A woman's place is in the House of Commons

This is information from an email from the NDP party, so recognize that the source isn't necessarily unbiased (but I'm sure that these numbers are a matter of public record):

NDP:	96 women of 308 candidates	= 31.2%
Liberals:	73 women of 308 candidates	= 23.7%
Conservatives:	34 women of 308 candidates	= 11%
Bloc Québécois:	19 women of 75 candidates	= 25.3%

The e-mail they sent me was promoting their Agnes Macphail fund (donate!).

Which reminds me of a passage from Peter Edwards' excellent book, One Dead Indian:

Just as Harris set foot in the Premier's Office to discuss the transition of power with Rae, a television camera knocked a large plaster bust of Agnes Macphail, a hero of outgoing New Democratic Premier Bob Rae, off its stand. It shattered into pieces in the hallway. There are those who argue that the crash was merciful, since Macphail, the first woman elected to the legislature and the the House of Commons, would not have wanted to be around to see what was going to happen next.

Mary Jane!

Hey! We have a Marijuana Party candidate in my riding

The English Language Debate

Wow. For me, this was really hard to call.

First up, Layton was much better tonight than last night. He was on the attack a lot (which probably turns some people off), but I think that he got some key wins in the debate. I was a little irritated by his tendancy to go off into canned messages, but he definitely sounded more on-message.

For example: I think Harper made a misstep when he went into "my advisors don't want me to talk about this aspect of health care privatization" and Layton got to drill back: "a study was just released showing that that system is far more expensive." I also think that Layton got a lot of mileage out of making the Bush-Harper analogies.

I found that one-on-one debates between Layton and Duceppe made both parties look better. They were able to talk about what they agreed with, and didn't really feel much need to attack each other. (Could they ever form a government? Probably not)

When Martin mocked, "Did your handlers tell you to talk all the time?", I thought that Layton's comeback was strong. ("This is not a laughing matter, sir.") I think, though, that Martin scored a good victory when he turned Layton's charter of rights comment around. Layton accused Martin of avoiding taking leadership on same-sex marriage by hiding behind the Supreme Court and the Charter of Rights, and Martin replied: "*Hiding* behind the Charter of Rights? The Charter of Rights is a fundamental document for Canada." Up until that point, Layton did a good job of pointing out that Martin hadn't really taken a leadership role.

It was interesting that Martin didn't seem to be too adversarial with Jack. At one time, he said "I accept that criticism" with Layton attacked him on the "there are only two leaders to choose from" message. It was adroit that he could kinda play nice and still be dismissive at the same time.

Martin also got in a good point on Harper on national Child Care. Harper said that he preferred the "tax less" rather than the "spend more" model. Martin said, "but tax credits assume that they've got the money to spend. How is a single unemployed mother supposed to afford Child Care if she has no money to begin with?" I don't think that he ever quite landed the point about Harper's budget, but there it is.

Martin also got Harper to seem to be avoiding question on using notwithstanding and abortion. Harper tried to redirect it into another notwithstanding message -- about child pornography -- but that line never went anywhere.

Duceppe was, again, very well prepared, although I think that some of his speeches were muddied. His whole "I know that I will form the opposition" point missed the mark. And his point about viewing Quebec as a nation speech was messy. For him, last night's debate was far more important, so those weaknesses probably didn't hurt him much. Duceppe's opening statement about not forming a minority with either the Liberals or the Conservatives was a very interesting statement.

I was interested in the amount of discussion of Iraq and the relationship with the US. I thought Harper was quite eloquent when he said that governments often disagree, but that Canada must strive to not be disagreeable, as they sometimes were under Chétien.

All three non-Liberal leaders slagged Martin for being unclear about what he stood for. Conversation was littered with "Well, you and I disagree, but at least you're clear where you stand."

I do think, however, that Martin screwed up on his responses regarding the sponsorship scandal. I think he was too cavalier when he said "I could have swept this under the rug but I didn't." You want kudos for not lying to us? Hmmm....

I think that Martin had a good closing speech. It played up the concerns that Canadians have about Harper and just how socially conservative he might be. Layton's closing speech did the same with both the Liberals and the Conservatives. "Can't trust Paul? Can't trust Stephen? We're a viable alternative." I think that Jack is targetting the message that people will buy into: that a minority Liberal/NDP government will keep the Conservatives from running the government without fully endorsing Martin. The cost for Martin, however, is going to be proportional representation.

In the final analysis, I think I'd say Martin took the lead just a bit, and the other three were hard to distinguish.