"As noted, there were no major problems with _________ prior to 2018. It’s a very Ottawa mindset to conclude that we need a bloated government agency to take charge of something that is functioning efficiently outside of government hands."
If one had to capture "what went wrong" over the past decade of the Trudeau Liberals, this paragraph about sums it up.
Anybody get the feeling that we in the West had solved most of the problems in our societies around 2012-2015 and then spent the last decade "fixing" what wasn't broken and in the process breaking everything?
We in Canada at least seemed to have achieved fiscal balance, law and order, racial/gender/religious tolerance and general reasonableness, but just couldn't handle this so had to create problems for ourselves.
'Wokeness' and DEI re-started factional strife just when we thought we had equality, government overreached and over-spent into areas they had no business in, we went too hard into sympathy for criminals and the non-productive to the point where they are totally undeterred, mass immigration in the name of diversity has caused massive unnecessary strain on just about every western country, causing far-right over-correction in some places too.
In Canada, the US, and much of Europe, the answer for what to do 10 years ago seemed to be "pretty much nothing" and we would have been just fine.
Interesting concept . We were in a pretty good place all things considered until the rise of this progressive (catchy name but not very progressive) movement to correct past wrongs. Perhaps at one time it was well intended but it moved into what essentially was a movement to destroy market based economics and get as many people as possible on the government payroll through social supports or government jobs. (ie -some form of communist ideals while a certain group rakes in all the cash behind their castle walls). They of course, swung it all too far the other way and we broke most of the functions of society and government.
Early 2000's would be the first part of the modern "everything's pretty ok" era, except for the Iraq/Afghanistan Wars and the Great Financial Crisis though these weren't nearly as big a deal in Canada compared to other places (our involvement in Afghanistan was significant but pretty uncontroversial). 2012 is the year that I've identified as peak "nothing's going on and that's amazing".
2015/2016 is when things started to noticeably turn, with SJW/Alt-right culture wars, Brexit, Trump, and Trudeau. Good times were still coasting on fumes as late as 2018 or 2019 and then Covid fully ushered in whatever the hell is going on now.
Late 90's is when stimulus become the solution to all problems, which in turn lead to the serial asset bubble hamster wheel that the western world can't seem to escape. Countries should have been allowed to default during the Asian Financial Crisis in 1997, and LTCM should have been allowed to fail in 1998.
The recent trend toward governments not letting recessions happen is a bit disturbing.
Oh no the economy is contracting due to the natural business cycle and/or poor management that needs self-correction - better immediately print shitloads of money to prop up asset holders and provide income support for anyone out of work while continuing to import a million people a year!
I think this is part of why the young have been denied buying opportunities for things like real estate.
To me, the entire debate format as envisioned by a government sponsored Debate Commission just reeks of the Laurentian view of Canada.
Two debates. One entirely in French. In Montreal. Two time zones removed from Alberta and three from BC. A second debate entirely in English. In Montreal, with the same time zone issues as the French Debate. The English language debate is broad ranging that discusses lots of topics but shallow on information sharing.
This brings me to ask the obvious: why wouldn’t a Debate Commission look past the outskirts of Toronto and see the possibilities of having a debate in western Canada? Winnipeg is the geographical centre of the action, or how about Edmonton, Calgary or Victoria?
This is a tenuous time for our federation. By appearances the central Canadian voters are choosing to vote in another Liberal government. This is not what many western Canadian voters are hoping for, as yet another government looms that is indifferent to the differing economic priorities held by those in the resource and agricultural sectors. The Debate Commission could have opened up a badly needed dialogue that featured a debate held in the west and focused on the issues that central Canada yawns at.
Darcy, you ask why the debates have to be in Montreal or Toronto. I further ask why the Bloc is represented in the English debate? Oh, the argument can be put forth that some Quebecois speak English either as a first or second language but, to be eloquent about it, "Tough!"
M. Blanchet represents Quebec's perspective, whether in the BQ or the LPC caucus, and Quebec will hold the balance of power. Knowing what they are thinking provides a glimpse of the future LPC direction.
