09.24.2015 07:50 PM

French debate open thread

I’m in the Yukon and completely unable to see the debate. So, add your trenchant commentary below. I’ll post the best ones as KCCCC tomorrow, bien sur!

40 Comments

  1. Al in Cranbrook says:

    Debate on climate change just ruined a perfectly good dinner.

    What an utter crock of idiocy and hysterical lunacy! When will this stupid and ignorant shite finally run its course?

    • Derek Pearce says:

      When an effective enforceable system to combat climate change is in place. That’s when.

      • Matt says:

        Whatever that system is, it ain’t putting a price on carbon as Mulcair and Trudeau think.

        That is about raising revenue, not helping the environment.

      • UFP Ambassador says:

        So you mean when some technology comes along to make the Sun do what we want it to do? Sounds like a long wait.

    • Justin says:

      When we’re taxed to the hilt in order to assuage our guilt. The EPA investigation of VW is just the tipping point. The sheep are asking for more regulations.

  2. Al in Cranbrook says:

    Reminded, yet again, of how much I hate this debate format.

    Not to mention, the translator assigned to Harper is just painful to listen to…so much worse than the others, makes me wonder if it was deliberate.

  3. Jon Adams says:

    Not watching either, so i’m just make stuff up.

    Wow, who would have thought that Stephen Harper would just whip out his wang after the first niqab mention? And, I mean, I always suspected Gilles Duceppe of being a Talosian from “The Cage,” but never in my wildest dreams did I think he’d force Elizabeth May and Justin Trudeau to mate. Do you think they’ll ever find Tom Mulcair’s right arm?

  4. JH says:

    Some day when you have time WK, I need an explanation as to how CBC ends up with over 2000 posts in English on the political board before the French debate is even over.. They have to be stacking the deck. Any media outlet who makes posters identify themselves and come up with real email addresses doesn’t even come near that total. Maybe it is possible and I’m not techy enough to figure this out, but I keep thinking they have to be fiddling the system at the Corp? Personally from my observations this is one of the most popular political comment boards going and it comes nowhere near the posts the CBC generates – nor do any of the other major media outlets. What gives?

    • Observator says:

      No offence to Warren, but I’m pretty sure way more people know of and visit the CBC’s site than visit Warren’s site simply because it’s well known and Warren, despite his popularity — celebrity, even — in political circles, isn’t. Ask the average person on the street if they’ve heard of the CBC and they’ll probably say yes. Ask them who Warren Kinsella is and they probably won’t know.

    • Derek Pearce says:

      The National Post, until they forced people to use Facebook to comment just this week, regularly had over 1000, even 2-or-3000 comments on political articles, so I don’t think the CBC is gaming things. The CBC is even more national in audience than the Post in terms of political coverage. Furthermore, with both the Post and the Sun this week eliminating comments, maybe the CBC is one of the only places people could flock to express their opinions. The Globe and Star, I’m not sure why they have so relatively-few comments rather than why the CBC has so many.

      • JH says:

        Thanks for this, but I’m still not convinced. The huge response less than half way through a French debate raised the question mark for me. I see the talk about trolls all the time and while it may not be the CBC per se, it seemed to me to be something of a staged affair. It just didn’t ring true. I also don’t get the part where you see two or 3 responses and the other 75(?) are hidden until you go looking for them. How many folks really read through all that? It’s Friday and I’ve nothing to do, so I figure maybe I’d explore this question a bit more. Not earth-shaking but I am a bit suspicious of the media these days. They have a lot of problems, because of Net competition (160 being laid off at LaPresse today), hence my wondering if they are gaming the system.

        • Derek Pearce says:

          With due respect, the CBC doesn’t have the money to hire someone to pre-load a debate article with comments. Also, they collapse 75 replies at a time so that you *don’t* have to scroll through them all, and see only the most recent ones including any replies to you. Lastly, I guess I just don’t get what advantage there would be to having an employee load thousands of comments that no one one the board will read, let alone the wider public who never read the comments on politics articles anyhow.

      • Matt says:

        Post Media (NP, Toronto sun ect) moved to the new login system, they say, to remove anonymity in an attempt to clean up some of the rather nasty personal attacks between commenters.

  5. Mrs. Green Acres says:

    Mulcair is the Kanye West of Canadian Politics.

    Duceppe really bitchslapped him when he quoted Thomas in French saying something diametrically opposed to Tom in English.

    “My question is if Thomas talks to Tom every so often?” I *died*.

    • JAM says:

      From an entertainment perspective it was nice having Duceppe back at the podium. He’s got such a razer sharp wit… pity he’s a seperatist.

  6. Andre Goulet says:

    What? None of you nerds watched the Grand Débat?

    What a huge improvement on last week’s Globe fiasco, particularly in the dignity that Patrice Roy and Yves Boisvert brought to their profession. Stark contrast to the G&M editor-in-chief’s very public act of seppuku last week.

