The French Language Debate

[bcholmes]

Tonight was the French language debate. My assessment of the leaders' performances:

• First: Duceppe (Bloc)
• Second: Harper (Conservative)
• Third: Layton (NDP)
• Fourth: Martin (Liberal)

Jack Layton (NDP) did a much poorer job than I expected. I thought that, in some areas where the NDP should have shined, Jack was sub-par. When Harper asked if "the traditional definition of marriage was a violation of Human Rights" Jack should have said, "Every time the government says that two consenting adults can't marry, it is a violation of human rights."

Harper (Conservative), sneakily, commented that he was okay with Gallant's comments because his party was open to diverse points of view, and asked if it was the same in the NDP. Layton should have responded, "The NDP is just like Canada: it is open, diverse, and welcomes healthy debate, but that human rights are a fundamental statement of direction that must be respected."

Jack seemed unprepared for Gilles Duceppe's point: "When it comes to things like health care, aren't you basically a federalist who would take decision-making power away from Quebec?" Jack fumbled for a response.

Jack was, however, quite prepared to debate with Martin (Liberal), and he did well on his one-on-one discussions with the Prime Minister.

Harper had the best closing speech (I'm sorry to say). His points were on-message and well-delivered (I don't like the message, but he was good about delivery).

Paul Martin did a lousy job. His entire debating style seemed to boil down to straw man arguments: "You've already said you're going to hike taxes..." and "Harper has said that his main priority is military spending." I'd say that Martin was the worst performer all and all.

I think the best performance, however, was Gilles Duceppe (Bloc Quebecois). Duceppe talked specific actions and details, and highlighted the differences between his party and the others almost solely on issues and party policy rather than using name-calling. Duceppe gave the best response to Harper's comments on same-sex marriage. Harper said that he wanted a free vote -- that he, personally, favoured the traditional definition of marriage but he would respect any decision that the majority of Parliament came to. When it was Duceppe's turn to reply, he said, "In Quebec, we already support same-sex marriage; and it's important to realize that the majority can't always make decisions on behalf of the minority." Again: on-message. First: talk about where Quebec stands on the issue. Then relate the whole issue to something that Quebecers relate to: being the minority.

This debate was primarily a debate between Martin and Duceppe. Neither the NDP nor the Conservatives are likely to win many votes in Quebec, and, frankly, the audience of the French Language Debate is Quebec.

Comments

o_o

[truffle666.livejournal.com]

wow, some badass analysis

[futabachan.livejournal.com]

Paul Martin did a lousy job. His entire debating style seemed to boil down to straw man arguments

On substance, I thought that Martin did poorly, which is unsurprising given the substance of the Martin government. Tactically, though, I thought that Martin was effective in going after Harper, knocking him back on his heels on wedge issues where the Tories part company with most of Canada, and to a lesser extent of defending himself from attacks on the other two fronts by coopting issues important to Bloc and NDP voters. The one thing that might possibly save the Grits is an anti-Harper backlash, and by that light, Martin's strategy tonight makes a lot of sense.

I still can't imagine voting for the man, even if I had a vote this time.

To put it another way, Martin did a job that would play well to "talking head" shows in the US. How it plays up here, I can't really say -- I don't really know the Canadian electorate well enough.

BTW, I love your new icon. :-)

[bcholmes.livejournal.com]

Fair enough. But when he was on the receiving end, though, he sunk like a rock. When Duceppe kept hounding him to give an EI number, ferinstance. Martin looked like he was avoiding an answer.

Re: The French Language Debate

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

i agree that overall duceppe gave the best performance. though i also think the moderator should have stepped in more often and stopped him when he talked over the others.

i could have sworn layton did say that gay marriage was a question of human rights, and that human rights were essential. in fact i thought he said it twice, though not exactly in those words. maybe my french is too crappy, and i misunderstood? i thought that was precisely the reply he should have given harper, with his asshat tyranny of the majority attempt.

however, generally layton didn't impress me a whole lot, though i think he's more personable than either of the other three. harper impressed me even less regarding performance; his smiles seemed forced, and i thought martin pounded him nicely. but overall layton just sounded like he'd call a few rainbow elves from the sky to help him with his programs, so i guess overall i'd put him last. on substance i believe neither the NDP nor the cons (*heh*) would be able to pay for what they claim they want to do, and i fear the NDP would drive us into debt, while the cons would cut way too many things i value.

my order of performance for the general quebecois public would be duceppe - martin - harper - layton. i think strategically martin did ok, he came across to me as confident (maybe sometimes on the borderline with smug), and his french didn't suck. i think that the apology for the sponsorship scandal was too little too late; he should have grovelled on that long ago. i don't think he did at all well in taking quebec votes from duceppe on the merits of his arguments alone, which might be a serious, serious problem.

as an aside, it's damn cool that all candidates can actually hold a debate on the issues in french, though harper's french is barely acceptable. still, better than my spoken french, *sigh*.

Re: The French Language Debate

[tormenta.livejournal.com]

Interesting perspective.

*I* felt that Martin was sub-par... but in terms of keeping his cool, attacking with abandon, and speaking french fluently and comfortably, he did an excellent job. I also felt that, because most voters aren't capable of identifying straw-men fallacies, expecially when made about parties they don't know much about, his faulty, off-topic responses to questions probably came across well to the majority of people watching.

(I learned about this - "I call it the Used Car Salesman" technique of debate in high school. There waa a guy my partner and I never beat in the year we debated, and he was one of only 5 people we ever lost to. He did it by ignoring what you said and continuing with the straw-men attacks long after she should have been dead. And because he kept his cool and ignored what we were actually saying, he won. It was horrible - but effective. Martin was doing exactly that tonight.)

Harper showed well - kept his mouth shut when he needed to, spoke excellent french (in terms of expressing his ideas clearly using the language). He was proffesional and prepared.

Gilles Duceppe shone. He was prepared, he had well researched quotes framing all the other leaders as anti-Quebecois, and knew his stuff. He switched topics in logical ways that never seemes like he was dodging a question or deliberately switching to an off-topic subject to attack another leader, and he got his parties objective accross without sounding stuffed full of sound-bytes.

I'm an NDP suppporter and I was very dissapointed with Jack's showing. He stumbled over prepared speeches, was unable to respond to essential questions about the NDPs position, reverted to party lines rather than addressing specific questions asked - not logically linking ideas at all, wasn't able to defend against Harpers' gay marriage questions (which should have been the easiest thing in the world), never addressed Martins' constant accusations that the NDP is fiscally irresponsible, and his french seemed to me even poorer than Harper's. People were *handing* him opportunities to prove himself a federalist alternative to the Bloc, or to elaborate on the NDP perspective, and he missed them. I am hoping he will be better in english.

Fortunately the debate was civil, so he didn't get mauled... and there were some good points, where his confidence with the language seemed high and he got in salient points.

My assesment: Ducceppe, Harper, Martin, Layton, from best performer to worst performer.

Possibly I'm harder on Mr. Layton because I support his party. Possibly.



Overall, I'd rank as you

My ranking would be Duceppe, Har

Re: The French Language Debate

[futabachan.livejournal.com]

though harper's french is barely acceptable. still, better than my spoken french

Mine too. I'm way rusty, and nothing seems to come out when I try to open my mouth. OTOH, I've been pleasantly surprised by how well I've been able to follow along with TV in French over the past month. I'm hoping that enough exposure to the language (watching the evening news in French, for example) will help bring more of it back, or at least enough for us to get a couple of points out of it for immigration purposes.