Political Infotainment

The first French and English leaders debates in this election have finished. Every news outlet will no doubt complain that they are dull. It is true, with four leaders taking turns in a “debate,” it is really a policy briefing with each of them taking turns, topic by topic. It is informative but not really a debate. There is simply no way to have an organized and interesting four-way debate. Compounding the problem is that most of the voters will not be voting for any of the leaders. I live in the district that just recently represented by Svend Robinson, who often disagrees with the leader of the NDP whoever that was. And this time, I am voting for Bill Siksay and I do not care if I like Jack Layton or not. I am sending someone to represent me, and if the party of my representative is doing things I do not think it should be doing, I fully expect my representative to go against his party. It would make for a much more informative exercise if we have a two round system then we can have the two candidates in the run-off to debate each other. We can then know not only what their parties’ positions are, but theirs as well. This way, I think we would be better served as well as entertained.