Well put Mr. Breakenridge but let's look at the elephant in the room. You are correct on all points but the telling comment came from the head of the Commission when speaking with Bruce Cochran of the, wait for it ... CBC who said "there is only so much we can do to control free speech". If that doesn't fit with the whole federal government (read JT's decision to run the debates) attitude to we voters then nothing much does.
Rebel News had to go to court twice to get into the scrum and think what you will about Rebel and Ezra, independent media deserve a pace in the scrum. The new media was prepared to ask the questions that the legacy media would ask Poilievre but not Carney - how many genders are there and do women deserve a safe place in washrooms, sports, jails and similar.
The dust up the evening of the English debate was because of an un-hinged reporter from the Hill Times (itself a start up) who was trying to goad Ezra into blowing up in front of the cameras. It didn't work so the Commission was forced to cancel the scrum. The real tell was the CBC panelists blaming "those people" for causing a security threat to the 'real reporters' of the CBC et al. What a pile of horse pucks folks. The fix was in but the Commission needed something to hang a cancellation on and the Hills Times handed it to them - what a gong show.
One last thing, the leaders could easily have offered to meet the media afterwards anyway even remotely if needed for 'security'. A lost opportunity for Poilievre to build on the points he made and for Carney to be grilled when he was rattled. Now THAT would have been an event.
How hard is it to put all the reporters names in a hat and draw the questions at random? Why don't we leave debates to groups like Munk Debates who excel at this sort of thing. And why not have a debate at a debate instead of tiktok blurbs.
There is a tension between the legacy media and the new media outlets that are displacing and disrupting the dominant media culture that is withering on the vine.
These tensions are healthy but a government agency should not be the one to referee participation, nor should politicians decide whether to take questions from media outlets on the outer edges of the action.
Ultimately, the ones who are deciding are the voters who are competent enough to decide where to get their information.
The debate commission is an example of deciding to fix something that isn’t broken, and managing to break it with the supposed fix. It’s interesting that over the same time period, the US went from a quasi-establishment Commission on Presidential Debates to an approach where different news organizations have hosted debates on a more ad hoc basis. The debates still happened, despite Trump’s aversion to them, and they were probably more effective than the older commission-sponsored events. This approach also happened because the parties simply refused to deal with the old commission and made their own arrangements. I’m not clear why Canadian parties couldn’t do the same thing.
One thing the debate commission got right was excluding the Green Party. There was once a tenuous argument that they were a potential up and coming political force in Canada that would be disadvantaged by exclusion. At this point, it’s obvious that they’re political gadflies who are going nowhere and mostly a vanity project of one person. A similar argument could be made for the NDP, although they’ve been a competitive national contender for government recently enough to justify inclusion. As for the Bloc, being excluded would probably be the greatest gift they could be granted in terms of stoking outrage at Quebec being “excluded”. One party is not Quebec, and the Bloc is hardly Quebec’s sole representation in national politics. However, Quebec nationalists have successfully made the argument that they were somehow “left out” of the 1982 constitution because their separatist provincial government didn’t sign a document passed in Parliament with an overwhelming majority of Quebec MPs.
If parties simply refused to deal with the old commission and made their own arrangements, which parties do you think would participate? One on one debates would actually be more interesting, IMO.
You cannot forget the debates in 2019, where Rosemary Barton was allowed to moderate a debate, and then a few days later her name was attached to a CBC lawsuit suing the CPC over fair use of clips in ads (which the CPC won).
The whole Canadian political scene is fast becoming a farce of the greatest proportions. As far as the Media is concerned, anyone with a smart phone and an internet connection can be a "journalist"
The origin of the commission is just another cobblestone in an expanding path of governments everywhere. Control everything you can get your hands on fair or foul. The old saying of “He who pays the piper…” is now the MO unfortunately. Everything from health care to the media to industrial policy become bloated and hugely inefficient and that is the point. When everything is deemed a crisis people need government reassurance that they will be provided for even though the purported saviour was indeed the root cause.
