It is ironic if not just in some perverse, poetic sense that the most American of Canadian federal elections so far has failed to generate the same kind of attention north of the border than the real race for president.

Thursday’s debate between the leaders of the major Canadian parties should have been a momentous occasion in the political life of the nation because these debates can decide an election. They may not supply all the answers which undecided voters desire. But they may supply a moment, which says more about the candidates than all the policy platforms stacked on top of each other.

The stakes heading into this second and final debate certainly could not have been higher for the major party leaders.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper had a chance to revise his poor performance during the French-language debate which may well deny him more Quebec seats and a national majority. Liberal leader Stephane Dion had a final chance to reverse the Liberal slide, which is now threatening his party’s traditional territory in Ontario. New Democratic leader Jack Layton had a chance to cement his claims to be the spokesperson for the fractured and frustrated left. Green Party leader Elizabeth May finally had a chance to introduce herself to a larger national audience and in the end, she came off the best by appearing competent and confident while remaining grounded.

Whether this will change the dynamics of the race currently favouring the Conservatives is up in the air. But that is not the point.

This crucial forum competed against the one and only vice-presidential debate between Democrat Joe Biden and Sarah Palin for actual viewers and more importantly, attention from other media.

Technology allowed hardcore political junkies to watch the Canadian debate while following the vice-presidential debate on a laptop — or vice versa.

But let us be honest.

The race for the American presidency has received an unprecedented amount of global attention. The possibility that Americans might vote for the son of a Kenyan exchange student and a young woman from Kansas who has a slim political resume but plenty of idealism during a period of global economic uncertainty and foreign policy challenges, has fired up imaginations around the world. McLuhan’s predication that modern media technology would end up building a global village is coming more and more true and the American presidential election currently dominates talk around the campfire.

Canadians — who live next to the most powerful storyteller in the village — know this first-hand. Thanks to cable, the Internet and satellites, Canadians can now follow American politics more closely than ever before.

This is not necessarily a lament. Canadians should keep themselves well informed about our closest neighbour, most important military ally and largest trading partner. But we also run the risk of losing track of what is happening in our country if we focus too much on the American election.

Putting aside speculations about the timing of the Canadian election call in the final phase of the American presidential race, it is fair to say that this election will only fuel fears that American political culture is rewriting the DNA of our body politic.

Political blogs — long a mainstay of American political culture — are now shaping the broader media agenda in Canada too. See the Pooping Puffin, a silly and unnecessary distraction and diversion. Political advertising — both negative and positive — has also increasingly focused on the party leaders rather than the platforms of their respective parties.

Personality — not policy — is now the central theme in political messaging — a troubling development since our political system is a parliamentary one, not a presidential one. This trend is not new, but Harper’s Blue Sweater Campaign has accelerated it.

These developments reflect broader transitions within modern political culture. Party leaders have increasingly become chief spokespersons for their respective brands.

The days when William MacKenzie King — one of Canada’s most successful prime ministers, mind you — would hide himself away in his dark office to communicate with his dead mother are long gone and leaders who fail to sell their policies — no matter how good those policies may be — are destined to fail. Dion will suffer this fate in a few days.

Parties themselves are changing too. Parties claiming to represent large segments of society are losing voters, members and organizers in droves to smaller, more issue-specific parties, which may not even meet the traditional definition of a party.

An increasing number of European parliaments now feature five, six, sometimes seven political groups and we may see such conditions one day in Canada, especially if the Liberals cannot halt their decline.

This Balkanization of party structures throughout the western world signals great dis-satisfaction with the status quo and demands significant reform. Potential remedies include less rigid party structures that reduce the space between the party base and their leaders as well as more fluid party membership rules.

But such measures are still on the drawing board and parties concerned about their electoral here and now are increasingly turning to leader politics.

These trends are not yet destined for Canada. Our system of responsible government and first-past-the-post electoral method may well moderate them. Past warnings about undue American influence in our politics have been exaggerated. But if we are paying more attention to the American political system than ours, we may end up missing all changes at home and not liking them.

Wolf Depner is a former reporter for the Penticton Western News now working towards his PhD at UBC-Okanagan.