If elected on Nov. 3, Kamala Harris is literally a step away from the president’s job. Her boss is already 77 years old and has mused about serving one term. Maybe that is why she is always smiling.

By Sheila Copps
First published in The Hill Times on October 12, 2020.

OTTAWA—The vice-presidential debate reinforced every element of exclusion that women in politics and business have experienced for years.

It was almost like riding a time capsule back into the 20th century, when men were in charge and women were supposed to smile and look pretty.

Notwithstanding a clear set of rules negotiated by the Commission on Presidential Debates, U.S. Vice-President Mike Pence cavalierly walked all over his opponent, ignoring moderator questions and talking over Kamala Harris. The Democratic nominee kept smiling and weakly demanding that her two-minute speaking slot be uninterrupted.

The moderator made the situation worse by constantly apologizing to the vice-president for his failure to respect the rules. Susan Page from USA Today is a print journalist, so she might not have much experience in cutting off overbearing debate participants. Her timid, apologetic treatment of Pence allowed the man to run roughshod over the rules and his opponent.

Harris kept a grin on her face, but you just know she was screaming inside. Her lack of forcefulness was also grating because it reminded so many women, including me, of the double standard that still applies to women and men in public life.

Harris was too nice. She should have demanded the vice-president respect the rules. Even the moderator should have had her knuckles rapped. Instead, Harris played nice, constantly smiling at the vice-president whilst she was trying to shut him down.

The Democratic vice-presidential nominee was trying to balance the twin objectives of protecting her ticket’s lead and remaining collected and composed.

Her appearance was designed to make people believe that she was vice-presidential material. In that effort, she succeeded.

But the exit polling showed that her opponent, Pence, scored even higher than Harris as a potential vice-president.

There is already a huge gender gap in the support for Biden and Trump. The vast majority of women don’t like Trump and will be voting for Biden. The debate reinforced that schism.

The vice-president’s propensity to answer the questions he wanted, instead of those posed by the moderator, should have been aborted.

Instead, Page’s performance was nothing short of appalling.

The constant apologies to the vice-president, while he simply ignored the rules and kept talking were a stark contrast to her more aggressive demands when Harris ran overtime, usually cutting her off within 15 seconds.

Maybe Harris could have simply followed the lead of Pence, ignoring the moderator and barrelling ahead with minutes of airtime stolen from the opponent.

But had she done that; Harris would have been characterized as a hectoring woman who disrespected the vice-president and was not ready for prime time.

Harris faced the dilemma that has been experienced by every woman trying to make it in a man’s world.

While her opponent ignored the time limits and even the questions posed by the moderator, Harris kept a permanent smile on her face. Even when frustrated, she simply repeated “Mr. Vice-president, I am speaking, I am speaking.” She remained demure and ladylike. That too, reminded me of a gender identity throwback to the last century.

As a woman in a man’s world, I know what it’s like to be boiling inside and demure on the outside. Sometimes, too much demure is not a good thing. If the Twittersphere were any indication, the uneven treatment of Harris and Pence was painfully obvious.

In particular, women weighed in to say things like: “He interrupted me, and I’d like to just finish please, is a line every woman who has ever attended a meeting with men can relate to.” One tweeted: “The gendered dynamics of interruption and the power to interrupt is always so in your face in these settings.” Another tweeted: “Just as women get paid 20 cents on the dollar less than men, Harris appears to get 20 seconds less on the minute than Pence.”

I was hoping Harris would speak out more forcefully, to demand that the moderator start applying the principle of equal treatment.

But she opted for a risk-free evening, so as not to reduce the 10-point lead that her ticket with Biden is currently enjoying.

Harris achieved that risk-free evening. But she reinforced a frustrating perspective that women need to “play nice” if they are going to be accepted in a man’s world.

If elected on Nov. 3, Harris is literally a step away from the president’s job. Her boss is already 77 years old and has mused about serving one term.

Maybe that is why she is always smiling.

