The Debates Begin!

Le debat de la langue francaise pour l'election federale Canadien est ce soir.

I highly advise all Canadians to put aside Fear Factor in order to watch this very important piece of television programming. Tonight, the federal candidate mud-slinging and (hopefully) issue-grinding kicks off. Tomorrow night, there will then be the English language debate.

This could be a good chance for you to get caught up with the various party platforms, if you have not already done so, and make an informed choice in this year's federal election. Of course, visiting the various party websites would also be a good idea.

Some of my initial thoughts: It will be easy to sling mud at the Liberals. I expect Mr. Harper to do a lot of this. I pray that Mr. Layton will refrain from too much of it. I hope that our federal candidates engage in much more meaningful debate than simply pointing out how much the Liberals suck.

I hope that these debates will be much more meaningful than the last federal election debates. In 2000, Stockwell Day and Jean Chretien called each other names. Gilles Duceppe presented some intelligent views from his province. Joe Clark giggled at the fighting between Chretien and Day, and Alexa McDonough tried to get people to talk about medicare (ironically, one of the top issues in this current election and a conversation that was subsequently avoided by any of the other candidates in the 2000 debates).

At any rate, I'll likely post some of my thoughts on the debates here over the next couple of days.