'It was frustrating': UWindsor students reflect on federal election dos and don'ts

Students with the University of Windsor said they noticed more than one federal leader at Monday's English-language debate use skills that have been taught in this year's Political parties and elections course. 

Areeb Masoodi said tactical damage control was something he saw Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau rely on to control what could have been potentially harmful criticism.

"Trudeau … apologized a lot," said Masoodi. "Although sometimes, I believe his apology wasn't done in the proper manner, but he did do it."

Pedro Kantati said deflection was a "big thing" he took note of during the debate.

"A lot of the candidates were asked direct questions, but found ways to go around or to deflect," he said. "That was taught to us here and seeing it happened in the debates is very interesting."

Kantati said he also noticed leaders focus attention on their opponents rather than address difficult questions.

"For example, when Trudeau was asked about the SNC-Lavalin scandal, he deflected and then spoke of what his party had done and not what it had failed to do," he said. "That was quite interesting."

Alanna Acchione said she noticed leaders attempt to smear one another throughout the debate.

"I noticed there was just a lot of tearing the other candidates apart," she said, adding smear campaigns are tactics she's avoided using during her class debates.

"We have discussed it in our meetings — trying to come up with things that we can say to tear down other parties or tear down other candidates, which is honestly not a great way to do it."

According to Masoodi, leaders at the English-language debate delivered similar performances to those he's seen in the classroom.

"Arguments … escalate and then it starts turning into bickering basically … that happened a lot. In fact it happened more in the federal debate than it did in our class," he said. 

Though students said they found aspects of the debate interesting, Acchione believed the English debate was "kind of a mess."

"Honestly, there was a lot of yelling going on," she said. "It was very unorganized and I found that the moderator had a very hard time controlling the candidates."

"It was frustrating."

University of Windsor political science professor Lydia Miljan, who runs the Political parties and elections course, said she hoped her students paid attention to the strategies, rather than simply focusing on party messaging.

"For example, what was the tactical decision for Andrew Scheer to go really negative right at the beginning?" she said. "Why would he do that, as opposed to warming up or doing it later on?"

At the same time, she said the debate itself was light on policy, but heavy on theatrics.

"All I can say is that every political party has really good scriptwriters, and the leaders all delivered their lines to great effect," she said.