6 big moments and takeaways from the final leaders' debate
Advance polls for the April 28 federal election open for 4 days over long weekend
Four party leaders shared the stage for the final time Thursday night before Canadians head to the polls.
Liberal Leader Mark Carney, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre, Bloc Québécois Leader Yves-François Blanchet and NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh discussed numerous topics in the English leadership debate, including energy projects, the environment, public and national security as well as the cost of living.
Thursday's two-hour affair was the final debate before advance polls open this weekend. Voting day itself is just over a week away.
Here are six key moments and exchanges from Thursday night.
Others target Carney early and often
Carney's Liberals have held a fairly steady lead in the polls since the election was called last month. Carney was the main target of the other party leaders as a result.
Poilievre, Blanchet and Singh all took a swipe at Carney within the first 10 minutes of the debate.
Poilievre led the way by repeating his main argument from the campaign: that the Liberals have weakened the economy and shouldn't be trusted with another term.
Singh said Carney should have done more on EI before calling an election, while Blanchet accused him of not offering enough support to Quebec industries impacted by U.S. tariffs.
The three leaders vying to unseat the Liberals did have exchanges with each other, but mostly tried to keep the focus on Carney.
About a quarter of the way through the debate, Singh accused Poilievre of wanting to give tax breaks to wealthy Canadians and businesses. Moderator Steve Paikin asked Poilievre to respond to Singh, but the Conservative leader used the time to again focus on Carney.
Later in the debate, each leader was given an option to pose a question to one of their opponents. Poilievre, Singh and Blanchet all chose Carney.
Carney was the last to choose and joked, "I'm going to ask myself a question," before posing one to Poilievre.
Political math
Singh and Poilievre ran a replay from the French debate when it came to housing.
The NDP leader attacked his Conservative opponent's record, claiming that Poilievre only had six homes built when he briefly managed the housing file in Stephen Harper's cabinet.
Poilievre shot back, accusing Singh of not "being very good with math," and claimed 200,000 homes were built when he was minister.
"You can count up to six, which is great," Singh said, pushing back on Poilievre's math quip.
But neither leader is telling the full story. Singh's claim that Poilievre only built six homes as housing minister refers only to non-profit community housing units built exclusively by the government in 2015. When you include non-profit housing built by others with federal government help, it's more like 3,742 houses.
But it's hard for Poilievre to take responsibility for the 200,000 homes he says were built when he was minister. In the 2015-16 fiscal year, 194,461 homes were built in Canada in total, including by private developers.
Carney jumped in at the end of the exchange to say Poilievre's number was a "misunderstanding of the housing market."
Poilievre vs. Carney (and Trudeau)
Part of Poilievre's strategy during the campaign is to tie Carney to former prime minister Justin Trudeau, which he continued to do Thursday night.
Poilievre referred to Carney as Trudeau's "economic adviser." Carney did offer advice to the last government during the COVID-19 pandemic and at the end of last year on a part-time basis.
But the Liberal leader tried to counter by saying he is a different person with different policies.
"It may be difficult, Mr. Poilievre, you spent years running against Justin Trudeau and the carbon tax — they're both gone," Carney said early in the debate. Poilievre shot back saying Carney was doing a "good impression" of Trudeau.
After a few moments where the other leaders jumped in — including Blanchet calling on Carney to show he's "better" than Trudeau — Poilievre again turned to the Liberal leader and tried to link him to the former prime minister.
"Mr. Carney, Justin Trudeau's staffers are actually here with you, at this debate in Montreal, writing the talking points that you're regurgitating into the microphone," Poilievre said, after blaming the Liberals for weakening the economy and pushing up the cost of living.
"I do my own talking points, thank you very much. The biggest risk we have to affordability, the biggest risk we have to this economy is [U.S. President] Donald Trump," Carney shot back.
Just under an hour later, Poilievre said the Trudeau Liberals caused inflation to rise in the past several years and again said Carney was advising the former prime minister during that time.
Carney deflected by saying his advice didn't cover inflation issues and argued that he was responsible for low inflation rates when he was head of the Bank of Canada.
Singh butts in
There was far more cross talk and interruptions during Thursday's English debate compared to the French parlay the night before. Singh in particular seemed prone to interrupt his opponents.
Poilievre was the main target of Singh's interjections — so much so that at one point Carney told the NDP leader to let his Conservative rival finish his point.
When Poilievre criticized the industrial carbon tax, Singh jumped in and accused the Conservatives of wanting to let everyone pollute. Poilievre spoke about border issues and Singh accused the former Conservative government of cutting border officers.
Poilievre at one point tried to make an appeal to voters: "The question that Canadians have to ask…"
"Why vote for Conservatives?" Singh jumped in before Poilievre could finish.
Singh also cut in on Carney at times. For example, Carney was arguing that Liberals had brought in dental care to help low-income Canadians and Singh jumped in to say that his party forced them into it.
Blanchet would also occasionally cut in. In particular, the Bloc leader didn't shy away from pointing out that a topic his opponents were touching on was "provincial jurisdiction."
Canada's biggest security threat?
Near the halfway mark of the debate, Paikin rounded out a conversation about public safety to ask each leader to quickly state what they perceived as the greatest security threat.
Poilievre took the opportunity to blame the Liberals for "the rampant crime wave," and touted his tough-on-crime approach.
Carney said the biggest threat was China, though didn't elaborate. He later would raise China during a conversation about foreign interference.
Singh said the biggest threat was illegal guns being smuggled over the border and Blanchet said his biggest concern was relying militarily on the U.S.
Post-debate news conferences cancelled
One of the notable moments from Thursday night was something that didn't happen at all.
After a bit of controversy on Wednesday night, the commission responsible for organizing the debates cancelled Thursday's post-debate news conferences.
Rebel News and other right-wing media outlets dominated the question-and-answer sessions after the French debate. The commission faced criticism for accrediting those outlets.
There was a verbal shouting match between a Hill Times reporter and a Rebel News personality in the media room before Thursday's debate.
As the debate neared its end, the commission announced it was cancelling the news conferences with the leaders.
Singh held his own news conference after the event. The Liberals said Carney would take questions on Friday. The Conservatives and Bloc didn't take questions Thursday night.
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