Everything was going as planned, last Sunday afternoon. I had some errands to complete, my students’ news copy to edit. Then, I planned to wash and dress to be at the Durham riding debate venue half an hour before things got started. When I arrived and saw all the parked cars and not a soul outside, my heart sank. I realized the debate was scheduled for 7 not 7:30. I’d arrived just as the main event was about to begin.
It’s the first time in all the years I’ve done these things, that I’ve ever been late for an MC gig. So, I’ve learned that tip number one for being a successful debate moderator is:
Read your own promotional literature and get there on time.
Tip number two, which was certainly obvious to the several hundred constituents who gave their Sunday evening to a Q&A with candidates for Durham riding in the May 2, 2011, federal election:
Choose reliable colleagues to cover your backside.
Co-host (and Cosmos) publisher Conrad Boyce as well as sound producer Larry Whitelock (of Stage One) did all of that and more. All I had to do was slip into my chair in front of Larry’s microphone at which Conrad (in my absence) had capably introduced the evening and carry on from there. By the way, when Conrad and I originally discussed the format for the evening, we decided – with basically four candidates in the race at that moment – we could give each contender about seven minutes to offer Opening Statements.
Eventually, we scaled that back to five minutes with a plan to then follow introductions with an open discussion, during which the candidates could respond to each other’s platform in a kind of free-for-all among the candidates, just to see what might happen.
Well, by the time we’d carved the Opening Statements time limits in stone at five minutes, the candidates’ list had swelled from four to six (Andrew Moriarity of the Christian Heritage Party and Blaize Barnicoat from the Libertarian Party) which then extended the opening segment from 20 minutes to 40 minutes. But even that didn’t get the divergent candidates terribly engaged. Tip number three:
Make sure the candidates get over being polite quickly.
We were five minutes into the free-for-all and nobody had thrown a verbal punch yet.
“Don’t wait for me,” I told them. “Remember, this is a debate.”
Mind you I probably didn’t have to worry. It wasn’t too far into the Q&A section of the evening when I offered a question that had been written on a piece of paper. It dealt with the 30-year-old debate over lands expropriated near Brougham, Ont., for a planned Pickering International Airport. That seemed to stir both the candidates and the audience.
Green candidate Stephen Leahy said he could think of scores of ways the derelict farmland could be used more effectively. NDP candidate Tammy Schoep said she opposed any suggestion of an airport on those lands. And Liberal Grant Humes, in his anti-airport stance, went so far as to suggest the lands be incorporated into a brand new national park. Conservative incumbent Bev Oda appeared to back development on the lands, suggesting that the airport option might stimulate growth in the area. Tip number four:
No ember of controversy is so old that it can’t roar back into a blaze during a federal election.
At the beginning of the Q&A as I saw people scrambling to the microphone, I remembered some debates in the past during which we had to plead with constituents to come forward to ask questions. Not Sunday night.
There was the question from a Green Party supporter who asked candidate Humes (if she voted for him) would he consider supporting “proportional representation” (rather than the first past the post principle currently used). The candidate described it was “the zinger question” and he had to admit he would not support a change in determining winners. And toward the end of the evening when discussion could no longer ignore “the elephant in the room,” two constituents crossed candidate Oda on allegations of misrepresentation.
“I was fulfilling my responsibility,” she said.
Tip number five: Never underestimate the ability of the public to step forward with the right questions at the right time.
The coming election may not be the most important of our time, but the major parties seem to spin it that way. If the Conservatives are to be believed, the election requires a majority decision. If one believes the Liberal Party, this election is about trust. And New Democrats claim that now is their time. My final tip at being a debate moderator:
Don’t believe claims or polls, save those revealed by ballot boxes May 2.
