The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) had an ingenious idea for this election campaign, called Canada Votes: X-Challenge: a townhall-like meeting where voters have a chance to confront candidates of the main political parties. The CBC ran two instalments, one taped in Toronto and the other in Vancouver. The way it works is that members of a studio audience, all of whom state their voting preferences prior to the show, ask candidates questions. The candidates, then, have one minute each to respond, followed by two minutes each for rebuttal – or “free-for-all”, as the show’s host called it.

After each question, the studio audience votes on who they thought answered the question most expertly and truthfully. The results are revealed before the next round starts. At the end, the audience is asked to vote on the final winner based on his or her performance throughout the entire townhall meeting.

In the Vancouver edition, for example, Adriane Carr, of the Green Party, was declared the debate’s winner, at around 40%, with the Conservative candidate coming in second place. The NDP and Liberal candidates finished last.

What is most remarkable about this format is summed up by the host: “This is about keeping an open mind and listening to what the various parties have to say about their platforms. This is to demonstrate how democracy should work, where people with preconceived ideas are willing to listen and be swayed by facts and information alone, rather than voting for the same party that one has always voted for.”

Indeed, this is how democracy should work. People who engage in “generational” voting – because parents and grandparents have voted the same way too – or “strategic” voting – with the democratic process being corrupted – are not helping democracy along at all. If a person’s vote is determined by how “grandpa” voted fifty years ago, it is hardly an informed decision. Similarly, when groups urge voters to vote strategically, it becomes a vote against, instead of for, something or someone, and this is not a healthy approach to democracy either.

The CBC program X-Challenge demonstrated beautifully how voters’ views can be changed if politicians and voters are given a fair opportunity to listen to one another. About forty per cent of the studio audience did actually change their minds by the end of the debate.

What is more, the candidates participating in the debate were humanized – unlike the leaders’ debates, where the prime minister and opposition leaders sat around a table and verbally assaulted each other with mostly non-facts, the candidates in this debate format were able to show more of their personal side and engage each other, as well as the audience members, in an overall more pleasant, congenial and open manner than was possible in the televised leaders’ debates. As a matter of fact, it worked so well that as a viewer one could not help but like, and root for, all the candidates.

Liberal MP Ujjal Dosanjh, who represented his party in the Vancouver edition of the program, did finish in third place, but of all the Liberals across the country, including Liberal leader Stéphane Dion, he was the first Liberal to explain the Green Shift plan with true, heartfelt, and infectious, passion – and in a way that (almost) made sense. Maybe Mr. Dosanjh should be tapped as a potential leadership candidate after the October 14 election.

X-Challenge is a great example of democracy at work and should serve as a wakeup call and role model for all voters on how to arrive at that crucial decision in the voting booth: people should forget how their grandparents voted and ignore calls for “strategic” voting. Instead, they should listen, keep an open mind, and educate themselves on the issues and party platforms.

In future, too, the Canadian TV networks would do well to change the leaders’ debates to the X-Challenge format. Seeing the political leaders debate each other in such an engaging and captivating setting may even prompt more voters to head out to the polls on election day and, thus, boost turnout.