Listening to what everyone had to say, I most liked Tony McQuail and least liked Rob Ashton. Worst of all was whoever was in charge of handling sound for the voiceover translations, because that was horrendous. The rest were all fine, but nobody I found inspiring. All pretty likeable though, except for Ashton who came across as kind of caustic and a bit fake. I liked Tanille Johnston's positive energy.

One thing that struck me watching it: I wish the NDP would speak the language of finance, tech, and economics with much more sophistication. It's no good just talking about big business, billionaires, or the 99% in cartoonish ways. If you're going to take on these huge challenges, you need to show you actually understand them at a really sophisticated level, otherwise you end up sounding like your ideas are all pie in the sky. Talk to NDP voters like they're adults who understand economics, business, and tech, and who want a different way of dealing with them. If you've got a sophisticated plan, lay it out and educate us on it like adults, not undergrads who just read Graeber for the first time. It's the working class you need to win back, and they're not idiots. At the end of the debate, because they didn't speak to these topics with sophistication, I was left feeling nobody on stage was really plugged in to a number of the most pressing challenges the party needs to be ahead of.