Election debates are broken, let’s fix them

While Canadians heartily disagree about a lot in this federal election, they’re probably of one mind that last week’s televised English-language leaders’ debate was an unmitigated disaster.

To call it a debate — normally defined as a formal discussion on a subject in which opposing arguments are heard — would be a grotesque exaggeration and invest it with a semblance of reason and decorum that were clearly lacking. This was nothing less than an infuriating, two-hour time waster that provided much heat but little light to guide the voters’ way.

The five party leaders were granted just seconds at a time to discuss complex matters of huge importance to the country. They had limited opportunity to respond to the criticisms of their rivals, too, and even when they tried the proceedings usually degenerated into a shouting match with each person trying to talk over the other. That, in turn, encouraged an interfering moderator to stifle most attempts at a serious political discussion.

The end result was an insult, not just to inquiring voters but the politicians themselves. For them, it was like some kind of weird hazing ritual athletes are sometimes forced to endure before joining a team. And making the whole experience even more frustrating was the knowledge that as bad as it was, this was the election’s one and only English-language meeting of the leaders.

We admit that devising the proper forum for an encounter between party leaders has become tricky in Canada’s multi-party universe. In this election, the leaders of the Liberal, Conservative, New Democrat, Green and Bloc Québécois parties made for a crowded debating stage. Had the People’s Party of Canada been included, as some critics had demanded, managing it all would have been as unwieldy as herding cats.

Canada should be able to do better. An election is the time for citizens to learn and understand the platforms being offered up to them so they can cast informed votes. Next to hearing a party leader at a live campaign gathering, watching and hearing that person on live TV is one of the best ways of doing this. And so in the interests of starting a public discussion, we offer the following two suggestions for replacing the televised debacle of one week ago.

First, the big networks could schedule a one-hour televised session with each leader separately and on consecutive nights. In each hour, a different leader would speak for five minutes at a time on six different topics identified in advance to a panel of journalists. After each five-minute segment, the panel would have another five minutes to ask questions and elicit answers about the subject the leader had just explained. This arrangement would allow voters to hear each party leader speak uninterrupted and at length. It would also subject each leader to rigorous questioning.

A second possibility would be to have a two-hour televised session where each leader is allowed to ask one question separately to each of the other leaders. The other leader would respond and a one-on-one debate would follow, with a five-minute time limit. Then the next leader would pose another question to another candidate. Such an orderly format would allow a manageable and true debate, as opposed the cacophonous free-for-all we got last week. And if this particular approach worked, there would be no reason not to use it two or even three times in a single election campaign.

To be sure, these are but two proposals for what to do before future federal votes. What shouldn’t be an option is a repeat of the televised farce of one week ago.