    Short version:
    Harper: B- for keeping to his talking points and keeping his cool,
    Trudeau: B for appearing competent and avoiding the shrill notes he hit at the G&M debate,
    Mulcair B+, but just barely, for telling Quebeckers what they wanna hear and appearing prime ministerial,
    May: C+ for managing to hold up okay in french and getting some valid points across,
    Duceppe: B for being a weirdo and an authentic politician.
    Radio-canada: A+ for being smart and putting together a really great debate.

    The one-two of last week and this week’s televised debates are a great argument for a future pointing to a Consortium supremacy.

    • Matt says:

      Technically:

      “The debate is being produced by a partnership of Radio-Canada, La Presse, Télé-Québec, CBC News, CTV News and Global News, together with Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Vine, Google, YouTube and CPAC.”

      Anyone know if the French language debate on TVA is still going ahead on October 2nd?

  7. Steve T says:

    Can you believe that Tom Mulcair jumped over the podium and put Justin in a headlock? And Lizzie May began cheering him on while guzzling from a bottle off scotch she had hidden in her purse? Too bad Harper had to wrestle it from her, kick Duceppe in the nuts, and then start bragging about “protecting society”. Craziness!

    (sorry, WK, since you can’t watch TV, I thought I’d give you a visual image of a much more interesting debate than actually transpired)

  8. Mary says:

    Oh so boring and PM Harper’s “voice” was brutal – the english translation was garbled and difficult to understand.

  9. Al in Cranbrook says:

    PM Harper gained ground tonight in Quebec…even Hebert suggested as much. His heated exchange with Mulcair will be the topic du jour tomorrow around office coffee pots.

    The 50% of Canadians whom think either a) climate change is completely overblown, or b) it’s a load of BS from the get-go, learned in spades how the other two parties intend to obsess over it until hell won’t have any more, and sell Canada down the river to AGW fanaticism at ever opportunity.

    The majority of Canadians are where Harper is on the refugee issue, and certainly regarding ISIS.

    (An aside: Coyne got properly smacked down tonight by Hebert over the matter of the niqab’s prominence in this election debate. Was great fun to watch.)

    • Mike says:

      Al, thank you for bringing comic relief to the discussion.

      Harper could have had sex with a goat during the debate and you would find a positive spin to it. I’m sure you’d say something along the lines of “Well at least he has the bestiality vote sown up”

    • Michael Bluth says:

      They Coyne-Hebert scrap during At Issue was the best exchange for the night. I really like Chantal. She made a great point that it was five minutes out of a two hour debate.

      I think overall it was a good night for everyone but Mulcair.

      Harper did pick up a little ground.

      Trudeau performed passable. Much less arm waving.

      May tried.

      Mulcair seemed to be actively working on keeping the anger down and was at times frustrated in that.

    • Justin says:

      To be fair to Al, climate change is not on anybody’s ‘radar’. Politicians going on and on claiming it to be the ‘most important issue of our time’ is a complete lie. A combined poll of Western nations some years ago found it didn’t even break 5%.

    • Domenico says:

      Al you need to get out more. I am sure there is a beautiful (global warming enhanced) Autumn happening in Cranbrook. Get out there and enjoy. In your defense, at least you’re not a 911 truther as well. I hope…..

  10. RogerX says:

    I saw it and heard the translations, but early in the ‘debate’ Mulcair and Harper got into a finger pointing tiff standing next to each other, and it appeared that Harper got the better of Mulcair, in French too!!!

  11. Matt says:

    Let me just say I only watch it in short bursts because the translator voices were annoying.

    From what I did see, it seemed to me there was an internal struggle going on within Muclair to prevent Angry Tom from bursting forth.

    I LOL’d at Harper’s response to a question, or maybe it was a comment from May – The camera focused in on him and he simply rolled his eyes and shook his head.

    Robert Fife on CTV:

    Toss up Harper or Mulcair. Trudeau same as before – stuck to talking points. If there was a loser, it was Trudeau.

    Harper very strong on the economy and niqab, weak on environment.

    Didn’t see much to move the polls.

    Coyne on CBC At issue seemed to think Trudeau had a good performance. He and Chantal Herbert really went at each other. Had they been in Studio, Mansbridge might have had to jump in between them.

  12. Todd Robdon says:

    Lamest kung fu movie ever.

  13. bobbie says:

    1) we turned it off at the 48 minute mark.
    2) turned it back on for the last 20 minutes.
    Did we miss anything? No. Not one thing.

    A race for second place between Mulcair and Trudeau – Trudeau doing better than Mulcair and Harper benefits from Duceppe.

    Election results on Oct. 19? – Trudeau becomes the official opposition, NDP third party. Harper majority.

