2011 Canadian Leaders Debates

The Canadian leaders' debates are leaders' debates televised during federal elections in Canada, made up of two debates, one in French and one in English, usually held on back-to-back nights. The first time these debates were held was during the 1968 election. 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.

Inclusion criteria

Although there are usually a dozen or so political parties registered with Elections Canada at any given time, not all party leaders are invited to the debates. The stated criteria for inclusion have shifted over time with the maneuvering for political advantage, but the typical criteria set by the debate consortium has been that a political party needs to have representation in the House of Commons. Over the years, there have been at least three and as many as six, leaders at each such debate. Public criticism of the debates has emerged outlining that corporate media executives decide who is allowed to be heard in a public forum critical to deciding elected officials. Given the overlap between governments and corporations, there is a conflict of interest having corporate executives impacting elections. There have been calls to have Elections Canada set up an impartial debates protocol.

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 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 believed that while the participants in a debate may very well be partisan, the program itself, because it presented more than one view, was not. 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.) The case was appealed to the Supreme Court of Canada which refused to grant leave to appeal (without reasons as is the custom) in decision 23881 by Justices La Forest, Sopinka and Major JJ, released on May 6, 1994. Subsequently, the CRTC issued Public Notice CRTC 1995–44, Election-period broadcasting: Debates, which stated, In view of this judgment, the commission will no longer require that so-called "debates" programs feature all rival parties or candidates in one or more programs.

In both the 1993 election and the 2000 election, Greg Vezina working as an independent producer, the Green Party and the Natural Law Party of Canada organized All Party Leaders' Debates which invited the leaders of all registered and accredited parties to participate. On both occasions the leaders of the major parties declined, but the leaders of the other smaller political parties participated. 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). The debates were widely covered by the media including the Globe and Mail who wrote about the 2000 debate. The 2000 Debate was the first of its kind broadcast and archived on the Internet on the Democracy Channel website

Prior to the 2008 election, the Green Party, which, from at least the 1997 election until 2008, was consistently the highest-polling party among those without a seat in Parliament, had unsuccessfully argued on several occasions for a role in the debates.

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. However, as parties with seats in the House of Commons prior to the election, they qualified regardless of this criticism.

1968 debate

Present at Canada's first leaders debate, held on June 9, 1968, were Liberal leader and prime minister Pierre Trudeau, Progressive Conservative leader Robert Stanfield, New Democratic Party (NDP) leader Tommy Douglas and Réal Caouette of the Ralliement créditiste. Réal Caouette, speaking only in French, was present only during the latter of the part whilst Douglas and Stanfield only debated in English. Trudeau alternated between French and English.

Private network CTV originally proposed a 90-minute debate between only Trudeau and Stanfield, prompting the NDP to protest. Trudeau demanded that all leaders be included and that the debate be in both official languages. Ultimately, the debate was organized jointly by CTV and CBC/Radio-Canada as a two-hour event with Trudeau, Stanfield and Douglas debating for the 80 minutes, and Creditiste leader Caouette joining in for the final 40 minutes. Simultaneous translation was provided. Alexander Bell Patterson, leader of the rump Social Credit Party of Canada, was not included.

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.

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.

1979 debate

After an 11-year absence during which no debates were held during the 1972 and 1974 federal elections, there was one English-language debate conducted during the 1979 campaign, held in Ottawa by a broadcasting consortium consisting of CBC/Radio-Canada, CTV, Global Television Network, and TVA. 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 three participants were Liberal leader and incumbent prime minister Pierre Trudeau, Progressive Conservative leader Joe Clark, and NDP leader Ed Broadbent. Fabien Roy, leader of the Social Credit Party of Canada, was not invited to the debate even though the party had 9 sitting MPs at the time of the debate.

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

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