Not only could that happen, it has happened. It was very interesting to read the testimony and the questions from the committee on that issue particularly, because the fact is that at the end of the day there's only one lever that matters in debates: what the public wants.
When it appears that a candidate is balking and in fact perhaps says they're not going to one or more of the debates, the public outcry here is huge and very swift. I would argue that this is actually a much bigger enforcement mechanism than saying that person will be denied funding or advertising time, or that there will some kind of a sanction. These debates are now expected by the public, which I should think would be the case in Canada, given your long history.
In particular, some of your witnesses have talked about the fact that for the average citizen who is not following politics every second, it's towards the end of the campaigns, the end of the general election time, that many people are in fact paying attention, and this is when they want to hear from these candidates. If it looks as though the candidates are saying that they have better things to do, that they don't want to do this and they'll use a competing invitation as a reason not to do it, people get angry, and that anger will manifest itself very quickly, because their basic feeling is, “What do you have to do that is more important?”
The debates in the United States are, I would argue, the last event that belongs to the public. The conventions are preplanned, and certainly most of us could never go to one just because we decided we wanted to. The ads are produced. Campaign stops are prescreened. The debates belong to the public, and they take place without filters: this is listening to the candidates directly.
The public outcry is very quick, and I think that's a very good thing. There has been talk in this country of legislation mandating debates, particularly perhaps tied to federal funding: that if you are a candidate receiving federal funding, you must debate. I think the common wisdom is that legislation like that would probably be deemed unconstitutional.