Wow.
“The federal Conservative Party says it won’t participate in the traditional leaders’ debates run by a consortium of broadcasters including CBC, CTV and Global and will instead accept up to five independently staged debates in the run-up to the fall federal election.
The decision by the Harper Conservatives appears to deal a serious if not fatal blow to the near-monopoly that broadcasters such as CBC have had in determining how federal political leaders square off before national votes.
Conservative campaign spokesman Kory Teneycke said the Tories have already accepted proposals for two new rival debates – one organized by Maclean’s magazine and its owner Rogers, and the other by French-language broadcaster TVA.
The Conservative decision now puts pressure on other federal political parties to follow suit.
The NDP said they have accepted the TVA and Maclean’s debate invites, as well as one put forward by an initiative on women’s equality called Up for Debate.”
Some of us predicted this a while ago – but now it has actually happened.
What does it mean? It means the Tories – and, I suspect, the Dippers – believe that Justin Trudeau is not going to do very well in those debates. That he is going to make a mistake. That it is going to be, as one Grit recently said to me, “two men and a baby.” Why else make such a dramatic move, were not that the case? Why else do it, if you didn’t already know the Grit team is nervous?
To those of you doing Trudeau’s debate prep? No pressure, but the future of the Liberal Party of Canada depends on you, pretty much.
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