Election Debate: The Morning after the Fight Before

Last night, all of Canada, or at least the handful bothered with the current election, tuned in to the 2011 Leaders' Debate. I'm a Canadian citizen from birth, but this is my first federal election as a voter, so I've been following the campaign with interest. I began the election with no idea which way to vote. I think I've arrived at a fairly firm decision, but not without seriously considering the alternatives.

Admittedly, last night's debate was as much about the excitement as the issues for me. So, here, in the spirit of politico-entertainment punditry, is my take on how each of the four leaders -- Stephen Harper (Conservative), Michael Ignatieff (Liberal), Jack Layton (New Democratic Party) and Gilles Duceppe (Bloc Québécois) -- did in the debate.

Stephen Harper

Tory commentators say he was calm; I say he did a James Franco and smoked weed before the show. He was incredibly placid and soft-spoken, as is generally his manner, but I thought his tone got whining and fed-up very early on. Despite the low, soft tones, he quickly began to sound defensive, exasperated and impatient when the challenges started coming in (predictably, from the outset). As far as the issues went, he seemed to go in with "Economy, economy, economy" on the brain, so he clearly thinks that's his strong point and the issue that will win the election for the Conservatives.

Michael Ignatieff

Ignatieff went straight for Harper's jugular on the issue of trust. Harper consistently blamed an election Canadians don't want on the opportunism of the other parties, but Ignatieff repeated a few times that the election was called because Harper couldn't tell the truth on "jets, jails and corporate tax giveaways." It eventually got a bit repetitive, as Ignatieff repeated the same attacks verbatim. He also got pretty grumpy a few times, and lost it when Layton challenged him on his absence record from parliamentary votes. (Layton claimed Ignatieff's attendance was a mere 30%, although it's actually a mildly better 41%, or 59% absence.) An irritated Iggy flew off the handle and snapped: "At least we get into government. You'll be in opposition forever." Though he looked childish, he successfully dodged the issue. I heard a French reporter challenge him on the same point in the post-debate press scrum, but Iggy appeared to evade the issue again, disappearing hastily.

Jack Layton

I'm not surprised that most people declared Layton the winner. He was the most impressive, and he won the debate because he has the least to lose. Conservatives naturally hail his success because they know it would be a stretch to declare Harper the winner, and championing Layton is a nice way to divide the left-wing vote. Layton was the liveliest, most coherent and most polished of the four voices. His main tack was to suggest that Ignatieff and Harper were "best friends." He was big on the social justice issues and managed to get in a few mentions of climate change, an issue otherwise hardly discussed; doubtless a manoeuvre to win over some Greens (who, to a bit of an outcry, were left out of the debate).

Gilles Duceppe

Quebec, Quebec, Quebec. Are you surprised? I'm a BC boy living in Ontario, so the BQ isn't an issue as to how I'll vote. I find Duceppe a bit comical and hysterical. I was distracted by his unintentionally funny English mispronunciations -- "ship" became "shit," "second" became "chicken," and "developing" became "dev'lopping." I only wish I knew French better so I could watch tonight's debate and hear the English leaders mangle their French pronunciations in the same way.

2011 Canadian Federal Election: Twitter Hash Tags

So the Harper government has fallen, and Canadians will go to the polls on 2 May 2011 to vote for a new government. I'm new to this: I'm British-Canadian, but I've spent 24 of my 33 years in the UK. Last October I had my first experience as a voter in Canada, participating in the 2010 St Catharines Municipal Election. The upcoming election will be my first federal vote.

I'm honestly undecided which way to vote. I've followed Canadian politics somewhat since moving back here in 2009, and none of the major political parties has convinced me. But Twitter may be coming to my rescue, as I get talking with some of the candidates, journalists, political pundits and ordinary voters with an interest in the election. The hash tags are confusing me a bit, however, so here, with help from Twitter Search, PoliTwitter and David Akin, I'm going to gather a list of Twitter hash tags to make conversing a bit easier. Hopefully, some other tweeps will find it useful, too.

