RECAP: Highs and lows from the English leaders' debate
For the second consecutive night, a debate was hosted by the Leaders' Debates Commission — the same one that was defeated for barring access to Rebel News — between incumbent Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his challengers, Erin O'Toole, Jagmeet Singh, Yves-Francois Blanchet and Annamie Paul (while People's Party leader Maxime Bernier was excluded).
Unlike the French-language debate, the leaders engaged on more broad issues with significantly less focus placed on solely on placating Quebec. But even then, a majority of the time was spent discussing issues that are largely irrelevant when it comes to improving the lives of Canadians.
Ezra Levant described it as:
A debate that was a debate of niche, hobby, favourite issues for the Ottawa set. It was slightly less awful than the debate yesterday because they had chauvinistic aspect removed, of pandering to Quebec and demonizing Alberta.
One high, however, for Ezra was an exchange between Blanchet and O'Toole, where the Bloc leader cited a statement O'Toole, the Conservative leader, made during the French debate about not blocking pipelines that Quebec wasn't in favour of. Blanchet pressed O'Toole to make the same commitment in English, with O'Toole declining to do so.
Speaking about Mercedes Stephenson, a Global News host who is very strong on foreign affairs issues and who asked questions of candidates last night, Sheila said:
[She is] so good on foreign affairs issues. She would absolutely hammer Justin Trudeau on issues of leaving Canadians and our allies behind in Afghanistan. She is excellent on that. She has insider information on that. The interpreters communicate directly with her. And who do they have asking about climate change issues? Mercedes Stephenson.
What a set up.
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