On Oct. 7, two weeks out from election day, five federal party leaders will face off as part of the English-language debate.
Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau, Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer, NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh, Green Party Leader Elizabeth May and Bloc Québécois Leader Yves-François Blanchet have all agreed to participate. The debate will take place at the Canadian Museum of History in Gatineau, Que., overlooking Parliament Hill.
The night will be broken down into different sections, each hosted by a veteran journalist, including Rosemary Barton of CBC News. The other moderators are Toronto Star’s Ottawa bureau chief Susan Delacourt, Global News anchor Dawna Friesen, CTV News anchor Lisa LaFlamme and HuffPost Canada’s Ottawa bureau chief Althia Raj.
They’ll be asking these leaders some of your questions, which you can submit for consideration in the survey below.
How to watch
The debate will run 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. ET and will be streamed live on many different CBC platforms, including:
- CBC Television and CBC News Network.
- CBCNews.ca.
- CBC Gem.
- YouTube.
- Twitter.
- Facebook.
- CBC Radio One.
- CBC Listen app.
The debate will be translated into French, Mandarin, Cantonese, Italian, Arabic, Punjabi and key Indigenous languages, and will also include American Sign Language (ASL), Quebec Sign Language (SQL), closed captioning and described video.
This page will be updated as more details are confirmed.
Return to form
All five leaders will also take part in a French-language debate on Oct. 10, which will be hosted by Radio-Canada’s Patrice Roy. Le Devoir’s parliamentary correspondent Hélène Buzzetti, La Presse editor-in-chief François Cardinal, L’actualité’s politics bureau chief Alec Castonguay and Le Soleil National Assembly reporter Patricia Cloutier will also take part.
Both debates will be hosted and broadcasted by a new partnership of 10 broadcast, print and digital news organizations called the Canadian Debate Production Partnership. The group is comprised of CBC News, Radio-Canada, CTV News, Global News, Toronto Star and the Torstar chain, HuffPost Canada and HuffPost Québec, La Presse, Le Devoir and L’actualité. The debate will also be offered through OMNI Television, APTN, CPAC, Groupe Capitales Médias, Groupe V Média and Yahoo! Canada.
The partnership is the successor of the smaller Broadcast Consortium, which produced previous federal debates.
During the 2015 election, the Conservatives refused to participate in an English consortium debate, opting for alternative formats and triggering a debate about debates. The snub resulted in the creation of a Leaders’ Debate Commission, led by former governor general David Johnston, tasked with organizing these English and French debates.
In order to qualify for the debate, the commission decided parties had to meet at least two of the three requirements:
- Have a member in the House of Commons elected under their party’s banner.
- Be running candidates in at least 90 per cent of all ridings.
- Candidates secured at least four per cent of the vote in the last election or the party has a legitimate chance of winning seats, based on polling data and the discretion of the debate commissioner.
The requirements mean People’s Party of Canada Leader Maxime Bernier did not automatically qualify for the debate. He’s submitted a list of five PPC candidates he feels would have an advantage going into the campaign. The commission will make a final decision by Sept. 16.
Several other independently organized debates are planned for the campaign, but Trudeau hasn’t agreed to all of them. Macleans hosted the first debate in 2015 and will do so again on Sept. 12. The Conservatives, the NDP and the Greens are participating, but the Liberals have said no. The debate will go on regardless.
The Munk Debates also hope to reprise their 2015 showdown focused on foreign policy on Oct. 1. Again, Scheer, Singh and May have said they will take part, but Trudeau is out. Organizers are pressuring him to change his mind or else they’ll set out an “empty chair.”
Trudeau, however, has agreed to a TVA debate in Quebec, which hosted a French-language debate in 2015. He will be joined by Scheer, Singh and Blanchet on Oct. 2. The Greens were not invited.
Ask a question
The Oct. 7 and Oct. 10 debates will include questions from the public. So here’s your chance to get your question in. What would you like to ask the federal leaders?
Write your question in the box below. Some of the best will be selected and asked to the leaders.