"The commission hasn’t made things better. In this important and consequential election, it fell flat on its face. We don’t need it and we’ll be better off without it." = Absolutely true; and just another case of the Liberals continuing to impoverish us to no effect. And what does the current PM say, in effect? Dig us deeper and deeper in debt for nothing.
Good column; I generally agree with Rob's perspective on this.
It has seemed for some time, nearly two decades, that the centre-left and left-leaning parties in Canada (Liberals-Bloc-NDP-Green) have been working together - sometimes officially, the rest of the time, unofficially - to 'stop the Conservative Party' from winning a Commons vote, non-confidence vote, committee resolutions, and so on.
It's a given that the NDP and the Greens (not sure about the Bloc) are, shall we say, impoverished when compared with the CPC and the Liberals.
Is it conceivable that the Liberals (or their funders) have been quietly back-door funding (at least) the NDP and Green parties in exchange for their voting and media support when they need it?
On the one hand, it seems the answer would seem to be a rather obvious 'no', as on the face of it, the Liberals would (you'd think) prefer they have no competition on the Left.
Given that the Liberals DO have competition on the Left that are financially weak parties who have Canadians that will vote for them to fluctuating degrees, wouldn't it be politically expedient for the Liberals (or their funders) to covertly fund these financially weak parties in order to advance the LPC agenda?
As long as the Liberals (or their funders) controlled a large pot of funding for these other leftist parties, they could pull that funding quickly and impoverish them should the polls suggest they are becoming electorally relevant enough to hurt the LPC. Fund the Greens and NDP when you need them, leave them bereft if they somehow advance in the polls and threaten the Liberals hold on power, is essentially what I'm suggesting is happening.
When I think it through from the point of view of the Liberals, this seems more likely what they've been doing, at least for the past 10 or more years.
The people with the financial heft to prop up the NDP through back channels would want a tax receipt wouldn’t they? Tax breaks bring everyone out of the shadows and on lists as the trade off.
I'm surprised you think the Liberals are competent enough to do this sort of manipulation. Name me one thing they have completed that was as intended, on time or on budget.
We'll see after election day - if they beat the CPC (again) after the past ten years of essentially destroying the country, I'm thinking the LPC will view it as a win (as intended), on time (actually early if you think they had intended on governing until October 2025) and on budget (I'm betting they've spent less than they budgeted for the election because they had the Trump effect).
I am well aware at their success in maintaining power politically, but that may be more a reflection of how bad the others are in politics. What they are less successful at is actually governing.
May I add an additional observation: the abolition of this government appointed body would make it less likely that Judges will ultimately decide who can participate in the debates, or in the related and unruly “journalistic scrums” that are associated with them.
Because, as you will recall: “Rebel News” only got its nose in the tent, by asserting to a Court that it was “journalistic organization” and that it was therefore legally entitled to a seat at the journalistic table.
And a judge bought the argument and issued an interim order requiring the Commission to give it one – although as I understand it, that case never went to a full trial.
But do we really want a system where the management of debates (and so-called “scrums”) is regulated by courts and judges too?
Or do we want a free “market place of ideas” that operates more like a real “market” – which is to say, free and fluid, with a minimum of government rulemaking, and an open playing field for civil society?
Not least because of the elephant that is already in the room.
Namely, so many nominally “independent journalists” who, in practical terms, are already on the “government payroll”; and who also operate in environments where there is a preferred, “party line” - be it the Toronto Star line or the National Post/Sun Media line.
Canada is becoming less and less viable as a unitary state. The multiple reasons for the decay stem from Central Canada. This article helps in understanding that.
Blanchet should not be involved in any debates, as he is not a potential federal leader. There should be a law requiring qualification as a federal party require running candidates in at least 6 provinces, 2 territories, and more than 173 ridings.
"As noted, there were no major problems with _________ prior to 2018. It’s a very Ottawa mindset to conclude that we need a bloated government agency to take charge of something that is functioning efficiently outside of government hands."
If one had to capture "what went wrong" over the past decade of the Trudeau Liberals, this paragraph about sums it up.
