Political Debate

Thursday night I attended the local all candidates debate for the upcoming January 23rd election. Going beyond the platforms of the various parties, Gordon O’Connor, the Conservative candidate was clearly the strongest. His answers were great (whether you agree with his party’s views or not).

The NDP candidate, Tasha Bridgen (the wife of a fellow I work with) came in second, IMHO. She is a political newcomer, but I thought she expressed herself well.

The representatives of the Progressive Canada party (i.e. some Progressive Conservatives who can face the fact that their old party no longer exists) and the Green Party did OK.

The surprise was how weak the Liberal candidate did. There were 3 times that the crowd gasped at something she said (saying you would not want new Canadians looking after your children, referring favourably to the National Energy Plan as an achievement of her party, and saying nobody wanted new constitutional debate when her leader is promising to change the Charter of Rights and Freedoms). I’m sure the Liberal candidate is a nice person with lots of good experiences, but she came off as extremely weak, which was a huge surprise for me.