the third person or in the plural is probably the least factual error in this.
00:48:38.140Oh, is it my turn? No, you forgot about me, just as always.
00:48:42.460Oh, I'm sorry. I never saved myself for last. No, I'm sorry.
00:48:45.420Well, we'll just leave best for last instead. So a little bit different of a tangent. I
00:48:54.700am throwing this at one person for props, another for just the legacy media's horrific fact checking
00:49:04.060on these two budgets the fact that we don't have anyone but some columnists actually highlighting
00:49:11.100how horrific uh one not covering the privy council stuff that uh corey talked about two not covering
00:49:17.500the actual like contrast of liberal versus conservative platforms that were put out
00:49:24.380so the fi the firing shot actually came from ian brody if you see him go on cbc
00:49:30.940I believe it was this morning and just ripped the CBC fact checker a new one, basically criticizing everything of how they contrasted, compared and the facts that they were putting out about the liberal platform.
00:49:46.020So I can't take the shots fired today. I'm giving it to Ian Brody, who, you know, really held the mainstream accountable.
00:49:52.620again maybe too late to get it uh out to voters in the in the style in which we need as conservatives
00:50:00.540but man he literally came on so professional the uh interviewer kind of jaw dropped didn't
00:50:08.280know how to answer the questions and it was basically criticizing the people that we all
00:50:12.300want to be defunded so you know our our final segment is called parting shots but you and you
00:50:18.400called it Shots Fired, but yours actually makes sense.