Andrew Coyne: Trudeau is gaming the election debate system, just like Harper before him

Justin Trudeau has been accused of being too afraid to attend all the debates in the upcoming federal election. Ernest Doroszuk/Postmedia

It has been expressed that what is left today is a position that is as cynical and selfish as the one that preceded it, only with the pretense of a high principle.

In explaining why the prime minister would not participate in the full calendar of discussions of leaders in this election campaign, as he had done in 2015, liberal communications director Daniel Lauzon said that his leader would only appear at the debates organized by the Commission Federal Leaders Debates: the one designed and implemented by the liberals.

Certainly, for tactical reasons, Stephen Harper refused to participate in what was then the “official” debate in English, overseen by a clique of broadcasters known as “the Consortium”, in favor of a mix of different debates with different debates, sponsors, different platforms and audiences much smaller.

Disposable pretexts

It has been said that it is hardly better for his successor to play the system in the direction of the opposition, using official debates as an excuse to get rid of others. Even the pretext proved to be disposable: as soon as the party issued its rationalization of the debates of the commission only to harden the debates of Maclean and Munk when it was announced that Justin Trudeau would participate in a French debate organized by the Quebec TVA network.

Likewise, if the 2015 debates were a doubtful advance on the consortium model, the current approach seems to be an important step backward. Harper ended up participating in five debates; Trudeau seems determined to limit his exposure to three.

It should be noted that the debates of the commission have fallen somewhat in the hands of an organization, the Canadian Debate Production Partnership, which looks suspiciously like the former consortium, the same group of public and private broadcasters, only with the incorporation of an editor of left or two. The point of entrusting the responsibility of the debates to an independent public body, the rules established long before the election, instead of the last-minute negotiations between the participants, was to take away their own interest.

Source: Andrew Coyne | National Post