In what had to be the most gruelling debate in the election campaign so far, a group of candidates fielded some tough questions from former Canadian ambassador to the U.N. Stephen Lewis, journalists Linda McQuaig and John Stackhouse, and anti-poverty activist Josephine Grey last Thursday night.
Humanitarian group Make Poverty History held an election debate, entitled Poverty at Home and Abroad, at the Royal Ontario Museum in the Samuel Hall Currelly Gallery.
The debaters came mostly from the GTA, and included Green party candidate for Ottawa-Centre David Chernushenko, Liberal candidate for Scarborough-Guildwood John McKay, and NDP candidate for St. Paul’s Paul Summerville. Neither one of the two Conservative candidates-Theresa Rodrigues for Davenport and Sam Goldstein for Trinity-Spadina-bothered to show up.
Lewis kicked off the debate by asking Liberal John McKay the first question, grilling him on why the Liberal government has never committed to a timetable to reach the target of 0.7 per cent of GDP that they have frequently endorsed-thus beginning a series of attacks on the Grit candidate from all sides that did not let up until Rockburn ended the event.
A clearly uncomfortable McKay was ill-equipped to stand up to the challenge posed to him by the questioners. He frequently reiterated the Liberals commitments to health care, child care, and a balanced budget as reasons why the Liberals couldn’t come up with the $40 billion needed to bring Canada up to 0.7 per cent.
The event, which had a live audience of over 600, was moderated by Ken Rockburn of CPAC. The parliamentary station broadcast the tape-delayed debate nationally on Friday afternoon.
The debate was divided into four parts, with the candidates relaying their respective parties’ positions on aid, child poverty, debt, and trade, answering general questions from the audience after.
Aid issues included effective party strategies on how to deliver aid money to the right people. According to Chernushenko, the Green Party strategy is to “create a series of local and Canadian partners who are committed and accountable.
“Furthermore, the creation of an accountability mechanism will prove whether Canadian companies or their local partners help or just line their pockets with aid money.”
During the section on child poverty, the NDP’s Summerville attacked the Conservative child care policy when he said that “according to the Globe and Mail, cutting the GST from 7 per cent to 5 per cent would save someone making $12,500 a year $64 but it would take out $5 billion out of the treasury. Guess how much it would take to properly fund adequate child care in Canada: $5 billion.”
