渥太华8个选区及选举结果 (本人预测选举结果与上届没变化)
- 主题发起人 ccc
- 开始时间
- 注册
- 2003-04-13
- 消息
- 239,444
- 荣誉分数
- 37,503
- 声望点数
- 1,393
- 注册
- 2003-04-13
- 消息
- 239,444
- 荣誉分数
- 37,503
- 声望点数
- 1,393
Do all-candidates debates matter?
It’s a question that drove me dozens of hours and hundreds of kilometres to watch 10 of these events this election campaign.
I’m not sure I came away with a stronger sense for which candidate will take the most ballots come voting day. Debates rarely, if ever, decide election outcomes, and that wasn’t really the point of my showing up.
From Ottawa Centre to Central Frontenac, I wanted to understand how these events serve the voters who turn up to spend their night with a bunch of politicians in a community hall. I also wanted to know what these debates might reveal about our politics today.
Here’s what I learned.
1. People are thinking a lot about climate change.
Questions on the subject came up at every debate. They varied by riding: flooding in the Valley, carbon pricing in rural regions, greening public transit in urban Ottawa. But I would call it the defining issue of most debates I attended.
Maybe that came from the Green party candidates who participated in every one, bringing climate considerations into policy discussions that traditionally see little overlap with “green” issues.
Or maybe it’s because public opinion is so polarized on the subject. For every few people pleading immediate and transformative climate action, there was someone urging calm in the face of the “manufactured” climate crisis.
The candidates were as divided as the audience, though climate change believers far outnumbered its deniers.
The People’s Party candidates would reject the idea of climate emergency, while the Green candidates would emphasize it. The Conservative, Liberal and NDP candidates were spread out somewhere in between.
Whatever the reason, and whatever their ideological position, Ottawans and the candidates running to represent them are thinking and talking a lot about climate change.
2. Like ’em or hate ’em, fringe candidates bring something to the table
There’s an argument to be made for restricting all-candidates debates to those running for the major parties. The candidates get more time for substantial debate, and voters get more time with those who’ve got a real shot at representing them on Parliament Hill.
The flip side is that this argument is self-perpetuating and undemocratic. And, I would now note, it ignores one of the ways unorthodox candidates contribute to our politics.
When other Ottawa South candidates reverted to party talking points or skirted around a tough question, Communist party candidate Larry Wasslen was a breath of fresh air.
He was charming, seemed authentic and offered some out-there-but-interesting policy ideas. The same could be said of several independent and fringe party candidates at other debates.
Sure, they won’t come close to winning, and it’s easy to take risks when you’ve got little to lose, but it can’t hurt to include candidates who bring something real to the table, and make voters consider where the usual suspects could step up their game.
On a similar note, community debates give a platform to mainstream candidates that a voter might discount from a distance.
In the past, the NDP has barely registered in the Carleton riding election results. But the crowd favourite at a Greely all-candidates debate was New Democrat Kevin Hua, an 18-year-old university student with big ideas and a wicked sense of humour.
No one, Hua included, seemed to think he’ll actually defeat heavyweight incumbent Pierre Poilievre. But constituents seemed to appreciate his fresh perspective.
3. The only way to lose a debate is by skipping it
Community debate audiences are pretty forgiving folk. Even the People’s Party candidates – whose positions on climate and immigration consistently generated heckling and boos at many debates I went to – had moments when the crowd was on their side.
Only twice did I hear talk of true disappointment in a candidate, and potential lost votes. On both occasions, it was because they hadn’t shown up.
Had Conservatives Justina McCaffrey (Kanata–Carleton) or Cheryl Gallant (Renfrew–Nipissing–Pembroke) passed along a message to the debate audience about the reason for their absence, it might have been forgiven.
But it was the lack of explanation and the perception they had better things to do that seemed to leave a sour taste in the mouths of many constituents.
Both candidates showed up at subsequent debates. Maybe that will appease voters. Maybe it won’t.
4. Sometimes, there are moments that feel real and important
Ideology aside, it was hard not to empathize with Ottawa–Vanier Conservative candidate Joel Bernard when he was asked about medically-assisted dying on the debate stage. His baby sister died a few months ago, he told the crowd, visibly emotional. He went on to make the point that he, too, had watched someone he loved spend a long time suffering, but he still had concerns about further expanding access to assisted death.
It’s the kind of unguarded moment that’s hard to come by when constituents get to know their politicians through a mailer or Facebook Live video. If you’re lucky, you might get something like it on your doorstep.
But it’s impossible to find the time and space for such a conversation in every one-on-one between a candidate and voter. Debates might be our best shot at getting to know the people behind the names on our ballots.
And speaking of authenticity, the question that never failed to produce perked ears and an audible “ouuu” from the crowd was the ask that candidates name a party policy or promise they disagreed with.
As most campaigning involves candidates debating each other’s platforms — and understandably so — there’s still a clear appetite amongst voters for independent thought. Candidates who can deliver on that leave an impression.
5. The debates say something about the riding and the people running to represent it
Many of the same questions were asked at different debates in different places. They spoke to what’s on the minds of constituents across Ottawa: climate change, electoral reform, SNC-Lavalin, Phoenix, affordability. But every debate also saw questions that were uniquely local.
In Orléans, candidates were asked how they would bring much-needed federal government jobs to the riding. In Ottawa Centre, redevelopment at LeBreton Flats and Tunney’s Pasture were topics of debate. Ottawa West–Nepean candidates were questioned on their willingness to protect NCC green space. In Kanata–Carleton, candidates were challenged to explain their positions on gun control.
Sometimes, these were questions addressed in party platforms. Most of the time, they weren’t. And the answers candidates gave said a lot about the kind of MP they’d be if elected – a strong contender for a cabinet spot, a backbench policy wonk, a constituency champion.
