2 weeks Ago By Star staff and wire services
Liberal Leader Mark Carney, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre, Bloc Quebecois Leader Yves-Francois Blanchet and New Democratic Party Leader Jagmeet Singh shake hands following the French-language federal leaders’ debate, in Montreal, Wednesday, April 16, 2025. MONTREAL — Liberal Leader Mark Carney attempted to remain above the fray in the face of a French debate pile-on by his three main political rivals Wednesday evening, returning over and over to his main pitch to voters, that he’s the leader to confront Donald Trump in a time of crisis. Carney and his closest opponent, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre, tried to adopt prime ministerial detachment while New Democratic Party Leader Jagmeet Singh and Bloc Québécois Leader Yves-François Blanchet aggressively grilled the Liberal leader on issues ranging from the war in Gaza to an alleged bias in favour of Ontario and a failure to hike jobless benefits.
Poilievre attacked Carney, early on and often, as Justin Trudeau’s former adviser, saying he was part of the “lost decade” that has left Canada too weak to confront Trump. When Poilievre went after Carney for the housing crisis that occurred on the Liberals’ watch, Carney said, “I was the governor of the Bank of England then.” “Yes,” retorted Poilievre, “and you inflated the cost of housing there, too.
” “You are just like Justin Trudeau. You are exactly the same,” Poilievre said moments later, “and we need a change.” Liberal Leader Mark Carney walked away unscathed from his first faceoff with his opponents during the French-language leaders’ debate Wednesday in Montreal.
Carney, who has a huge lead in public opinion polls in Quebec, had the most to lose. Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre, NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh and Bloc Québécois Leader Yves-François Blanchet are all nipping at his support, notably in Quebec where their path to growth rests with taking him down a few pegs. But none succeeded last night.
While Poilievre tried his best to tie Carney to former Liberal prime minister Justin Trudeau’s record, accusing him of sharing the same policies and calling for change, Carney was ready with his answers. “I just got here,” he told viewers watching at home. “Mr.
Poilievre is not Justin Trudeau, nor am I. This election, the question [is] who will succeed? And who will face Mr. Trump?” Green Party of Canada co-Leader Jonathan Pedneault speaks outside of Maison de Radio Canada prior to the leaders debate in Montreal on Wednesday, April 16, 2025.
OTTAWA—Green Party co-leader Jonathan Pedneault was excluded from the federal leaders’ debate Wednesday evening, a decision he called “unjust,” “baseless” and “undemocratic,” but his party did not challenge the ruling in court. The national leaders’ debate commission issued a decision Wednesday, excluding the Greens from both the French- and English-language debates. “The commission concludes that the inclusion of the leader of the Green Party of Canada in these circumstances would undermine the integrity of the debates and the interests of the voting public,” the commission said in a statement released early Wednesday morning.
Pedneault said the debate commission’s decision was unfair. “Let me be clear, their last-minute decision to exclude the Green Party of Canada from the leaders’ debate is not only unjust and baseless, because we met the criteria, it is undemocratic,” he said. “Somehow, they decided that what matters most here isn’t a fair debate.
It’s a debate — the one that they’re trying to create — that protects the status quo.” Rebel News and other right-wing media outlets dominated the question-and-answer sessions with federal party leaders after Wednesday’s French-language leaders debate — though not all of them got answers to their questions. Liberal Leader Mark Carney was the first leader to take 10 minutes of questions from the media after the debate, which took place at CBC/Radio-Canada in Montreal.
Members of the media lined up in two lines, one for English questions and one for French questions. Right-wing media outlets stacked the long lines and managed to get in questions to each of the leaders. Here’s where the leaders of Canada’s major political parties are today.
Michel Cormier, the executive director of the Leaders’ Debate Commission, was on Radio-Canada this morning to defend the myriad of perplexing decisions made by his team over the past 48 hours. On why the commission moved up the French-language debate the night before to accommodate a Montreal Canadiens game that’s been in the schedule for months, Cormier said they never considered the Habs’ schedule. On the decision to permit right-wing broadcaster Rebel News five spots in the press room, Cormier admits it’s a bad situation but, he says, if they had limited Rebel to just one pass, like every other outlet, “We would find ourselves in court.
.. we were trying to reduce the risk.
” However, the most confounding part of the interview came when Cormier tried to defend disinviting the Green Party at the last minute. “We were ready to put the Greens on the stage, even if they had fewer candidates [than the criteria require],” Cormier said. But, he continued, comments from party co-leader Jonathan Pedneault made earlier this week — where he said the Greens had withdrawn about 15 candidates to prevent Conservatives from being elected — changed their mind.