For many, many, files.
Anybody get the feeling that we in the West had solved most of the problems in our societies around 2012-2015 and then spent the last decade "fixing" what wasn't broken and in the process breaking everything?
We in Canada at least seemed to have achieved fiscal balance, law and order, racial/gender/religious tolerance and general reasonableness, but just couldn't handle this so had to create problems for ourselves.
'Wokeness' and DEI re-started factional strife just when we thought we had equality, government overreached and over-spent into areas they had no business in, we went too hard into sympathy for criminals and the non-productive to the point where they are totally undeterred, mass immigration in the name of diversity has caused massive unnecessary strain on just about every western country, causing far-right over-correction in some places too.
In Canada, the US, and much of Europe, the answer for what to do 10 years ago seemed to be "pretty much nothing" and we would have been just fine.
How can you say that just because things were fine, we couldn't use any number of teachable moments from the gracious Liberal leadership.
Interesting concept . We were in a pretty good place all things considered until the rise of this progressive (catchy name but not very progressive) movement to correct past wrongs. Perhaps at one time it was well intended but it moved into what essentially was a movement to destroy market based economics and get as many people as possible on the government payroll through social supports or government jobs. (ie -some form of communist ideals while a certain group rakes in all the cash behind their castle walls). They of course, swung it all too far the other way and we broke most of the functions of society and government.
I would back that up to 25 years.
Early 2000's would be the first part of the modern "everything's pretty ok" era, except for the Iraq/Afghanistan Wars and the Great Financial Crisis though these weren't nearly as big a deal in Canada compared to other places (our involvement in Afghanistan was significant but pretty uncontroversial). 2012 is the year that I've identified as peak "nothing's going on and that's amazing".
2015/2016 is when things started to noticeably turn, with SJW/Alt-right culture wars, Brexit, Trump, and Trudeau. Good times were still coasting on fumes as late as 2018 or 2019 and then Covid fully ushered in whatever the hell is going on now.
Late 90's is when stimulus become the solution to all problems, which in turn lead to the serial asset bubble hamster wheel that the western world can't seem to escape. Countries should have been allowed to default during the Asian Financial Crisis in 1997, and LTCM should have been allowed to fail in 1998.
The recent trend toward governments not letting recessions happen is a bit disturbing.
Oh no the economy is contracting due to the natural business cycle and/or poor management that needs self-correction - better immediately print shitloads of money to prop up asset holders and provide income support for anyone out of work while continuing to import a million people a year!
I think this is part of why the young have been denied buying opportunities for things like real estate.
Perfect comment but the year might need changing sometimes.
To me, the entire debate format as envisioned by a government sponsored Debate Commission just reeks of the Laurentian view of Canada.
Two debates. One entirely in French. In Montreal. Two time zones removed from Alberta and three from BC. A second debate entirely in English. In Montreal, with the same time zone issues as the French Debate. The English language debate is broad ranging that discusses lots of topics but shallow on information sharing.
This brings me to ask the obvious: why wouldn’t a Debate Commission look past the outskirts of Toronto and see the possibilities of having a debate in western Canada? Winnipeg is the geographical centre of the action, or how about Edmonton, Calgary or Victoria?
This is a tenuous time for our federation. By appearances the central Canadian voters are choosing to vote in another Liberal government. This is not what many western Canadian voters are hoping for, as yet another government looms that is indifferent to the differing economic priorities held by those in the resource and agricultural sectors. The Debate Commission could have opened up a badly needed dialogue that featured a debate held in the west and focused on the issues that central Canada yawns at.
Darcy, you ask why the debates have to be in Montreal or Toronto. I further ask why the Bloc is represented in the English debate? Oh, the argument can be put forth that some Quebecois speak English either as a first or second language but, to be eloquent about it, "Tough!"
M. Blanchet represents Quebec's perspective, whether in the BQ or the LPC caucus, and Quebec will hold the balance of power. Knowing what they are thinking provides a glimpse of the future LPC direction.