  14. billg says:

    Didn’t see it, was doing life stuff. On the radio this morning thru a CTV feed, old Bobby Fife said that Mulcair and Harper pretty much sawed each other off, and, Duceppe and Trudeau were the ones who looked out of place, then, said, Trudeau looked to be the loser of this debate.
    Then read a few columnists who thought Trudeau and Harper did ok and Mulcair struggled.
    I think the only people who watch these things now are the people who already know who they are voting for.

  15. Kaiser Helmets 'n Motorbikes says:

    Ali-Mulla-claire & the 40 thieves are trying to pull a fast one on every single Old Stock Francophone in Quebec. He’s been playing them for nijab wearing fools for the past four years.

    They can be Blockheads… but they are true freedom loving democratic “liberals”. Last night might have been a veil too far for the Mulla. When the Francos turn on a politician, it is never a pretty sight.

  16. Maps Onburt says:

    It cracked me up that the English translator for Trudeau had the same high, squeaky voice as Trudeau – although he didn’t get the breathless part quite right.

  17. I rather liked Chantal Heber’s smackdown on Andrew Coyne during At Issue last night as opposed to the debate itself. (And local CBC radio was playing it here in Saskatoon during the morning show)

  18. Sean says:

    Justin and Tom believe that genuflecting political correctness sells like hot cakes. Well it doesn’t. In Europe a significant number of citizens are identifying with Putanism, a trend which is concerning European leaders. People want to be heard and not silenced by taunts of being a racist every time they talk about their cultural values of what is reasonable accommodation.

  19. CanadianKate says:

    Caught only the last half. Was reasonably pleased with the voices chosen for the translators. I was doing housework while listening and after a few minutes could identify each of the ‘candidates’ as they were translated. Any poor grammar, etc. I put down to on-the-fly translation and again cursed myself for not bothering to learn our country’s second language (I hang around with Europeans who seem to pick up languages with the regularity I pick up new electronics.)

    Agree with Al that At Issue was worth watching for the smackdowns (re niqab and, again later over the translation of Mulcair’s original comments on water that Trudeau seemed to see as a smoking gun.) Didn’t see anything nearly as good in the part of the debate I watched.

    Was struck by how close Duceppe was to Harper on many issues. Which could make the Bloq a ‘kingmaker’ if the Cons end up with a narrow minority and Duceppe actually wins some seats (not sure what the seat projections show for him.)

    Hated the climate change ‘loaded’ questions. Point me to the ‘millions’ who have died from climate change so far. I reject the question’s premise, therefore would have been tempted to not answer.

  20. Matt says:

    Duceppe won the debate…………….. for Stephen Harper

    http://ipolitics.ca/2015/09/25/duceppe-won-the-debate-for-harper/

  21. Bruce Marcille says:

    Love the Monty Python inspired visuals being provided.

    But here’s an actual visual provided by my niece:

    In Montréal for the day, she and her beau were climbing Mount Royal. Whom do they see out for a jog but the Dauphin, himself. On a cool fall day, he is running the streets of Mount royal, shirtless and glistening.

    No cameramen in sight, but odd, nonetheless.
    When every backbench-wannabe is watching their every image, JT (tattooed and shirtless) has chosen this as his best option when heading out the door, while seeking to be PM.

    Is there anything wrong with jogging shirtless in Montréal? Of course not.
    But is this the image you choose, mid-campaign, while being portrayed as “just not ready?”

    • Scotian says:

      It shows he is comfortable in his own skin, not afraid to show it, and is real. Personally, I find that a refreshing and preferable change from the prepackaged one size fits all leaders image that has become too much the norm in the past couple of decades, and I would not be surprised for others to feel that way too. Say what you will about Trudeau, he clearly is comfortable with himself and who he is, and he prefers to show himself honestly rather than follow the more traditional leader script on image making. Whether in the end it will work for him or not remains to be seen, but at the least it is clearly an honest approach, and that is worth consideration too. Which is most important in a leader, someone able to lead, or someone able to appear to be able to lead? Too often in recent elections the appearance/perception has mattered more than the reality, and look where that has gotten us in terms of quality policy discussions and considerations and in real leadership as opposed to posturing.

  22. Christian says:

    Didn’t watch the debate – don’t much care anymore as I think these events are now just for partisans. I’ve sadly resigned myself that we’re going to be stuck with Harper after this is all done. What we have here is almost the exact same situation as the UK election. Parties deadlocked but then the machinery of the FPTP system kicked in and rewarded splits to Cameron’s Conservatives (its also interesting that Harper now has the guy who helped Cameron win now advising him). This will I’m afraid happen again unless something big occurs allowing one of the opposition parties to surge ahead. So far that isn’t happening. But if Harper lands a majority, the pressure on the NDP and Liberals to come to terms will be huge and it may be the end of both Mulcair and Trudeau. I kinda hope it is actually as I’m disappointed and tired of both of them.

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