“It violated the spirit of the debate” Cormier said. Although he didn’t point to any rule or bylaw the commission relied on for that abrupt reversal, he said not banishing the Greens would “risk hurting the integrity of the debate.” The Greens are so frustrated with this that they’re now calling for Cormier’s resignation.
On Radio-Canada, Pedneault said, “I don’t think the debate commission had the spine necessary to protect our democracy, their primary mandate.” Pedneault is exactly right. This commission is a disaster.
It hasn’t just hurt the integrity of these debates, it’s actively harming the integrity of the election campaign. Heading into the Easter long weekend, Mark Carney’s Liberals have a slim lead over Pierre Poilievre’s Conservatives in the April 28 election, according to Star’s election predictor, the Signal. “There’s a bit of a narrowing of the lead.
If the trend continues, it could be a very tight race,” Clifton van der Linden, a McMaster University political science professor and the CEO of Vox Pop Labs, the independent research organization that developed the Signal, which analyzes publicly available polling data in a supercomputer. “It will be interesting to see post these debates whether that continues to be the trend or whether we see a divergence from this current pattern,” said van der Linden, referring to the two leaders’ televised debates Wednesday and Thursday. On Thursday, Carney’s Liberals were at 42.
4 per cent support and poised to win a majority with 177 seats in the 343-member House of Commons. Poilievre’s Tories were at 40.2 per cent, which would translate into 130 seats.
Jagmeet Singh’s New Democrats were at 7.6 per cent and 12 seats, while Yves-François Blanchet’s Bloc Québécois was at 5.9 per cent and 22 seats.
The Greens of co-leaders Elizabeth May and Jonathan Pedneault were at 1.8 per cent and two seats, while Maxime Bernier’s People’s Party of Canada was at 1.1 per cent and would still be shut out of the Commons.
Canadians are hitting the polls on April 28 to determine who will become the next prime minister of the country. From voting early to knowing what to take with you on election day, Michel Cormier, pictured in 2012, is the executive director of the federal government’s Leaders’ Debates Commission. Michel Cormier, the executive director of the Leaders’ Debate Commission, has continued his media tour this afternoon.
He sat down with both CBC and CTV to defend the commission’s series of rash and bizarre decisions over the last couple of days. One of the most bizarre moments came when CBC host David Cochrane presented Cormier with an Elections Canada filing — first reported here in the Star, but available online — showing that Rebel News was registered as a third-party adviser, having spent $8,000 on “partisan activities” in the first week of the campaign alone. “I wasn’t aware of that,” Cormier told Cochrane, declining to say whether the commission would have acted differently if it had been aware.
“I just learned about this today.” Apart from the Rebel’s registration for third-party advertising, Rebel founder Ezra Levant — who was at the debates last night and waited in line to ask a question — also registered ForCanada, a totally different third party advertiser which has paid to rent box trucks displaying digital anti-Liberal ads and conspiratorial misinformation. ForCanada spent more than $180,000 on partisan activity early in the campaign: Of that, nearly $170,000 was paid back into Rebel News for, amongst other things, advertising, staff costs, and voter contact.
All of this spending was captured as “partisan activity” and “election advertising.” This information has been freely available on the Elections Canada website since last week. An argument broke out here in the media room over Rebel News owner Ezra Levant’s presence.
There are apparently new rules being imposed tonight that will restrict the length and number of questions posed by any single outlet. NA-DEBATE-ROLLY17 Debates commission executive director Michel Cormier walking out of the room with Levant before the English-language leaders’ debate, April 17, 2025 Uploaded by: Michael, Akrit This chaos is entirely the fault of the commission itself. In the last hour, the Green Party has also issued a timeline of their disinvitation from the debates that contrasts with the version of events Cormier presented in the media today.
“Who should be held accountable?” Robin Marty, Green campaign manager writes. “What is the Commission’s appeal mechanism?” What a disaster. As the debate begins, Ezra Levant is still here in the press room — despite trying to interrupt CBC’s broadcast over the last hour.
I tried repeatedly to get Levant to comment about the $170,000 in third-party advertising he’s spending to influence the election despite claiming to be a journalist, be he insisted I had my facts wrong. The leaders were all writing notes before the show started. Mark Carney, Jagmeet Singh and Yves-François Blanchet are all right-handed.
