October 27, 2003
On October 19, Citytv hosted a live debate between the five major candidates who are running to become mayor of Toronto in the municipal elections that will be held on November 10. For years, the station has held this debate during election years and it has become an important part of municipal campaigns. For many residents (and there are many) who pay very little attention to how their city is run, it is their only opportunity to see the candidates speak and familiarize themselves with the issues and the policies of individual candidates.
City is a natural venue for a televised debate. The station is a local one that specializes in Toronto news and Toronto issues. Citytv prides itself in its diversity with its on-air personnel coming from different ethnic backgrounds. But it’s hardly a well-kept secret that the concept of diversity and inclusiveness does not include a diversity of ideas. Any similarity between objective news reporting and what transpires on Citytv is purely coincidental. The format of the debate, as biased as it was outlandish, clearly tried to benefit the two left wing mayoral candidates, David Miller and Barbara Hall.
As far as the format goes, the audience was filled with tee-shirt wearing supporters from all of the candidates’ camps. They hooted and hollered after their candidate said something, sometimes to the point of drowning out what the next speaker was saying. That type of behaviour is all well and good at a political rally or convention but not at a debate that is held out to be a serious opportunity to inform voters on the issues. The panel consisted of five journalists, one each from the Toronto Star, the Toronto Sun, Now, Eye and Citytv. In part of the left wing bias, columnist Don Wanagas was described as a municipal reporter from Now, one of the two main left wing alternative magazines to have representation on the panel (NOW being the other). No mention was made of the fact that Wanagas also writes on municipal affairs for the right wing national newspaper, the National Post.
The format also provided for people on the street to ask questions. Five people were selected, each one posing one question to one of the five candidates. With Toronto’s streets filled with the homeless and drug dealers, these five happened to be a professor, a teacher, an architect, a book editor and a student. What are the odds that these people were chosen randomly?
The professor asked Barbara Hall what she would do to help the community. A softball question if there ever was one. The teacher asked David Miller about his statement that he might impose tolls on the Don Valley Parkway and the Gardiner Expressway, thereby insuring that NDP Miller had a chance to deal with his statement on tolls before one of the other candidates brought it up. The other three questions dealt with the issues of urban sprawl, childcare and the waterfront. No questions from these "people on the street" were asked about taxes, spending, gridlock, or getting the homeless people off the street. The lobbed questions were all on topics that the left (ie. Citytv, Hall and Miller) rank as important issues.
All political debates should have a moderator but this one didn’t. Oh yes there was Gord Martineau doing a weak impression of one, but he hardly moderated. When asking for opening statements he referred to Jakobek and Tory, the two most conservative candidates in the race, as Mr. Jakobek and Mr. Tory. He addressed the remaining three candidates by their first names. To give Martineau the benefit of the doubt, he didn’t do it on purpose to show his distance from the candidates on the right--he just didn’t know any better.
Occasionally, when two or more of the candidates talked at the same time, he would give a little grin and say "candidates, candidates" as if they were all kindergarten students. But he did absolutely nothing to take control of the debate to keep it orderly. This led to later comments about how candidates behaved, leading to the inference that they weren’t as professional as other debaters such as the leaders who debated in the recent provincial elections. But this wasn’t true--all political debates would end up with candidates all speaking at the same time if they aren’t properly moderated. Moderators are not chosen just to look pretty and go to commercial breaks.
And what did Citytv think of its debate? They reran it later in the week on their station, CP24. They may has well have run last month’s weather forecast.