On my way home tonight, I listened to the election debate on CBC radio.  This is my first time listen to any election debate live.  My first impression is we have too many political parties in Canada.  The debate is too crowed with all five leaders trying to talk or yell at the same time.  I don’t think debate help the voters at all.  The candidate simply restating their policy in the debate, voters already know those information from newspaper.  It seems the candidates of all the opposite parties only know how to attack the party in control of the government.  Occasionally they present some bits and pieces of their own policy, but somehow you sense their math do not add up and some of the policies are even contradicting with each other.  The current prime minister is not much better.  He never response to those attack directly, just restating what the government had done in that area.

Each party claim they have a platform, but the platforms are just some empty slogans.  Voters don’t get much information how things will turn out.  All we know is when they are elected, they promise to spend how much money on this or on that, tax cut or tax raise here and there.  Never mind those are just election promises that never intended to keep.  Even if the elected keep their promise, no one knows whether the maths adds up, whether or not those promises feasible at all?  No wonder the public don’t feel much interest in politics, no one is addressing any real issues.  They are not even debating, there is no communication, they are just talking their own stuff.  Maybe we should change the format of the debate.  Instead of having a round table debate, we should have a series of round robin debate, putting the leaders head to head with each other.  Allow them to focus their attack and give them enough time to unmask the bullshit of the other party.

Elizabeth May of the Green Party and Layton of NDP seems to be the best talker in the debate.  It is much easier to irresponsible policy that appeals to everyone than a sound policy that actually works.  Harper of the Conservative may not be the best speaker in the debate, but he is the only one quote real statistic to back up his policy.  Other candidates rely on stories or anecdote to sell their ideas.  I think using number alone worth giving Harper some credits over the other candidates.