Post Debate Analysis: time for Musical Chairs by Johnny Lucas | canada news report

Post Debate Analysis: time for Musical ChairsBy Johnny Lucas | wheretobenext.com

Perhaps I’m alone on the country on this, but during the single English language leaders’ debate I saw good qualities in all the candidates. Yes, I was having a drug-free evening. These are men who act badly, but they are not bad men. They do act stupidly but are not at all stupid people. We know them all so well by now that they are like family members: troublesome, complex, needy and noisy. But the absence of any one of them would leave a hole that could not be filled.

Accordingly, and as befits a family business, I am now prepared to award jobs to all of them. Here’s the line-up:

Jack Layton: Governor General. He speaks well, he knows a good turn of phrase, and in the stuffiest and silliest conversation he can inject a surge of real passion. Yes, some of what he says is self-serving and irresponsible such as “I don’t know why we need so many prisons when the crooks seem happy in the Senate.” Even that is more responsible than many comments made by members of the royal family whose representative he would be and he’s probably more harmless than they are. It’s safe to say he has inspired many more people than Prince Charles.

Michael Ignatieff: Leader of the Opposition. He has finally, finally grown into that job. He was convincing when he spoke of the need to hold the government to account and to occasionally try to get along with them. He looks dissatisfied most of the time and has made a very successful and respected career of original analysis and of looking for trouble. He failed to convey a vision of what he would be like as Prime Minister so it’s difficult to believe he thinks he’s really going to win the election but he definitely did well enough to keep his job, but without a promotion.

Stephen Harper: Speaker of the House. OK, that’s a sentimental choice. Why? Because I think it would be good for him and I’m feeling perversely benevolent. It would be terrific for his personal

evolution to spend his days sitting there, listening. It would be good for him to try to help the other boys and girls just get along. His air of aloofness and small range of facial expressions – any of which could have been installed by a mortician – might be conducive to the air of calm and seriousness that the House of Commons needs. Plus, he would get to apply the rules, something he clearly loves to do. His greatest strength, which is control without consultation, would be well suited for the job. Perhaps the thought of sentencing Harper to days and days of just listening is reminiscent of the various punishments doled out in Dante’s Inferno, but he was the one who said that he wanted the punishment to fit the crime, not me.

Gilles Duceppe: OK, this one is a small leap – Prime Minister. He was going on about what Quebec needs to protect its identity and I – a functionally unilingual Anglophone – agreed with him. He has the ability to stare down windbags, he is genuinely passionate and he wants the best for his part of the world. Total separation, meaning Quebec as a separate country is a non-starter as is the divorce-with-bedroom privileges that the BQ and PQ raise occasionally almost with embarrassment. Let Gilles cultivate each region of Canada the way he wants to cultivate Quebec, give him scope to make the rest of Canada a place that is friendly to Quebec’s aspirations of continuity, tradition, heritage, growth, joie de vivre and beer and wine at corner stores. If Quebec is the wife that wants to leave, let the rest of Canada be the husband that agrees to let her that but says “I’m going too.”