Pierre Poilievre is left-handed. Steve Paikin’s 22 years with TVOntario have included hosting The Agenda, in its seventh season. He said he still finds his job fascinating.
The leaders are at the podium now. Their podium positions were done by random draw, as is usual at these events. Paikin asks specifically about Arctic sovereignty, though we don’t hear much from the leaders on that.
Which is a shame, because there’s been a lot of interesting Arctic policy in this election. Carney has pledged two deep-water ports in the Arctic. Poilievre, in the Arctic strategy he released today, wants to procure two new icebreakers and two new military bases in the North (one in Manitoba, one in Nunavut.
) Green co-leader Jonathan Pedneault isn’t here, but here’s what he told me about Arctic sovereignty earlier in the campaign: “The first thing is that nothing can be done — or should be done — on any of this without consultation. Not just with the governments of Nunavut, the Northwest Territories, the Yukon, but with Inuit communities and all stakeholders. That’s number one.
Number two, before we start to spend billions, probably tens of billions, on these massive infrastructure projects that will both increase the exploitation of these Arctic resources — which, then, also increases the tensions about control of that region — we should use that money to invest in housing and services to Inuit communities that have been forcefully displaced in the 1940, 50s, and 60s at a tremendous human cost for these communities.” Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre participates in the French-language federal leaders’ debate in Montreal on April 16, 2025. Poilievre is talking about Bill C-69, which sets up a process for environmental reviews of large projects.
The Conservatives call it the “no new pipelines act.” It’s probably worth noting that unlike the French debate there is no specific section for immigration questions or questions about Canadian identity. Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre, left to right, Liberal Leader Mark Carney, New Democratic Party Leader Jagmeet Singh, and Bloc Quebecois Leader Yves-Francois Blanchet, take part in a group photo prior participating in the English-language federal leaders’ debate, in Montreal, Thursday, April 17, 2025.
Here are the themes for tonight’s debate: Carney is pushing his plan to lower internal trade barriers. He has said a few times that removing those trade barriers would grow Canada’s economy more than Trump is shrinking it. It’s not much of a secret that Carney’s strategy here is to sound prime ministerial.
As he goes point-by-point through his counter-Trump plan — returning tariff revenue to workers, building a new electric grid — he gets chirped by Blanchet, for being too pro-pipeline, and Poilievre, for being anti-pipeline. The Liberals must be thrilled with this. Their guy is rattling off numbers and plans and staring straight ahead, as his opponents try and kick him in the shins.
It seems odd to me that Poilievre is starting hard on pipelines. I wonder what their focus groups are saying about this as an issue in Ontario, where the Conservatives need to increase their support. Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre arrives with his wife Anaida Poilievre, for the English-language federal election debate, in Montreal, on Thursday, April 17, 2025.
Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre used his time answering moderator Steve Paikin’s first question about negotiating with U.S. President Donald Trump and tariffs with comments that the Liberals have made so many mistakes and have weakened Canada’s economy.
The other three candidates are speaking about what is needed. It would be great to speak more about what the Conservatives would do to strengthen Canada’s economy. There’s a lot of pointing out what is wrong versus telling voters what they would do to improve things.
Poilievre sounds like he is the opposition to the party in power, rather than the guy who’s running for Prime Minister. First ten minutes of this English debate is already different in tone than the French debate. Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre and NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh are both going hard at Carney.
Poilievre on pipelines, accusing Carney of being Trudeau’s economic advisor and saying no to pipelines. (Carney has basically said pipelines if necessary but not necessarily pipelines. But has yet to repeat that here).
Singh has accused Carney of enacting tax cuts for millionaires (he is referring to Carney saying he would reverse the Liberals’ increase on capital gains) and doing nothing for workers. By the time that Canada completes an west-to-east pipeline, Blanchet points out, Donald Trump will be in his 90s. He’s dead right: Whatever the merit of reviving the Energy East pipeline (and there’s some big questions there about financial, social, environmental, logistical feasibility) it is simply not a plan to deal with our current problems.
Interestingly, this night’s debate has the Liberals visibly looking like their preferred Golidlocks position. Right in the middle, with Poilievre on Carney’s right and Singh on his left. And the debate so far is just emphasizing that.
Poilievre accusing Carney of not being supportive enough, and Singh saying the Liberals are pretty pro-pipeline because they spent money getting a pipeline built, and Carney saying that’s why oil exports are up. Singh is definitely being more assertive and Poilievre knows he has to turn the heat up tonight. So, they both came out fighting.
