Mr. Mario Dumont: Leaders’ debates marred by cheating [Les débats des chefs entachés par une tricherie]

First, Happy Palm Sunday to those of you, dear readers, who may be perhaps celebrating this day, which falls a week before Easter.

Second, thank you, Mr. Mario Dumont for your column in the Journal de Montréal, which sadly informs us that Canada’s Debates Commission seems to have turned its back to rigour once again (https://shorturl.at/qDDPP). Below is a quick English translation, with the assistance of Mr. Google Translate.

I surprised a few people by explaining in a previous column that Canada has a Debates Commission. For those who missed it, there is indeed a full-time organization in Canada whose mandate is… to organize two debates every four years. What they do with their days the rest of the time remains a mystery.

At the very least, to justify the use of your tax dollars, you can tell yourself that in this country, debates are organized to perfection. With civil servants working on them for four years, can we expect anything less?

Bad news: the Commission has been completely misled this year. One party has secured a platform in the debate by seriously putting the members of the infamous Debate Commission to sleep. Let’s be clear: the Green Party of Canada cannot and should not be invited to this debate under the stated rules.

Clear Rule

Here’s the rule: to be invited, a party must meet two of these three criteria: have at least one MP, obtain 4% of the vote in the major polls, and field candidates in 90% of constituencies (309 are required).

The Green Party does indeed have two members of Parliament in the House of Commons. Forget the 4% poll tally, they barely get half that.

To meet two of the three criteria, the party must field candidates in 309 ridings. However, according to Elections Canada, the Green Party is far from this number, as it is only represented in 232 ridings. And since Monday, the nomination period has closed.

The Green Party does indeed have two MPs in the House of Commons. Forget the 4% poll, they barely get half that. Logically, the Green Party should have been automatically disqualified. The Debates Commission’s explanation is ludicrous. Two weeks ago, when the decision to invite them was made, the Green Party declared that it “endorsed” a sufficient number of candidates. Unfortunately, about 80 of them ultimately never applied. Hello, rigor!

Unfairness

It’s obviously unfair to give the cheater a privilege: visibility and airtime. If we decide to be flexible with the rules, we should have invited Maxime Bernier of the People’s Party. He is fielding 247 candidates, 15 more than the Greens.

This is the second time in three elections that the Commission has been laughed at. In 2019, using different criteria, Maxime Bernier obtained an invitation by presenting a curious poll showing he had a “serious chance of winning” in four ridings. On election day, his party had obtained between 2% and 5% of the vote in these counties. Far from any hope of winning. The Commission had been duped.

Your taxes pay for a permanent organization to organize the debates, and it fails two out of three times.

Mark Carney must be laughing to himself. The more people there are on stage, the less debate there is“.