Sheila Copps is a former Jean Chrétien-era cabinet minister and a former deputy prime minister. Follow her on Twitter at @Sheila_Copps.

By Sheila Copps
First published in The Hill Times on September 23, 2019.

OTTAWA—The debate about the debates is debatable.

Liberal leader Justin Trudeau was criticized for not attending the first televised debate organized by Maclean’s magazine and CityTV.

He will face more criticism next week as a likely no-show at the Munk Debates on Foreign Policy Oct. 1 in Toronto.

Trudeau’s explanation is that he is attending three debates, including two organized by a national commission established to manage fair and open televised debates.

The Leaders’ Debates Commission was under attack last week for allowing People’s Party of Canada Leader Maxime Bernier to join the official debates on Oct. 7 in English and Oct. 10 in French.

Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer, reacting to the flip-flop by the commission headed by former governor general David Johnston, issued a statement attacking “Trudeau’s hand-picked debate panel.” New Democratic Party Leader Jagmeet Singh decried the decision, disagreeing with People’e Party views that, “promote an ideology of hate.”

Scheer neglected to mention that former prime minister Stephen Harper named the commission head governor general. At the time of Johnston’s debate appointment, Green Party Leader Elizabeth May called the decision “inspired” and lauded the fact that transparent and open criteria would decidedly ensure her presence.

After being denied debate participation in 1988, the Green Party unsuccessfully sued the previous broadcast consortium.

This first attempt to have an independent body set the rules for political debates is certainly not perfect. But it is better than what happened in the 2015 election.

If the Conservatives have anyone to blame about the new format, they need to look no further than their recent leader.

Up until Stephen Harper became prime minister, a broadcast consortium was responsible for ensuring nationally televised debates in both official languages. Established in 1968, the process worked reasonably well for the major parties until, in 2015, Harper refused to participate.

Instead, he joined as many as five independent debates, with little apparent criteria for who organized the events and what was debated.

With the boutique debate strategy, audience participation numbers plummeted. Rogers Media reported an average audience of 1.5 million for the Maclean’s English-language debate. The previous consortium debate surpassed 10 million viewers. The appointment of a former governor general signalled this would not be a partisan effort. And the criteria for debate participation, included in the terms of reference, guaranteed that smaller parties like the Greens would not have to sue to be heard.

The new process ensures broader participation because one of the three criteria is that any party receiving four per cent of the vote in the previous general election is invited. The third criterion, and the one the commission underscored in allowing Bernier in, was that his party has a reasonable chance of winning some seats in the upcoming election.

Those who organized 2015 debates were invited to participate in the Leaders Debate Commission organization. Some refused, launching social media campaigns to convince Trudeau to change his mind and join their separate broadcast efforts.

As it turned out, Trudeau’s absence from the first debate may have played in his favour. The Green and New Democratic parties primarily focused their attacks on Scheer, who appeared defensive and unfriendly.

Trudeau’s absence from next week’s Munk Debate is easier to explain.

No doubt, the admission of Bernier into the debates will change the dynamics. Not only will Canadians see different views on the left of the political spectrum. They will also see real fractures on the right. Much of what Bernier has to say will not be supported by the majority of Canadians.

Bernier’s anti-immigrant message is no doubt going to raise some hackles. But the bottom line is, if an election period is not a good time to discuss different viewpoints on policy, there is no good time.

Former prime minister Kim Campbell announced at the beginning of the 1984 campaign that an election was no time to discuss policy. She ended up going down in flames, with only two members of the Progressive Conservative party left in Parliament after her defeat.

National debates need competing viewpoints. This is really the only time when ordinary Canadians get an insider’s glimpse at what makes political parties tick.

You don’t have to agree with any of them.

Sheila Copps is a former Jean Chrétien-era cabinet minister and a former deputy prime minister. Follow her on Twitter at @Sheila_Copps.

