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Royce Koop - Week Three Grades

Political Parties
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Bloc Quebecois

As in the 2004 debates, Duceppe performed well. He mentioned the Sponsorship Scandal within five seconds of his opening statement. And Duceppe has cultivated a moderate separatist image, as personified in his statement, “We have nothing against Canada. Canada is a great country.”

Conservative Party

Harper would have benefited from a more decisive blow against Martin during the debates. As it turned out, he performed well, but not that well.

Harper stumbled when the media obtained a copy of a speech he had delivered to an American audience eight years ago calling Canada a “northern welfare state.” He seems to have succeeded in deflecting attention from the speech by sluffing it off as a joke.

Liberal Party

Martin talked too fast (just like Kim Campbell did) and flailed his arms about wildly during the debate. But he did exploit the debate rules by attacking Harper and Duceppe while they couldn’t respond. The biggest news emenating from the debate was Martin’s rebuke of Gilles Duceppe, but the effects of this will likely be minimal since a) the emotion of the statement was contrived and b) Martin’s attack came immediately after Duceppe referred to Canada as “a great country.”

Martin also ramped up his anti-US rhetoric, and the American Ambassador was happy to encourage such behavior. The point of such attacks was to draw some sort of defense of the US from Harper. Instead, Harper condemned the ambassador’s statement.

New Democratic Party

Layton focused his attacks on Paul Martin during the debate, a sound strategy given the chunk of his own voting base that has already bled away to the Liberals. The NDP’s new TV ads are light-hearted and effective. Still, Layton is having trouble getting noticed during this campaign. Hopefully he will have more luck after Christmas.

Past Political Party Grades

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