Talking a lot but saying almost nothing Final Edition

• Published in: Kingston Whig-standard (1993)
• Main Author: Treanor, Nick
• Format: Newspaper Article
• Language: English
• Published: Kingston, Ont Postmedia Network Inc 27.09.1996
• ISSN: 1197-4397

Now, communication is always a difficult thing. Everyone knows the children's game of telephone, where a whispered sentence passes from ear to ear of everyone in the room. By the time the last person hears the sentence, it has been twisted almost completely beyond recognition. It is hard enough to get a simple sentence straight, and it is much harder to convey agendas, emotions and ideas. Yet for a couple of hours, the candidates, the audience and the organizers acted as if the brief responses to questions actually did some good. No one with a serious interest in being premier of Ontario should be expected to - or consent to - trade genuine, informative, or helpful answers for 30 seconds of jabbering. Every candidate seemed desperate to appear to know every aspect of government and public policy. They felt obliged to jump into every discussion, apparently thinking that if they stayed silent, they would look stupid. Then, having jumped into the conversation, they couldn't actually say anything worthwhile because they didn't know anything. The result, of course, was vague sentences and catchphrases - more undirected jabbering.