That was definitely one that could’ve used a mute button or sad trombone eh? I’m not sure I got much out of it; not enough to outright declare a winner at any rate.

1. Who cares about the binder? There was a big deal made over the fact the Premier brought a binder onto the set. It’s been implied by opponents, and voters who don’t like him that it made him look inauthentic. Honestly? They all should’ve brought binders out; I want my political leadership to have good knowledge of stats, and information. Ontario is a complicated place to govern, and each region has its own set of problems. It’s time we started to treat it that way. And going after Doug Ford for that is low-hanging fruit. We complain about how toxic our politics can be, and lament the lack of civilized debate. Maybe stop going after a guy for essentially asking for help. The moderator should’ve been a little ashamed of pointing it out so obviously.

2) Open vs. closed questions: This is more of a wonky thing only Journalists, and PR people would notice. The moderators asked a lot of “closed” or Yes/ No questions. First, the province’s problems can’t be boiled down to a yes or no on different subjects. Second, journalists are taught to ask the 5W’s (What, When, Where, Why, and How) as an open-ended questions because it forces the interviewee to think. There wasn’t a lot of that going on last night, and I think the voters suffered for it.

3) The 2018 provincial election was so 4 years ago: The thing about that election, is the PC’s were going to win no matter what. There was an awful lot of voter fatigue with the Liberals after 15 years. They could’ve run a paper bag as their leader, and still would have won a majority. Re-running that does nobody any good. However, Steven Del Duca had a good moment about it when he talked about his regret.

4) Leaders’ Review: Nobody came out really strong, but in doing/ saying almost nothing Doug Ford looked like a Premier. The format made Green Party Leader Mike Schreiner look a little stiff- he’s a lot more dynamic in person when I’ve met him. He was the one to go after Ford on climate change, and the 413’s impact on the environment. Steven Del Duca has been a lot more of a consensus builder lately, and I didn’t see much of it at the debate table. Andrea Horwath didn’t seem to contribute many new ideas, and it almost feels like the NDP are being squeezed by the Liberals and Green Party.

5) Issues hinted at it, but barely explored: The Healthcare portion of the debate featured a lot about staffing, and building hospitals, but little on funding. What people don’t know, is the funding model includes approximately 30% “local share”. In Milton’s case, it was rather controversially passed on to taxpayers in 2011 with a 1% tax levy on the property bill. It amounted to around $34-35 million by the time it came off the tax base in 2018- a year after the expansion opened. Municipalities have been raising a fuss over how many health-related programs they should be responsible for, and rightfully so. One of the parties could’ve used it as an opportunity to spotlight it.

Well who won??? Nobody. And the ultimate loser might be the undecided voter, because nobody could make much of it.