Well put Mr. Breakenridge but let's look at the elephant in the room. You are correct on all points but the telling comment came from the head of the Commission when speaking with Bruce Cochran of the, wait for it ... CBC who said "there is only so much we can do to control free speech". If that doesn't fit with the whole federal government (read JT's decision to run the debates) attitude to we voters then nothing much does.
Rebel News had to go to court twice to get into the scrum and think what you will about Rebel and Ezra, independent media deserve a pace in the scrum. The new media was prepared to ask the questions that the legacy media would ask Poilievre but not Carney - how many genders are there and do women deserve a safe place in washrooms, sports, jails and similar.
The dust up the evening of the English debate was because of an un-hinged reporter from the Hill Times (itself a start up) who was trying to goad Ezra into blowing up in front of the cameras. It didn't work so the Commission was forced to cancel the scrum. The real tell was the CBC panelists blaming "those people" for causing a security threat to the 'real reporters' of the CBC et al. What a pile of horse pucks folks. The fix was in but the Commission needed something to hang a cancellation on and the Hills Times handed it to them - what a gong show.
One last thing, the leaders could easily have offered to meet the media afterwards anyway even remotely if needed for 'security'. A lost opportunity for Poilievre to build on the points he made and for Carney to be grilled when he was rattled. Now THAT would have been an event.
How hard is it to put all the reporters names in a hat and draw the questions at random? Why don't we leave debates to groups like Munk Debates who excel at this sort of thing. And why not have a debate at a debate instead of tiktok blurbs.
I hear you Dan - good comment!
There is a tension between the legacy media and the new media outlets that are displacing and disrupting the dominant media culture that is withering on the vine.
These tensions are healthy but a government agency should not be the one to referee participation, nor should politicians decide whether to take questions from media outlets on the outer edges of the action.
Ultimately, the ones who are deciding are the voters who are competent enough to decide where to get their information.
The debate commission is an example of deciding to fix something that isn’t broken, and managing to break it with the supposed fix. It’s interesting that over the same time period, the US went from a quasi-establishment Commission on Presidential Debates to an approach where different news organizations have hosted debates on a more ad hoc basis. The debates still happened, despite Trump’s aversion to them, and they were probably more effective than the older commission-sponsored events. This approach also happened because the parties simply refused to deal with the old commission and made their own arrangements. I’m not clear why Canadian parties couldn’t do the same thing.
One thing the debate commission got right was excluding the Green Party. There was once a tenuous argument that they were a potential up and coming political force in Canada that would be disadvantaged by exclusion. At this point, it’s obvious that they’re political gadflies who are going nowhere and mostly a vanity project of one person. A similar argument could be made for the NDP, although they’ve been a competitive national contender for government recently enough to justify inclusion. As for the Bloc, being excluded would probably be the greatest gift they could be granted in terms of stoking outrage at Quebec being “excluded”. One party is not Quebec, and the Bloc is hardly Quebec’s sole representation in national politics. However, Quebec nationalists have successfully made the argument that they were somehow “left out” of the 1982 constitution because their separatist provincial government didn’t sign a document passed in Parliament with an overwhelming majority of Quebec MPs.
Why does a separate nation even have voting MPs in another Nation's parliament?
If parties simply refused to deal with the old commission and made their own arrangements, which parties do you think would participate? One on one debates would actually be more interesting, IMO.
You cannot forget the debates in 2019, where Rosemary Barton was allowed to moderate a debate, and then a few days later her name was attached to a CBC lawsuit suing the CPC over fair use of clips in ads (which the CPC won).
The whole Canadian political scene is fast becoming a farce of the greatest proportions. As far as the Media is concerned, anyone with a smart phone and an internet connection can be a "journalist"
Soon we will be able to define a journalist by looking at the Government payroll. Journalists will be the ones on the Phoenix system.
Yepp.
The origin of the commission is just another cobblestone in an expanding path of governments everywhere. Control everything you can get your hands on fair or foul. The old saying of “He who pays the piper…” is now the MO unfortunately. Everything from health care to the media to industrial policy become bloated and hugely inefficient and that is the point. When everything is deemed a crisis people need government reassurance that they will be provided for even though the purported saviour was indeed the root cause.