All have value, and MPs of every stripe can serve the country and their constituents in different ways. By showing up to ask these questions and hear their answers, constituents can get a better sense of what kind of person they might elect.
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- 2003-04-13
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“It’s too close to call,” said NDP candidate Emilie Taman, who was door-knocking in the Ottawa Centre riding with just two days to go in the federal election campaign. “I would not be being honest if I said, ‘Oh we have it in the bag.’
“What I can say is, we’ve been knocking on doors twice a day for seven months and you can feel, in the last three weeks, the shift.”
Taman is commonly held to be the NDP’s best hope for a breakthrough in the national capital region. Ottawa Centre is a riding the party held for more than a decade before Liberal Catherine McKenna’s upset victory in 2015. Now Taman is fighting hard to take it back.
With a small group of volunteers, Taman spent Saturday morning going door-to-door in Wellington West. Her father Larry Taman, a fellow lawyer, came out to help, just as he did for her previous campaigns as an NDP candidate in Ottawa–Vanier. This time it’s a different race, he said.
Unlike Ottawa–Vanier, Ottawa Centre is a riding with a long history of electing New Democrats. Pair that with a few more assets — “a candidate who sincerely wants to help people and wants to engage with them, and a platform that does the same” — and Larry Taman thinks his daughter has a shot.
Ottawa Centre NDP candidate Emilie Taman. Tony Caldwell / Postmedia
Emilie, meanwhile, teases her dad after he breaks from a long conversation on a doorstep with a constituent who has already voted.
“What are you doing there for that long, fool? Move it along!” she told him.
“I wonder where you came by this ability to talk to people … I wonder where you got that from,” he quipped.
When Taman met an undecided voter, she urged them to stop worrying about a Conservative getting elected — it won’t happen in Ottawa Centre, she says, but consider the likely national outcome of a Liberal minority and think about the value of electing a strong New Democrat.
“We’ve had some of the most progressive policies in our history when we’ve had a Liberal minority and a strong NDP: universal health care, the Canada Pension Plan, the Guaranteed Income Supplement. That’s how you get good policy out of Liberals,” Taman said.
Just down the street in Westboro, Team McKenna staging its last stand. The atmosphere was entirely different from Taman’s early-morning canvass: a room packed with volunteers, music pumping (appropriately, ‘I Ran’ by A Flock of Seagulls) and palpable excitement as they waited for the main attraction.
McKenna entered the room flanked by former Liberal prime minister Jean Chrétien. They passed through a receiving line of admiring Liberals and McKenna took the stage.
“Last election you took a chance on me, and we won. And we have worked so hard. And we are going to win again,” she told the cheering crowd. She went over milestones reached during this campaign: knocking on more than 100,000 doors, thousands of phone calls, myriad local platform promises.
With her trademark energy, she pulled out a handmade election countdown calendar her three children made for her and read Saturday’s quote: “Don’t watch the clock. Do what it does … keep going.”
Canada’s 20th prime minister then took the microphone. Asked later if Chrétien’s presence meant she was worried, McKenna rejected the suggestion.
“The reason I have Jean Chrétien here is because I really respect Jean Chrétien. I want to motivate my volunteers. We have run an amazing campaign, I feel like we’re in good shape, but we don’t take anything for granted in Ottawa Centre.”
Former Prime Minister Jean Chrétien joined Liberal candidate Catherine McKenna for a rally in Westboro on Saturday. Julie Oliver / Postmedia
The respects seemed mutual. Chrétien urged a vote for “a very good MP and a very good minister.”
He quipped, “You know, she has the humility to come and consult me, and I was happy to respond because I still love the game.”
He expounded on the traditional values of the Liberal party: centrism, generosity, fiscal responsibility, social consciousness.
“Yesterday, I was in two ridings in New Brunswick and one in Nova Scotia. I’ve been in Quebec, I’ve been in British Columbia, and I’m telling you that we will have a Liberal government on Monday,” Chrétien predicted.
He also made some jokes at the expense of the Conservatives, the party McKenna has criticized and warned voters about through the entire campaign. Asked if she was worried at all about Taman, McKenna said, “The only thing that worries me and the thing that motivates me every single day is making sure that we are able to continue the progress we’ve made.”
McKenna said Andrew Scheer and the Conservative party would be more likely to form a government than the NDP, and “that would mean we would lose everything.
“I ran in 2015 not because I didn’t like the NDP. In fact, I had a great deal of respect for Paul Dewar. But we needed to win every single riding that we could if we were going to form government, and that’s what politics is about … that’s what this election is about.”
A little further down the street, in the heart of Westboro, Conservative candidate Carol Clemenhagen hustled into her campaign office. She had just been to an event, and this late in the game, there was no stopping.
The Conservatives have won Ottawa Centre only once, in 1978. The steep odds of victory weren’t enough to deter Clemenhagen, a health-care executive who served as the first female president and CEO of the Canadian Hospital Association.
“What compelled me to run was very much my past experience in health care,” she said. “I got alarmed by the lack of fiscal responsibility because of the impact that can have — and will likely eventually have — on our ability to invest in complex programs like health care, like climate action.“
Ottawa Centre Conservative candidate Carol Clemenhagen. Tony Caldwell / Postmedia
That Clemenhagen is a pragmatist makes her a compelling Conservative option in Ottawa Centre, according to campaign volunteer and Carleton University biochemistry student Anthony De Krom.
“When you like at the rise of populism, in particular, it gets a little radical,” De Krom said. Clemenhagen, in contrast, is more in line with traditional conservatism. “She is putting up a really good fight, considering the history the Conservatives have in Ottawa Centre.”
- 注册
- 2003-04-13
- 消息
- 239,444
- 荣誉分数
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- 声望点数
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