Americans seem to like their televised political debates stiff and scripted. And for federal-election debates here in Canada, television tries to impose a lot of structure and formality: so many seconds for the prime minister on this question, so many seconds for his (or her) opponents.
Quebec tried something new with this provincial election: four debates, with only the first one cast in the conventional format and featuring all the leaders.
What was novel and interesting came in the next three debates, held on successive nights with a revolving set of debaters: Liberal leader Jean Charest tackling Parti Québécois leader Pauline Marois on Monday; François Legault, head of the Coalition Avenir Québec, against Charest on Tuesday; and Legault vs. Marois on Wednesday. Françoise David, co-spokesperson for Québec solidaire, which has just one seat in the National Assembly, was not invited to take part in the one-on-one debates, but made an impression for intelligence and poise in her one outing on opening night.
The debates were organized around the themes of government, the economy, social policy and Quebec identity. The moderator, TVA anchor Pierre Bruneau, was roundly criticized for rarely intervening, but the absence of a heavy-handed moderator insisting the leaders keep to a tight time frame and hew to the letter of the questions opened the door to some unexpected exchanges.
One of the most telling came at the end, in the debate between Legault and Marois. The two former allies, who had sat together in the National Assembly under the PQ banner for 10 years, pushed one another to a level of clarity that voters are generally unaccustomed to, especially in the middle of an election campaign.
On the question of sovereignty, Marois had resisted admitting that even if 15 per cent of Quebecers sign a petition demanding that a referendum be held, she would not allow it if she believed there was not enough support for it to succeed. This came despite her party having adopted in January a policy calling for a referendum to be held if such a “popular-initiative” petition seeking it garnered that 15-per-cent level of support.
It was only after the debate, in which Legault accused her of intending to hold a referendum despite the chaos it would create for Quebec, and even though it might fail, that Marois said she would not feel bound to hold a referendum no matter how many Quebecers signed a petition for it.
Meanwhile, Legault, despite having left the PQ because, as he has said, it “had one priority: sovereignty,” still felt compelled to warn Marois of the dangers to sovereignists of a third losing referendum. “The worst thing that could happen is we lose a referendum,” he said.
The other debates had their moments. At one point Charest said to Marois of the so-called “financial framework” that would spell out how the PQ’s electoral promises would be paid for, “It doesn’t exist.” She replied, “It doesn’t exist and you’re already criticizing it!” It was an extraordinary admission: that the party had not costed its promises.
Legault had his own moment of truth when Charest accused him of spurning the sovereignist cause for all of “four seconds” after 40 years of battling for it. Legault replied simply that he had got fed up with a stale debate that was going nowhere. In a province where a steady bedrock of voters support the independence option, Legault went out on a limb with such frank talk.
Debates are rarely won or lost, even though winning is the ostensible point of the exercise. What voters take from them generally is a sense of how the leaders react under unfriendly, probing and prepared questioning. The voters want the leaders to have a vision of where they want to lead society, and they want to know what that vision is — and how the leaders plan to achieve it. They want them to know the issues inside out, and be able to think on their feet.
For four nights running, about 1.5 million viewers in Quebec made it their business to watch in action the people who want to lead them. It was an excellent chance for them to get some answers to the questions they have about those leaders. While it was a little chaotic sometimes as the opponents talked over each other, ultimately it gave some interesting insights. Voters who stuck it out through some, or better yet all four, of the debates have done a lot to educate themselves.
It’s been a good experiment, one that cannot but have been helpful as Quebecers go about making up their minds how to vote.