1. Jack Layton has finally realised that he is in fact the leader of the NDP, not Ed Broadbent

2. Paul Martin’s favourite word is still “fundamentally…”

3. Gilles Duceppe is a good sport for putting up with Paul, Stephen, and Jack in a language spoken by less than half of the people in the region he runs candidates in.

4. Stephen Harper gives new meaning to the word “monotone”

5. Jack, Stephen, and Gilles all got together this time and checked what colour the other’s tie is so they don’t wear the same one (“Oh, I’ll take the blue one with yellow stripes… because it isn’t Liberal red”)

(Photo coutesy of Scott Feschuk. He doesn’t know, I lifted it off of the Liberal blog)

6. Once again, Paul narrowly escaped crying (“mean, mean Gilles Duceppe wants to take my beautiful Quebec away from me… boohoohoo”). “I am a Quebecer – don’t take my country away from me”

More to follow when I get back from my seminar tonight and watch the rest of the debate (praise God for VCR’s and being able to tape shows!)

7. The debate looks pretty funny when watched in fast-forward (Paul Martin: “Look at me, I can fly…”

8. Paul Martin: “We’ve got to have a more intelligent debate” Well Paul, I’m waiting.

9. If we are admitting that politicians turn people off of politics, is there maybe something that we should do about that? Not just state that it is a problem. Apparently more women in politics will fix that (thanks Jack).

10. “Toronto isn’t Detroit, Vancouver isn’t South LA” Glad we’ve cleared that up.

11. Paul Martin seems to be trying to dig himself out of some sort of hole… oh wait he is in one – his party is down 11points in the polls.

12. Stephen Harper smiled! (Thanks to Eric for the comment on the smile: “his smile was kinda creepy though”… my reply: “look into my eyes when I smile, I can perform a Jedi mind trick on you”)

13. NDP priorities: “Seniors, Health Care, and clean up parliament.” Are they not all one and the same? (ie – Seniors need health care and and make up too much of our parliament)

14. Liberal priorities: “Child Care and Education.” Thanks for funding education now, since I’m graduating this year. So what will you do for grad studies? Or are we on our own by then?

15. Bloc comments: You’re all stupid. “We act in the best interest of Quebec. No one in Quebec likes your ideas”

16. Jack Layton says again, and again, and again, and again: “There is a third option, a better option, vote NDP”

17. Stephen Harper mentioned Ed Broadbent before Jack Layton. Didn’t see that one coming!

18. Blah, blah, blah, blah.

19. Never thought I’d see a question first raised on The Royal Canadian Air Farce appear on the Federal Leader’s Debate! The question? To Gilles Duceppe – “You said at the leader’s debate in Vancouver that the issue of same-sex marriage was decided and should not be reopened. Why have you not applied the same rule to Quebec separatism?” Good question. The answer? “Well, well, they are totally different things.” Not good answer.

20. Enough already, Jack Layton you are not winning voters by looking into the camera and saying with a soft voice “YOU have the option, lets create the kind of Canada you deserve.” No, you are creeping me out.

21. Stephen Harper quoted Pastor Brian Houston, “The best is yet to come…” Jack Layton quoted the mice on Cinderella, “We can do it, we can do it…”

22. None of them seems to really cares about youth/students. Thats too bad since hardly any of us vote and there are a whole lot of us who could.

23. And now we all shake hands and pretend we all like eachother and are the best of friends. How sweet.

Conclusions: It Gilles Duceppe wasn’t separatist and running only in Quebec, I just might have voted for him. Maybe. Jack Layton still annoys me and I flat out don’t like the NDP. I think I’ll vote for Steve Paikin, he did a great job moderating the debate.