Carney, on the other hand, is acting like a Prime Minister. Blanchet is doing his thing – talking about Quebec being a distinct society. Pierre Poilievre has given the Toronto Star a shout-out for this story.
I bet that wasn’t on anyone’s bingo card: The Star investigated Justin Trudeau’s claim about Pierre Poilievre’s track record as the It’s worth noting as party leaders discuss how they plan to spend money that the Liberals, Conservatives and NDP have yet to release a fully costed platform. We have no idea how they would really pay for their promises or much debt they would be willing to take on. This OAS proposal from the Bloc would increase the amount people get from Old Age security when they are between 65 and 74 years old.
The Liberals boosted OAS for people over 75, but not for people younger than that because they argued at the time younger seniors still have savings to rely on. There were no opening statements in this debate, but these questions on affordability appear (so far) to be drafted to allow each party leaders to talk about their pet issue and discuss what their key platform commitments are. As you listen to Pierre Poilievre pitch his housing plan — which has some very good things in it — it’s worth remembering one fatal flaw to it: His housing strategy, which he introduced as a private member’s bill in the previous Parliament, threatens to withhold funding from Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, and other cities if they don’t permit new housing.
But it doesn’t impact any municipalities in Manitoba or Saskatchewan, nor does it include a number of conservative-leaning municipalities that have blocked new housing. It’s a strange omission, and really limits the new housing a hypothetical Poilievre government would get built. Affordability is stretching all Canadians because everything is just too expensive.
All leaders are talking about reducing tax on first-time home ownership and building more homes. Who’s up for cutting the GST? Singh would cut it and I’m sure Canadians would be happy. Poilievre voted against it.
Tax breaks for millionaires? That’s certainly nothing new or radical. Poilievre is finally discussing his plans. Poilievre is talking about his promise to cut GST on new home construction.
The Liberals are making this promise as well. One of the key differences is that the Liberal plan would be for first time buyers only, while the Conservatives would cut the GST on any new construction purchases. “You can’t entrust all the power to Mr.
Carney,” is NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh’s new pitch to New Democrats. After seeing his party’s supporters flock to the Liberals, Singh is no longer talking about how voters should try to elect him to be prime minister. During this week’s debates, we’ve seen Singh ramp up the attacks against both the Conservatives and the Liberals — this is the stage that the NDP leader needed to re-inject himself into the conversation.
But with polls tightening, the question is will NDP voters feel safe enough voting for the NDP or does the fear of Trump and the perceived distrust of Poilievre outrank their support for the party? Poilievre’s tax cut is a 2.25 per cent reduction on the lowest tax bracket. The Liberals are also cutting that tax bracket but by one per cent.
Meanwhile, the big time board shows Carney has had the most time tonight, about 10 minutes so far. Blanchet has had the least at about seven minutes. There are thousands of cranes in the air across the country, but how many are being used to build affordable homes? Single detached, million-dollar houses aren’t going to solve the housing crisis.
Pharmacare, childcare, dental care – all the things that help make life more affordable were all brought to you by your friendly neighbourhood NDP. Tax credits don’t cut it when the dollar can’t be stretched anymore. I find Poilievre’s tough-on-crime policies odious and a total assault on our constitutional system, as he wants to use the notwithstanding clause to override past Supreme Court rulings about criminal sentencing.
But I also have to give it to him: He’s dead right that our criminal justice system is just not working right now. Endemic delays, problems with parole, absurd bail conditions, insufficient surveillance of people out on conditions: It is causing crime. I have not heard anything resembling a plan coming from any of the other parties.
Elsewhere on criminal justice: Paikin asks a great question about RCMP reform, something I’ve written about recently. But Singh just side-steps the question. Poilievre is the one who’s spending most of his time “regurgitating” his usual talking points on every issue — regardless of who’s writing them.
This crime and security section makes that clear. The Conservative leader often pushes his tough-on-crime approach by relying on an eye-opening Liberal Leader Mark Carney takes part inthe English-language federal leaders’ debate, in Montreal, Thursday, April 17, 2025. Really fascinating line of attack from Poilievre, as he accuses Carney of bringing along Trudeau’s staffers to the debate tonight to write the talking points that Carney is “regurgitating.
” Carney makes a little “oOoOoh” noise, mocking Poilievre. It’s such a strange line. I covered Justin Trudeau since before he even became prime minister — he certainly had a habit of sticking to his talking points.
