Just a few metres from where we were seated at the Babel all-candidates’ debate there was a city councillor. This woman is a Conservative who takes no prisoners. She has a loud voice and uses it. There was no mistaking what side she was on.
What she was loudest about was when the Liberal candidate corrected her Conservative candidate and the Liberal supporters were applauding and loudly razzing the Conservative. You need more incidents such as that to stimulate debate but the candidates went back to being polite Canadians.
But politeness did not win the prize for the greatest gaffe of the evening. That was left to the chairman who asked a question of the candidates to give their views on accessibility. He gave them 30 seconds each to answer and said the Liberal candidate was first. The Liberal threw up his hands.
The question was not only unexpected but colossal in its ignorance. The chair asked a man who has been in a wheelchair for 25 years to tell them in 30 seconds what barriers he faced. The Liberal should have asked the questioner if he could describe hell in 30 seconds because that is where he should go. Readers should be aware that the man never gives in to his disabilities. He has to overcome barriers everyday and rarely thinks about them. It has been good that he was recently appointed to the city’s citizen accessibility committee and finds that he can be of help to others.
It is supposedly undemocratic to object to the fringe candidates attending a debate but rules need to be adopted that keep these people under control. The Canadian Action Party candidate never really explained what he was running for. The Libertarian was beyond deciphering but we did clue in that his web site still needed some work. The problem was the Marxist-Leninist who would continue to take the full five minutes of open debate if you let her. Nobody had properly briefed the candidates and they sat like stumps waiting for the motor-mouth to finish.
It was a good thing that the Green and NDP candidates wanted to castigate the Conservative because the Liberal was far too polite to go after him as was needed. The only concern is that if there is any increase in vote for the Green or NDP, those votes will be possible Liberal votes not going where they need to go to beat the Conservative.
In the two weeks that are left, voters of all orange and green stripes need to realize that the only way to stop Harper and his toadies from winning the election is to get behind their local Liberal candidate.
In Babel, we have a situation where a strong finish by the Liberals can take the riding. The voters are expressing the animosity the Conservative has earned himself through his constant junk mail campaign. His campaign people have obviously done some polling or they would not be trying so hard to smooth his rough edges. It gives us hope.
We told the powers that be in Ottawa a few months ago that the Babel Liberal is a likely winner. We are not running the campaign so that we cannot make a promise.
But then we are not influencing what is happening in Ottawa either. All we know is that the best debater the Liberal party has had as a leader since Pierre Trudeau was blown off in a debate he should have won in a walk. Go figure?
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