Canadian leaders' debates
[1] They were until recently produced by a consortium of the main Canadian television networks, namely the CBC/SRC, CTV, Global and TVA, although other channels such as CPAC (and C-SPAN in the United States; English-language debate only) carry the broadcasts as well.
Following the 1988 federal election, after a decision of the Attorney General of Canada to stay a prosecution under the Broadcasting Act initiated by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) against several Canadian television networks, at the instance of the CRTC, a private prosecution was instituted on behalf of the Green Party of Canada by former Chief Agent and Treasurer[2] Greg Vezina against CBC, CTV and Global, claiming that these broadcasters had breached the Television Broadcasting Regulations 1987, because they had not included the Green Party and other accredited and registered small political party leaders in the leaders' debates during a federal general election and had failed to provide equitable time to them.
In R. v. Canadian Broadcasting Corporation et al., (1993) 51 CPR (3d) 192, the Ontario Court of Appeal held that debates were not of a partisan political character.
The court therefore ruled that debates were not covered by the relevant section of the regulations and notwithstanding provisions of under the Canada Elections Act limiting, restricting and in many cases prohibiting contributions of political advertising and broadcasting, declared both acts to be 'a complete code' and therefore there was no requirement to provide any time at all for parties or candidates excluded from debates during election campaigns no matter how many candidates or parties were excluded so long as two or more were included in such programs.
(Broadcasters and other media used the same reasoning to exclude commentators and representatives from smaller parties in news and public affairs panels and programs both during and in between elections in Canada.)
While all other members of the Election Broadcasting Consortium failed to broadcast the 1993 program after announcing they would, in both the 1993 and 2000 the one-hour debates were carried on CBC Newsworld and the debates and another hour of town hall questions and answers afterword on CPAC (English: Cable Public Affairs Channel and in French: La Chaîne d'affaires publiques par câble).
In the 1993 French-language debate, Reform Party leader Preston Manning opted to make only an opening statement, as he was only fluent in English at the time.
Réal Caouette, speaking only in French, was present only during the latter of the part whilst Douglas and Stanfield only debated in English.
Private network CTV originally proposed a 90-minute debate between only Trudeau and Stanfield, prompting the NDP to protest.
[8] The debate was conducted in Parliament's Confederation Hall; moderators were Pierre Nadeau of Radio-Canada/CBC and Charles Templeton of CTV with questions from a panel of journalists made up of Ron Collister, Tom Gould, and Jean-Marc Poliquin.
[9] Six years earlier, during the 1962 federal election, Liberal leader Lester Pearson had challenged Progressive Conservative prime minister John Diefenbaker to a televised debate but was turned down.
The debate was moderated by then Dean of the Faculty of Law at the University of Western Ontario, and future Governor General, David Johnston.
The two-hour long debate was conducted in Ottawa on May 13, 1979, in the studios of CJOH-TV and moderated by McGill University principal David Johnston, who would go on to become Governor General of Canada two decades later.
Questions were asked by a panel of journalists consisting of the CBC's David Halton, Global Television's Peter Desbarats, and Bruce Phillips of CTV.
That sir, if I may say respectfully, that is not good enough for Canadians.. " The Progressive Conservatives won a landslide majority, leaving the Liberals nearly tied for second place with the NDP.
Questions were asked by a panel of journalists consisting of the CBC's David Halton, Global's Peter Truman, and CTV's Bruce Phillips.
[12] The Leaders' debate on women's issues during the 1984 Canadian federal election campaign was held on August 15, 1984 at the Royal York Hotel in Toronto.
Panellists were Eleanor Wachtel, a Vancouver freelance writer, Kay Sigurjonsson, an NAC founding member and director of the Federation of Women Teachers' Associations of Ontario, Francine Harel-Giasson, a professor at the University of Montreal business school, and Renée Rowan, columnist for Le Devoir, and the moderator of the debate was Caroline Andrew, chairman of the political science department at the University of Ottawa.
Questions were asked by a panel of journalists made up of the CBC's David Halton, CTV's Pamela Wallin, and Global's Doug Small.
The Bloc Québécois formed the official opposition, while the Reform Party emerged as Canada's main conservative movement.
Dion said that while he supports May's inclusion, he would not attend if the prime minister did not, and the Bloc Québécois said it never threatened to boycott the debates.
The Green Party indicated it would lodge a formal complaint with the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC).
[22] The following format was to be followed for the 2008 debates:[23] The parties and the consortium later agreed to allot additional time to the economy because of the 2008 global economic crisis.
[26] The English debate was best known for Layton's attack on Ignatieff for having the worst House of Commons attendance record of any of the party leaders.
Traditionally, party leaders participated in at least two nationally televised debates during the federal election – at least one each in English and French.
[31][34][36][37] Strength in Democracy, which had the same number of seats in the House of Commons at dissolution as the Greens and Bloc Québécois, were not invited to participate in any of the televised debates.
[64][66] On August 12, 2019, the Commissioner extended invitations for Justin Trudeau, Andrew Scheer, Jagmeet Singh, Elizabeth May and Yves-François Blanchet to attend.
He also sent a letter to Maxime Bernier indicating that he did not qualify for the debates at that time, and asked for additional information from the People's Party so that a final decision could be reached by September 16.
[116][117][118] The English-language debate gained notoriety when the moderator posed a question to Blanchet that characterized Quebec's law on secularism as "discriminatory".