Maxime Bernier’s ideas should be defeated at the ballot box, not in the back rooms of the Leaders’ Debates Commission.

By Sheila Copps
First published in The Hill Times on August 26, 2019.

OTTAWA—The broadcast debate rule makers need to take another look at their election work. By the current rules established for party leader participation, floor-crosser Lucien Bouchard would have been silenced.

At the time of the 1993 election, Bouchard was the leader of the Bloc Quebecois, having been previously elected as a Progressive Conservative. His party did not field candidates across the country, the second of the three criteria established for entering October’s debates.

The rules currently bar the People’s Party of Canada from the debate because leader Max Bernier was elected as a Tory. Can you imaging the uproar if the founding leader of the Bloc had been denied a seat at the televised debating table?

Rules say a party must run candidates in 90 per cent of the ridings across the country, which again eliminates new regional parties like the Bloc. The threshold for support is either a reasonable chance to win a couple of seats, or support from approximately four per cent of the popular vote in a general election. Current polling numbers situate the PPC just under 3 per cent with a chance to win one seat. Those numbers will fluctuate once the campaign begins.

Not surprisingly, the decision to block Bernier has been met by other parties with muted acquiescence. Conservatives are breathing a sigh of relief because Bernier is trying to tap into the right wing of their base. New Democratic Party Leader Jagmeet Singh went so far as to claim the party should be blocked because its viewpoints are odious, and do not deserve a platform.

Many Canadians might have felt the same way about a separatist party, but it was never denied a voice at the table.

Politicians of any stripe should not welcome state-mandated censorship, even when they vehemently disagree with another party’s viewpoint. An organization headed by a sitting Member of Parliament, with candidate recruitment across the country, deserves a chance to be heard.

Last weekend, Bernier’s party held a countrywide candidates’ convention in the nation’s capital, attended by 500 people. The party has managed to nominate candidates from coast to coast and has even recruited some dubious stars, like the widow of former Toronto mayor Rob Ford.

Bernier, who came within two percentage points of leading the Conservative Party, is no political neophyte. His father sat as a Tory member before him, and with his deep roots in that party, Bernier also managed to recruit a number of former Conservative colleagues. Most of them claim to have left the Conservative party to pursue more freedom of speech. They believe the current crop of Tories are too mainstream, denying debate on race and immigration issues.

The PPC is officially advocating a reduction in annual immigration targets by two-thirds, and an end to multiculturalism in the country. Their leader also claims that climate change has not been caused by human activity, despite ample scientific evidence to the contrary.

I am not a fan of Bernier’s ideas. From his misrepresentation of global warming to his call to build a wall against Canadian immigration, he represents the antithesis of my political philosophy. But surely his viewpoint is relevant.

If politically-appointed committees are destined to decide which perspectives can be aired, how does that strengthen democracy?

Bernier’s ideas should be beaten at the ballot box, but he should not be outside the debates looking in. That only strengthens his party’s capacity to play the victim card. Marginalized supporters will claim that their voices are being ignored in favour of other politically correct perspectives.

Given the makeup of the moderators for the English language debate, you can hardly blame them. The debate airing on October 7 features five respected women journalists, including Lisa Laflamme of CTV, Rosemary Barton of CBC, Dawna Friesen of Global, Althia Raj of Huffpost and The Toronto Star’s Susan Delacourt.

All of the aforementioned have the qualifications and the experience to be excellent moderators. But why should a panel on Canadian politics only include participants of one gender? I would be first to complain if the debate consortium had chosen only men. So why is it okay to repeat gender bias with a women-only line-up? Former governor-general David Johnston, the first-ever debates commissioner, is treading a fine line in decisions on the format and composition of the debates. In French, there will be a mix of genders, with three men and two women journalists.

By excluding Bernier from this politically correct table, Johnson is providing dangerous fodder to the populists.

Sheila Copps is a former Jean Chrétien-era cabinet minister and a former deputy prime minister. Follow her on Twitter at @Sheila_Copps.