We should have a debate on the lack of debate.
Sounds silly, yes? But then, election time is known far and wide as "silly season" in the world of politics. In this particular instance, I am concerned that a disturbing trend that began at the national level has now been transmitted to the provincial level.
In particular, at the national level the TV networks made the arbitrary decision to exclude one of the national party leaders because they didn't have an MP in Parliament as yet (in this case, the Green Party), even though in the previous election, the almighty networks relented and allowed the leader to take part in the leadership debate.
It now appears this policy will now be applied to the provincial election here, and as a result only Brad and Dwain will be able to debate each other. The Greens and the Liberals will not be allowed to debate, even though they are the duly-chosen leaders of their political parties. The reason? There are no MLAs for either of those parties.
As it happens, the Liberals won't even be fielding a candidate locally in the election, but we will have a Green candidate, albeit the person is from Regina and not a resident of the riding.
At least for the local all-candidates forum, any declared candidate running in the Weyburn-Big Muddy riding will be able to come and debate the issues. After all, their name is on the ballot, they ought to be allowed to.
For the leadership debate, however, the same sort of rule should apply. If a person is deemed to be the party leader, they ought to be able to debate the issues with the other leaders. This is, after all, part of the concept of democracy. Elections are all about the public debate of the issues, and an exchange of ideas so we can figure out, of the parties and candidates available to us, who do we want to best take care of the public tax dollar and run our government? How do you do that unless you allow for the free and open exchange of ideas?
What purpose does the squelching of ideas accomplish in a democracy? It's not saying you are necessarily going to vote for the party, but ideally, a voter should be able to hear the ideas and proposals of every party, and every candidate in his or her riding, before deciding who they want to support.
I'm not sure I see the purpose of requiring a party to have an elected MLA before he or she can debate the issues. An election should be supported by the freedom of speech, not contributing to the suppression of that freedom. A freedom can only be considered such if it is allowed to be exercised in a democratic forum, and in this case, that's not happening.
