Coalition, Constitution, long guns dominate French edition of leaders’ debates

The fireworks lighting up the Ottawa sky across the street from Wednesday’s feisty French-language leaders’ debate provided the exclamation point to a colourful, explosive evening.

Four federal party leaders sparred across a broad canvas of Canadian issues, touching on everything from crime and punishment to health care, tax policy and U.S. political imports.

On the line were Quebec’s coveted 75 seats, fully a quarter of the seats in the House of Commons. The Conservatives held 11 of them at dissolution, and desperately need to hang on to them.

But it was a blast from the past that truly lit up the 1970s-style debate studio in the same grand old Ottawa rail station that once housed the failed 1990 Meech Lake constitutional deliberations.

Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff tried to wrap himself in the Canadian flag, suggesting at one point that Quebecers are no longer concerned about the country’s long-standing constitutional battles.

“Nobody ever talked to me about the Constitution; nobody ever mentioned it,” Ignatieff said of his extensive travels through Quebec last summer.

“Quebecers are concerned about other issues.”

Duceppe pounced.

“In 2011 it doesn’t matter anymore? Is that what you’re saying?” he said.

“That’s the same thing Pierre Trudeau was saying back in 1976.”

The fiery exchange allowed Conservative Leader Stephen Harper to get off perhaps his best line of an evening otherwise dominated by his opponents.  Harper has been pounding on the hypothetical scenario of a Liberal-NDP-Bloc coalition throughout the election campaign.

“Imagine, ladies and gentlemen,” he said, looking directly into the camera, “another minority parliament with these three parties trying to form a government.

“The same old constitutional and linguistic squabbles.”

After Tuesday’s comparatively stiff and staid English debate — which pundits appeared to give Harper on points — the four party leaders ramped up the rhetoric in a two-hour French-language donnybrook.

Not even the resonant boom of the fireworks, clearly audible in the studio as they celebrated the debut of the new Ottawa Conference Centre next door, could drown out the exchanges.

Ignatieff, looking more animated and engaged than he did in his maiden debate, got into several pitched battles with his rivals, notably Duceppe and NDP Leader Jack Layton.

Harper frequently appeared to be the odd man out.

The prime minister’s understanding of Canada’s system of government came under immediate, sustained attack and the exchange on the legitimacy of coalitions in our parliamentary system was just the beginning of a sharp-elbowed evening.

The effectiveness of corporate tax cuts, the federal long-gun registry, the Conservative agenda on criminal justice, harmonized sales taxes — and a loaded question on the import of “Republican values” from the United States — made for a rather less comfortable evening for the front-running prime minister.

Harper, smiling unflappably into the camera for a second night in a row, seized the opportunity once again to warn Canadians that they’d face many more months of similar partisan “squabbling” if they don’t elect a Conservative majority.

For Harper, the stakes are clear.

The Bloc has held least half the province’s seats in every federal election since 1993, while the traditionally strong Liberals have been reduced to 14 seats, most of them around Montreal. The NDP won a lone Montreal seat in 2008, their first ever in the province in a general election.

Early in the evening, Harper was forced to dodge a direct question on where his proposed billions in budget cuts would come from, citing instead his party’s “modest promises compared to the other parties.”

And on the explosive issue of American values, the prime minister responded that he’s “very proud of speaking French. I’ve even spoken French at the White House.”

Harper’s months-long effort to paint a potential coalition government as illegitimate was rebutted from the outset by Duceppe.

Duceppe cited a letter Harper wrote in 2004, with Duceppe and Layton onside, imploring the Governor General to explore “all options” if the newly elected minority Liberal government was defeated on its throne speech.

“We weren’t talking about a coup d’etat, obviously,” said Duceppe, drawing chuckles from the small studio audience that had been warned to remain silent.

Harper accused Duceppe of “trying to rewrite history.”

“A vote for the Bloc is a vote for (Liberal Leader Michael) Ignatieff,” Harper maintained.

But the Bloc leader’s version of events was supported by Layton.

Ignatieff, for his part, appeared happy to allow the three conspirators from June 2004 to argue the point amongst themselves, steadfastly repeating that he’s campaigning for a Liberal government.

“They’ve got a problem with the coalition,” said Ignatieff, gesturing to the other three leaders lined up at the podiums on his right.

“That’s why I’m offering a clear alternative.”

On a night when the National Hockey League playoffs were getting underway, it was hardly surprising that a few hockey metaphors bled into the political discourse.

Layton tried to portray his Bloc Quebecois rival as the coach of a hockey team with no offensive players.

“You and your team, you’re like a hockey team made up of defencemen only,” he quipped. “The NDP can score goals.”

“The NDP has never had as many players on the ice as we have, so let’s stop telling stories,” Duceppe shot back.

Ignatieff, incredulous, blew the whistle on Layton.

“When did you score these goals?” he asked, citing the NDP’s indecision on whether or not to support a Conservative bid to scrap the long-gun registry.

“We were clear — we said we have to maintain the firearms registry if we want to protect Canadians. You didn’t score much of a goal there.”

The Conservatives’ self-described “tough on crime” agenda came under fire from all three opposition leaders, and Harper maintained a re-elected Conservative government would not change it’s approach.

“In two elections where I was prime minister, the other parties promised to pass legislation, but each time drug traffickers, sexual predators, pardons for serious criminals — the opposition refused to pass these bills,” said Harper.

His accusation was met with hot denials from three different quarters.

Layton pointed out that Harper called the 2008 election, in defiance of his fixed election date law, to send all his justice bills back to square one.

Public interest in the May 2 federal election, Canada’s fourth in seven years, has been slow to build, but televised leaders’ confrontations — coming as they do at the mid-point of a campaign — usually signal the dinner bell on voter appetites.

All four campaigns will be visiting Quebec ridings Thursday in an effort to capitalize on any perceived momentum from the French-language tilt.

Some 3.85 million viewers tuned in to Tuesday’s broadcast on three different networks — an increase of 22 per cent over the 2008 leaders’ debates, according to CTV.

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