EMPTY CHAIR AT MUNK DEBATE

    In the customarily cynical way that federal election campaigns are orchestrated, it makes perfectly good political sense, from a Liberal party point of view, that Justin Trudeau has refused to participate in Thursday evening’s Maclean’s-Citytv federal leaders’ debate. It isn’t in the public interest to behave this way, of course, but the Liberals aren’t keen on exposing their incumbent prime minister to any campaign milieu, if they don’t have to, that they aren’t effectively stage-managing.
   It makes even better sense, cynically speaking, that Trudeau is refusing to subject himself to the rigour of the Munk Debate on Foreign Policy that the other leaders are attending Oct. 1 at Roy Thomson Hall in Toronto. There will be an empty chair in the place where Trudeau should be. This will make him look bad enough, but almost certainly not as bad as Trudeau would make himself look in the attempt to defend his foreign policy record, let alone articulate his plans ahead. Foreign policy is a subject the Liberals would rather we not be thinking about at all.