Dean P's meditations on the debate

Unlike my tag teaming buddy, I'm multitasking at work - thank god for cpac!

However, a few thoughts:

1. Martin is shrill. Talking too fast. Hysterical. I agree with Mike - Chindia as a reason for unity?

2. The Notwithstanding Clause. Do we NEED to go there? Do you think, once we open up the Constitution for amendment, all those people out there with other interests aren't going to come forward. Please. We had so many horrible, divisive years of Meech and of Charlottetown - do we need more constitutional fighting?

3. Harper - poised. Calmer. Apparently smiles at the wrong time.

4. I thought the response by Harper regarding working with the Bloc was excellent. He acknowledged that there are three, not four national parties, and that the Bloc's goals aren't the same. He said when working with the Bloc, he'd keep pan-Canadian interests in mind. I thought that was excellent. Neutralized the fear that he'd sacrifice the interests of Canada just to keep himself in power using the Bloc.

5. Duceppe's answer about Same Sex Marriage being settled but Separatism not was ridiculous. Group v. individual rights. He gets Supreme Court doctrine on that one wrong. And anyway, on the divisibility of Quebec, he got that one wrong too. Quebec came in as Lower Canada - a tiny little lump around the St. Lawrence. We'll take Ungava back, thank you very much, and any part of Anglophone Quebec that wants to come (given Duceppe said that French is the national language of Quebecers and that's why he doesn't run ads in English). Traitor. It takes a lot of my legal mind to keep my emotions in check and not think he should just be.... But when I think that way, I channel Trudeau: "Reason over Passion. Ommmm. Reason over Passon. Ommm."

6. Martin's "if we'd said give them a dollar a day" comment is old. Get a new line, buddy.