#macdebate

The 2015 Canadian Federal Election campaign kicked into "high"ish gear last night with the first of an undetermined and confusing number of debates planned between now and the actual election which from what I understand won't be held until 2019.

I didn't watch it.

I almost never watch the televised debates. There are roughly 1,000 things better to watch on TV at precisely that same time, which is odd seeing as how I only get about 40 channels. I spent about half the debate watching the Blue Jays game before they took a commanding 8-2 lead and I had to shut the TV off in disgust. I tried switching to the debate, but I saw Mulcair trying very very very hard not to be the Angry Beard we all know him to be, talking about the New Brunswick personal tax rates and discussing how it must hurt job creators trying to lure in top talent.

Oops, Angry Beard managed to mangle even that point, when he started talking about doctors who need to be lured by the public healthcare system that needs those same confiscated taxes to pay the doctors in the first place. Angry Beard's "oh the poor overtaxed" routine was designed solely to try to negate the Prime Minister's blisteringly successful attack about how Mulcair doesn't actually know anything about taxation rates but always demands they increase. So his cleverly force-fed taxation fact ended up going against the worldview that he plans to impose on Canadians, and he was too busy trying not to be emotional at all (knowing, surely, that he would explode into a rage if any came out) to notice.

It was brutal to watch even 30 seconds of it, and I thought better of it and decided to make lunch for work today and work on a couple home improvement projects instead. Mulcair's weird "rage-free" performance caught the attention of the NDP-friendly Huffington Post, and was given a blistering treatment in the National Post. His creepy smiling lit up social media.

Of course, the nature of the debate minimized the chance for anybody interested in stopping the far-left agenda from being able to speak up, with no less than three far-left party leaders involved in the debate, framing the questions in nonsense about "minimum wage giving workers a raise" rather than "stealing earnings from the people who are most invested in advancing the economy". Talking about Harper's "recessions" without noticing that he simply was in power long enough to see Alberta elect an economy-obliterating NDP. Hammering the Prime Minister on deficit spending while ignoring that their parties forced Harper into a deficit spending position he didn't want.

It's painful to watch and it's openly deceitful. No wonder I shut the TV off. The question is why anybody watched.