On Tuesday, I watched a CBC political game show where representatives from
each party (including Liberal Scott Bryson and Conservatives Finance Minister Jim Flaherty) took questions from a live audience in a Toronto television studio.

The audience was pre-selected according to voting intention and weighted to early week poll results i.e. 36% Conservative, 26% Liberal, 17% NDP and 9% Green. Six subjects. were addressed by way of questions from the audience. Each candidate replied to the questions and then debated the subject matter with the other candidates. The audience was equipped with individual electronic voting devices and voted after each subject was discussed. Liberal Scott Brison won five of the six debates.

Most significantly, when they voted at the end of the show, the audience’s voting intentions had flipped. The Liberals went from 26% to 52%. Conservatives went from 36% to 29%. The NDP dropped to 16% and the Green went from 9% to 3%.

A similar thing happened after the Wednesday night’s “Leader” debate in French. According to an Ipsos Reid poll, Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion emerged as the clear winner of the debate with 40% of voters who viewed it saying he won, compared with 24% who felt that Bloc Leader Gilles Duceppe had won. Only 16% felt that Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper emerged victorious.

In the English language debate Conservative Leader Stephen Harper emerged as the winner with 31% of Canadian voters who responded to the survey but ironically, the only party leader to have overall impressions worsen was Stephen Harper (a net loss of ten points), despite the fact that more viewers thought he won the debate. The English language survey had an estimated margin of error of +/- 2.0 percentage points, 19 times out of 20 had the entire English-speaking adult population in Canada been polled.

Based on these results, it appears that language is playing a big part in leader preference. Most significantly, the French results suggest that Harper could lose votes and seats in Quebec, thus denying him a majority. The flip side is that he might be able to win a majority in English Canada with as little as a third of the vote because his opposition is splintered among the four other parties. The idea that 33% of voters could elect a majority government in Canada is a frightening prospect, particularly as a crashing American economy lurks in the background.

Prime Minister Harper continues to deny that the U.S. situation will affect Canada because our “fundamentals are sound”. That is poppycock. Anything that affects the American economy in a negative way will ultimately affect Canada.

In the English debate, Harper brushed aside repeated criticism that he's failed to produce an economic plan. Throughout the two-hour session, the Conservative leader was quizzed on how he proposes to address Canada's financial situation in light of the U.S. crisis.

It was at Harper's request, that the amount of time devoted to the economy was increased to 30 minutes in both the English and French debates. Green Party Leader Elizabeth May questioned why Harper would request more time to debate the economy and then fail to make use of it.

"Both nights, I waited to hear what you thought you should do about the situation but you spent your time attacking the policies of others," she said.

NDP Leader Jack Layton agreed. "Where's the platform, under the sweater?" he asked Harper, making fun of the Conservative leader's new wardrobe of sweaters being used in his party's ad campaign to soften his image.

Instead of responding to the accusations, Harper attacked Stéphane Dion, accusing the Liberal leader of panicking under pressure by unveiling an economic plan during the Wednesday’s debate. That’s the Harper way – attack your opponent rather than debate the issues.

South of the border, the two U.S. vice presidential candidates Sarah Palin and Joe Biden squared off in debate opposite our leaders. Republican vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin has been mocked for her inexperience and shortage of credentials. She’s been under fire for not being accessible to the media and for delivering tightly scripted speeches.

In Thursday’s debate, according to a CNN/Opinion Research Poll of debate watchers, the Alaska governor exceeded expectations as 84 percent of the debate watchers said she did better than expected. However 57 percent chose Joe Biden as the winner in their debate while only 36 percent gave the nod to Palin.

By the end of the week, nothing much had changed. Obama and Biden lead in the United States and Harper continues to lead in Canada albeit with a lower percentage of the popular vote. The U.S. financial situation may change all of that next week. It should be interesting.

W.E. (Bill) Belliveau is a Shediac resident and Moncton business consultant. He can be contacted at bill.bellstrategic@nb.aibn.com Atlantic Insight is a published Blog inventory of opinion articles published weekly in New Brunswick's print media as written by W.E. (Bill) Belliveau, who is a resident of Shediac, New Brunswick, and small business owner, operating his Moncton-based marketing consultancy, Bell Strategic. He can be reached by e-mail at mailto:bill.bellstrategic@nb.aibn.com