But Carney sounds nothing like Trudeau, for better or worse. He has a habit of actually responding to questions off the cuff. It’s also a bit rich coming from Poilievre, who has spent more of the campaign speaking in pre-written slogans.
This is some spin from Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre on his desire to use the notwithstanding clause, in the Charter to impose consecutive sentences on convicted mass murders, framing this as a way to uphold the rights to life of victims. Here is some food for thought from our latest “It’s Political” podcast with Lisa Kerr, an associate professor at Queen’s University’s Faculty of Law where she is the director of the criminal law group and teaches courses in sentencing, prison law, criminal law, and the law of evidence. “It is a really remarkable thing to propose that the federal government make use of the notwithstanding clause for the first time in order to allow the government to impose cruel and unusual punishment.
.. We’re talking here about suspending the Charter in order to deny a prisoner an administrative hearing 25 years down the road and all that hearing may do is spend an hour or two hearing about how he’s doing in prison and in these kinds of cases, these extreme cases with multiple victims, probably sending him back to his cell at the end of that hearing.
“So when you commit murder in Canada, there’s no right to release. There’s no presumption in favor of release. And we have many people in our prison system right now who are there for 25 years, 30, 35, and who will die in prison.
That’s something our system already allows. And so I see this promise ;from Poilievre] as a very performative, symbolic promise. The only thing it will actually change, is it will make prisons more dysfunctional and more difficult to manage for the many people who have to work there.
Because it will mean that the most dangerous prisoners who’ve committed the most serious offenses have absolutely no reason to follow the prison rules. “I think it’s really important to understand this as a promise to suspend the Charter Rights of Canadians. And it makes sense to me that the testing ground here would be to propose suspending the rights of Canadians that we all fear and that have harmed us in extraordinary ways, namely those who have committed multiple murders.
But I think, it’s important to understand that the first use of that is very unlikely to be the last. And we have seen in the United States what it looks like when rights are eroded and women in the United States have lost reproductive rights that they had taken for granted for many decades. We may be comfortable in the U.
S. with the idea of people who’ve crossed the border illegally and who’ve committed crimes with them having no rights and being deported. We may be a lot less comfortable with the ideas of college students, who are there lawfully, and who are, you know, publishing editorials in the college newspaper, we may be less comfortable with them not having free speech rights and so on.
“So it always starts with a group that few people are going to object to. So we may not worry about the likes of Paul Bernardo not getting a parole hearing, but that’s actually why we need rights because it’s easy for governments to propose suspending them and propose betraying them. But you never know who the next hated minority will be.
” Poilievre is talking about a Supreme Court decision that struck down a Conservative law that stacked parole eligibility. The maximum sentence in Canada is life in prison with no parole for at least 25 years, but prisoners on life sentences often serve much more than that. The Conservative law that was struck down allowed parole eligibility to be 50 or 75 years in the case of a multiple murder case.
Correctional Investigator of Canada Dr. Ivan Zinger looked into the condition of Indigenous corrections and found that for every dollar corrections-run healing lodges received, Indigenous-run lodges received 62 cents. Statistics show that Indigenous people and Black Canadians are overpoliced and underserved.
Do we really want Poilievre’s tough on crime laws to make this even more pronounced? According to , “Indigenous overrepresentation in the criminal justice system has a negative impact on Indigenous peoples cultures and communities and has a high economic cost” Carney points out that today is the Charter’s birthday. Great rapid-fire question: What is the biggest security threat to Canada? Poilievre: “Rampant crime wave that’s running out of control.” There’s no doubt that crime, and violent crime, is rising.
But it’s worth noting the context: Crime is still lower than it was in 2006, and basically on par with the crime rate through the 1990s. (Which isn’t necessarily a good thing!) Carney: “Biggest security threat to Canada is China.” That’s interesting! We haven’t heard Carney talk much about China on this campaign.
Singh: “Cuts to services, that would make our security even worse.” Singh made repeated digs at Poilievre for cutting border services when the last Conservative government was in power. Blanchet is the only one to say America (and Canada’s over-reliance on them).
Blanchet returns to talking about the border security and immigration in this segment on public safety. Immigration is a significant issue in Quebec and the province saw a lot of asylum claimants coming through the Roxham Road crossing. Meanwhile, here’s an update on the current time clock at the one hour mark of this debate: Carney and Poilievre are at about 14 minutes each.
Singh and Blanchet at about 11 minutes each..
