On April 12, 2022, I attended in person my first political event since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. In the run up to the Ontario election, the Equal Pay Coalition held what they billed as the first leaders’ debate on women’s issues since the famed 1984 federal leaders’ debate.
The presentation of the debate was impressive. They sponsored a poll on women’s economic equality. The poll found that 85 per cent of Ontarians think that it is important for the Ontario government to do more to promote women’s economic equality, with 60 per cent stating that it is very important. Yet there was no mainstream media coverage and the Premier did not show.
I was in the audience in 1984 when the three federal leaders Brian Mulroney, the Conservative leader who later won the election, John Turner, Liberal Prime Minister and Ed Broadbent, leader of the NDP debated women’s issues. 1984 was probably the height of the feminist movement in Canada. Not only was there front page media coverage but the debate was broadcast live on several networks in French and English.
Of course, the obvious difference was that in 1984 women earned 60 cents for every dollar that men earned. Today that figure is 89 cents. This change has been in no small part the work of women’s groups like the Pay Equity Coalition. I already knew that but the most powerful difference to me was the quality of debate and discussion. In 1984, there was vigorous and detailed debate on a number of issues including abortion, equal pay, affirmative action, daycare and pensions.
The recent Ontario debate focussed entirely on issues of economic inequality like minimum wage, paid sick leave, early childhood education and learning, and pay transparency but there was no debate. Activists from various organizations and life experiences asked excellent questions but the answers were very general and there was almost no debate. The three leaders appeared to agree with each other about everything.
Deena Ladd from the Worker’s Action Committee took apart the Liberal Party’s proposal for a regional living wage. The leader of the Liberal Party barely defended it, turning away from what could have been an important debate on the issue with the NDP.
I went back to watch the 1984 debate, which is available in the CBC online archives and I highly recommend it if you are interested in that history. What struck most powerfully was not the change in the status of women but the change in the quality of political debate.
There is little doubt that feminism is much more accepted today in mainstream political circles than it was in 1984. But the quality of political debate and discussion has deteriorated to the point where party leaders are barely able to defend their own policies.
In the 1990’s I was co-host of a political debate show called “Face Off,” on CBC Newsworld. It was on at 8 p.m., prime time, every weeknight. I was the left-wing host and Clare Hoy, a former columnist for the Toronto Sun, was the right-wing host. I debated right-wingers every night of the week at a time when neo-liberalism was taking hold in Canada.
We had researchers who would provide the same information to both hosts. Working from the same set of facts on any given issue, we argued our point of view as did the guests also on the right and the left. We encouraged a civil tone, but debate was vigorous. It’s hard to even imagine a show like that now. Panels of pundits or politicians are almost totally concentrated on who is winning and who is losing rather than the substance of policy.
In a time of profound change, like the moment we are now facing with an endless pandemic, an unpredictable shift in global power, and a rise of the far-right almost everywhere, we need political debate and discussion to figure out the best ways forward.
What passes for debate today across the political spectrum is denunciation. That’s true not only in electoral politics but even inside of social movements where some political positions have the status of religious belief. Differences on certain emotional issues such as the current war on the Ukraine lead anyone with questions just to shut up unless they want to deal with endless denunciations.
I don’t think so-called cancel culture is a real thing except insofar as it applies to a handful of male predators who hide behind their talent and power and were justly exposed by the #metoo movement on the one hand and academics and politicians who are actively critical of Israel and in solidarity with Palestinian rights who are unjustly accused of antisemitism on the other. Party political staff seem more concerned with making sure none of their candidates has ever said anything controversial in social media than in consulting with academics and activists about policy.
We can blame social media for this and there is no doubt that it contributes. So does neo-liberalism with its focus on individualism and competition. But something even deeper is going on and I’m not entirely sure what that is. But when the MC told the three leaders that the organizers didn’t want them to attack each other, their only alternative seemed to be to agree with each other. It was like they had no idea how to actually discuss different ideas or positions.
Our ability to figure out how to fight the rise of the far right, for example, depends on our ability to unite across political differences to defeat the right. It also depends on our ability to clearly discuss and debate how different policy options affect the day-to-day life of working people.
Neither is possible without a change in the political culture. The stakes are very high. I never thought fascism was possible in Canada after my parents’ generation until the so-called Truck Convoy swept into Ottawa winning the support of a significant number of Canadians who are frustrated and angry about the impact of COVID.
The panel of political leaders in Ontario agreed about everything and agreed with all the questions. They were all politically very correct but completely incapable of addressing the central questions, which in my view was if all three political parties agree on these issues, why not work together to defeat Doug Ford? No one asked this question but I wish they had.
Only Andrea Horwath addressed the elephant in the room saying voting NDP was the best way to defeat Ford. “We only need to change 10 seats,” she proclaimed. But the polls are not so clear. The NDP and Liberals may split the vote in key ridings and let the Tories come up the middle the Ontario election. Why won’t the parties work together to make sure that doesn’t happen?
I have never felt more frustrated about an election than about this one. The only light at the end of the tunnel are groups working to elect anyone but Ford. I suspect Lead Now’s strategic voting campaign in the last federal election helped the Liberals eek out a minority government.
Now the NDP’s recent agreement with the Liberals will prevent the election of what is no doubt going to be a very right-wing Conservative Party at the federal level until 2025. But I am very worried that unless the other three parties find a way to work together we will wind up with a Ford government that is well on the way to privatizing everything and reversing any gains on climate change.
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Nick Seebruch, editor
