Closing statements

Right now all the focus, of course, is on PM's idiotic statement about banishing the notwithstanding clause. That's fine.

Angry touches on Harper's profound yet glossed-over statement about enshrining property rights into the Charter. He expounds on it much better than I ever could have.

But I want to touch on something I haven't seen anyone talk about yet. (Of course, I might have missed something someone wrote--I tend to miss things once in a while...) I want to talk about the leaders' closing statements. Specifically those of Harper and Martin.

For the sake of completeness, though, I'll comment on the other ones, too. (Transcript is here.)

Layton seemed stuck on one message all night--the "we'll make Parliament work for the working people, we'll hold whomever accountable, so please elect more NDP members." That's fine, except that it got a bit tiring, knowing what he was going to say in response to every question--deflect, bridge, vote NDP. He sounded like a walking (okay, standing there) TV ad. His closing statement was more of the same.

Duceppe was bluntly honest, and I like that about him. "The Bloc will make strategic alliances whenever it's expedient to the desires of Quebeckers." This is straight-shooting at its finest. I don't agree with his politics, but damn, the man gets his point across, even when he can't properly pronounce 70% of the words he's saying. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

(Side note here: okay, you caught me, I'm straying off the closing statement part here because Paul essentially said nothing but "I love Canada, and Stephen Harper will destroy Canada as we know it because, fundamentally, let me be very very clear about this, my number one priority is how much I love being Prime Minister".) Through the debate Martin seemed to have the election equivalent of Homer Simpson's makeup gun and he, like Homer, had it set on "whore"--all kinds of different things in the gun, and hoping one of them would stick. Harper is scary. Harper would override rights. Harper would increase taxes. Harper would put us into deficit by cutting taxes. In essence, he seemed barely restrained in his panic at seeing the polls over the past couple of days. Too bad for him he opened his mouth early in the debate and lost himself the election.

Finally, and paint me as a partisan shill (because that's exactly what I am), Harper sounded like a Prime Minister. Notice I didn't say "in waiting". He calmly and succinctly told Canadians his plan for Canada on finances, crime, and accountability. He was self-deprecating, thereby showing his humanity. After his statement, as Jack started talking, I turned to my friend and said, "wow, now that was a good closing statement" and she agreed.

One thing for sure: this debate was a lot more interesting to watch (in my opinion) than the last one. Of course, the self-destruction of the Liberals helped my enjoyment. ;)