I’m watching the French debate. Like the round table, hate the camera work, the translators have a tough job - can you imagine?

By far, as entertaining as it is to watch the facial expressions and the body language (French seem to be a language you need to use your hands for more than English) by far the best fun is over at Macleans magazine.

They have their pundits live blogging. Harper looks bored,  whoever did Elizabeth May’s makeup did a good job, but she needs to loose the necklace. I’m glad to see her there. Layton is way too aggressive, and the camera work seriously is driving me nuts,
Criminal Minds in on in a few minutes. the camera’s jumping around, being a step behind and nowhere in particular are like being on the teacup ride at Disneyworld. Simmer down camera people!
Dion and Duceppe seem like background players, but I’m not a Quebecer and the issues are perceived differently.  I can’t stop laughing at the Australian translator for Dion - was that on purpose? He’s quite good.  (for my US and international friends Stephen Harper using pieces of John Howard’s speech was broken by the Liberals yesterday.)

Anyway, head over to Macleans, they are having fun doing their job. Just hit refresh.

8:42 PM Andrew Potter - This is why — if I may return to my traditional rant on these occasions — it’s wrong to have these segregated debates, Englsh and French kept rigidly separate. The French debate is not a national debate, that happens to be in French. It’s the Quebec debate. There is no reason we could not have bilingual debates: English the first hour, French the second, with simultaneous translation throughout. So the whole country watches, and the leaders have to talk to the whole country…I

8:43 PM Paul Wells - Harper’s calling everyone by their first names. Did anyone note that already? It’s part of his Cuddle Offensive. Next thing you know he’ll have a cello.

8:43 PM Martin Patriquin - My whole country *is* watching, Andrew.

8:43 PM Philippe Gohier - Or perhaps they could all take lessons from Justin Trudeau and speak in both languages at the same time.

8:43 PM Aaron Wherry - Too bad there weren’t half a dozen other names on that editorial. And the CMAJ didn’t publish at least two other pieces pointing out errors in the system.

8:44 PM - Kady O’Malley: “Laissez faire” is apparently Duceppe’s “kitchen table”.

8:44 PM Aaron Wherry - Oh wait. There were half a dozen other names on that editorial. And there were two other stories.

8:45 PM Andrew Potter - Dion just raised a point I wish he’d made earlier. Back when he was Environment minister, he pushed hard to make Environment a central agency, along with T-board, Finance, and PCO. The idea was that every government programme would be evaluated according to its financial cost AND environmental cost.

8:45 PM Chris Selley - I’m not sure if Attaran is a “Liberal,” for the record. He’s certainly a “pain in Harper’s arse.” But onto the environment!

8:47 PM Aaron Wherry - The NDP war room has rushed out numbers from the treasury board that show CFIA funding for food safety going down every year from 2006 through 2010.

8:48 PM Philippe Gohier - I feel like this is the first time Dion’s made a compelling case for carbon taxes over cap and trade.

8:48 PM Andrew Coyne - This setting is tailor made for Dion. A very effective intervention just now — and tied it to “replace Harper” message, which only Liberals can do.

8:48 PM Paul Wells - Can’t decide whether Dion is too self-effacing or whether he’s picking his shots rather cannily. One thing’s for sure, he’s talking less than anyone else around the table. But he just delivered a fairly good defence of carbon taxes over cap-and-trade.

8:49 PM Paul Wells - Three pundits just made the same point. Drink!

8:50 PM Chris Selley - Don’t take Elizabeth May’s word on anything.

8:51 PM Philippe Gohier - Duceppe’s Kyoto obsession is tanking; no one else, not even May, is defending Kyoto.

8:51 PM - Kady O’Malley - I can hear the occasional burst of laughter emanting from the French media room (yes, we’re segregated, but only for logistical reasons). I wish I knew what was inspiring it. Oh, and note that not one of the onsite party spinners - Brad Lavigne and Karl Belanger for the NDP, Dimitri Soudas (wearing a dashing Polo tie) and Kory Teneycke for the Conservatives, and Martin Cauchon and — someone else for the Liberals - has ventured into our turf since the debate got underway. Don’t we deserve a little love?

PS: Went back to the debate, I can watch Criminal Minds later. I knew this would be a Harper pile on, but the discussion has gotten a bit more interesting as the issues broadened. The Australian translator may be Scottish. The second hour in a discussion format under hot lights brings out the individuality of each leader a bit more.