Typical LPC solution, imagine a problem then throw lots of money at it. Bye bye “debate commission”.
"The commission hasn’t made things better. In this important and consequential election, it fell flat on its face. We don’t need it and we’ll be better off without it." = Absolutely true; and just another case of the Liberals continuing to impoverish us to no effect. And what does the current PM say, in effect? Dig us deeper and deeper in debt for nothing.
Good column; I generally agree with Rob's perspective on this.
It has seemed for some time, nearly two decades, that the centre-left and left-leaning parties in Canada (Liberals-Bloc-NDP-Green) have been working together - sometimes officially, the rest of the time, unofficially - to 'stop the Conservative Party' from winning a Commons vote, non-confidence vote, committee resolutions, and so on.
It's a given that the NDP and the Greens (not sure about the Bloc) are, shall we say, impoverished when compared with the CPC and the Liberals.
Is it conceivable that the Liberals (or their funders) have been quietly back-door funding (at least) the NDP and Green parties in exchange for their voting and media support when they need it?
On the one hand, it seems the answer would seem to be a rather obvious 'no', as on the face of it, the Liberals would (you'd think) prefer they have no competition on the Left.
Given that the Liberals DO have competition on the Left that are financially weak parties who have Canadians that will vote for them to fluctuating degrees, wouldn't it be politically expedient for the Liberals (or their funders) to covertly fund these financially weak parties in order to advance the LPC agenda?
As long as the Liberals (or their funders) controlled a large pot of funding for these other leftist parties, they could pull that funding quickly and impoverish them should the polls suggest they are becoming electorally relevant enough to hurt the LPC. Fund the Greens and NDP when you need them, leave them bereft if they somehow advance in the polls and threaten the Liberals hold on power, is essentially what I'm suggesting is happening.
When I think it through from the point of view of the Liberals, this seems more likely what they've been doing, at least for the past 10 or more years.
Thoughts?
The people with the financial heft to prop up the NDP through back channels would want a tax receipt wouldn’t they? Tax breaks bring everyone out of the shadows and on lists as the trade off.
That's assuming anyone is paying attention....
I'm surprised you think the Liberals are competent enough to do this sort of manipulation. Name me one thing they have completed that was as intended, on time or on budget.
We'll see after election day - if they beat the CPC (again) after the past ten years of essentially destroying the country, I'm thinking the LPC will view it as a win (as intended), on time (actually early if you think they had intended on governing until October 2025) and on budget (I'm betting they've spent less than they budgeted for the election because they had the Trump effect).
I am well aware at their success in maintaining power politically, but that may be more a reflection of how bad the others are in politics. What they are less successful at is actually governing.
We agree completely on that!
May I add an additional observation: the abolition of this government appointed body would make it less likely that Judges will ultimately decide who can participate in the debates, or in the related and unruly “journalistic scrums” that are associated with them.
Because, as you will recall: “Rebel News” only got its nose in the tent, by asserting to a Court that it was “journalistic organization” and that it was therefore legally entitled to a seat at the journalistic table.
And a judge bought the argument and issued an interim order requiring the Commission to give it one – although as I understand it, that case never went to a full trial.
But do we really want a system where the management of debates (and so-called “scrums”) is regulated by courts and judges too?
Or do we want a free “market place of ideas” that operates more like a real “market” – which is to say, free and fluid, with a minimum of government rulemaking, and an open playing field for civil society?
Not least because of the elephant that is already in the room.
Namely, so many nominally “independent journalists” who, in practical terms, are already on the “government payroll”; and who also operate in environments where there is a preferred, “party line” - be it the Toronto Star line or the National Post/Sun Media line.
Canada is becoming less and less viable as a unitary state. The multiple reasons for the decay stem from Central Canada. This article helps in understanding that.
Blanchet should not be involved in any debates, as he is not a potential federal leader. There should be a law requiring qualification as a federal party require running candidates in at least 6 provinces, 2 territories, and more than 173 ridings.