Glossary of Canadian Politics/2011 Canada Federal Election Twitter Hash Tags

Note: #cdnpoli, #elxn41 and #cv11 are (in my observation) by far the most popular English-language Twitter hash tags for the 2011 Federal Election.

#abc Anyone but Harper

#canpoli Canadian politics

#cdescom French-Canadian political discussion

#cdnleft Canadian left

#cdnpoli Canadian politics

#clsh Conservative leader Stephen Harper

#cpc Conservative Party of Canada

#ctvelexn CTV election coverage

#cv11 Canada vote 2011

#demreform Canadian democratic reform

#elxn41 41st Canadian federal election

#emayin Social media campaign to get Green Party leader Elizabeth May a place in the leadership debate

#fed2011 French-language Canadian election tweets

#gpc Green Party of Canada

#ignatieff Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff

#layton NDP Leader Jack Layton

#lpc Liberal Party of Canada

#momthevote Moms' discussion of family-related election issues (see this blog)

#ndp New Democratic Party of Canada

#p2ca Progressives in Canada

#pmharper Prime Minister Stephen Harper

#pmsh Prime Minister Stephen Harper

#poli politics -- append it to another term to localize it, eg, #niagpoli (Niagara), #canpoli (Canada)

#ppca Pirate Party of Canada

#ptndp New Democrats

#pttory Canadian Tories

#roft Right of Twitter (Canadian Conservative bloggers)

#voteabc Vote anyone but Harper

#votecompass CBC Vote Compass

#votemay2 Vote on May 2nd

#votepirate Vote Pirate Party of Canada

Geographical 2011 Election Hash Tags (Ridings and Regions)

#niagpoli Niagara
#saultelx Sault Ste Marie

Please tweet me or add a comment here if you have a hash tag to add to the glossary.

James Street Night of Art, St Catharines

Last night I watched a couple run over a reindeer in a shop window, sat in a high-end furniture store listening to a jazz trio and went down a dark alley to talk to British rock legend Keith Richards. Or someone very much like him.

The occasion was the James Street Night of Art, held in downtown St Catharines, Ontario. The idea was that artists and performers of every kind would take over the block from 6 to 9pm, singing, music-making, acting, dancing, painting and entertaining.

Keith Richards, famed as the guitarist of The Rolling Stones, had positioned himself on a velvet couch at the end of an alleyway. He kindly put down his Jack Daniels and his cigarette for a moment so I could photograph him. (I heard a rumour said rock star was actually actress Dee Jones, of the Niagara-based theatre group Suitcase in Point, promoting The Keith Richards One Woman Show, which runs from Thursday 4 to Sunday 7 November at The Mikado on Helliwell Lane. I prefer to believe it was Keith himself.)

In the adjacent building, a furniture store, The Scholarly Trio gathered round a grand piano to croon a few standards by Harold Arlen (Somewhere over the Rainbow) and Carlos Jobim (The Girl from Ipanema). A similarly classy furniture retailer at the other end of James Street hosted a quite different trio: brothers George and Gordon Cleland (St Catharines Chamber Music Society) on violin and cello, playing music to the words young narrator Davian Hart, in excerpts from the upcoming musical presentation Fabulous Aesop (19 March 2011, 1pm, St Catharines Centennial Library).

It was quite possible to wander around the area for a good three hours without hearing or watching the same performance twice. I spent a mere two hours flitting between storefronts and cafes, sampling Earthbeat's African drumming at Coffee Culture, joining in with barbershop quartet Audacity (albeit rather timidly from the back row) at the St Catharines Arts Council and chuckling at an absurd scene of a rather odd couple from Theatre Beyond Words reviving Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer after mowing him down in the Hoogasian Insurance storefront.

Compared to last night's block party of absurdist spectacle, today's Doors Open Niagara seemed quite sedate. I ventured to Queen Street Baptist Church, St Catharines, to hear the organ and view some rather lovely stained glass windows. The church, whose current building dates to 1891 (the 1833 original was destroyed by fire earlier that year) is also open tomorrow, Sunday 16 October, from 12 noon to 4pm.