MONTREAL — Leaders of the Conservative party, Bloc Québécois, and NDP will be trying to steal Francophones’ support from the Liberals tonight during the election campaign’s only French-language debate. For the first time since the start of the campaign, Liberal Leader Mark Carney, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre, Bloc Québécois Leader Yves-François Blanchet, and NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh will share a stage for the first of two debates at 6 p.m. on Wednesday, April 16, 2025.
Green Party co-leader Jonathan Pedneault was expected to join the debate until the organizing commission gave him the boot on the morning of the event, saying the party wasn’t running enough candidates to be eligible. The topics expected to be debated are cost of living, energy and climate, the Canada-U.S. trade war, identity and sovereignty, as well as immigration and foreign affairs. The clash will be moderated by Radio-Canada anchor Patrice Roy.
The debate occurs just two days before the beginning of early voting on Friday, April 18, 2025, and less than two weeks before election day on April 28, 2025. A new Postmedia-Leger poll published on Wednesday suggests that with 40 percent support in Quebec, Carney’s Liberals are dominating the Bloc Québécois (25 percent) and the Conservatives (23 percent). This means Carney, who is the least comfortable in French of the four, is likely to be in every other party leaders’ sights that night.
However, the Leger poll also suggests that the five leaders are fighting over a surprisingly small pool of undecided voters. Only 20 percent of Quebec respondents said the debate would affect how they vote, a number that falls to 17 percent nationally. The leaders will also be facing off against the Montreal Canadiens NHL team for Quebecers’ attention in the second hour of the debate. If the Canadiens win that game, the venerated team is guaranteed the last wildcard spot in the NHL playoffs.
“We’re asking people — especially in Quebec — to choose between a critical democratic debate and cheering on the Habs in a must-win game. This kind of political discussion shouldn’t compete with something that means so much to so many,” Singh said on Tuesday.
Federal party leaders are gearing up for their first debate of the election campaign this evening. The French-language debate will take place at 6 p.m. ET, followed by the English debate on Thursday at 7 p.m. ET. Both debates are happening in Montreal at the CBC/Radio-Canada building downtown, in a large studio in its ground-floor atrium.
The time slot for this evening's debate was moved up two hours by the Leaders' Debates Commission following requests from parties that it not conflict with a Montreal Canadiens' game the same evening with potential playoff implications. The debate will also feature one fewer participant than originally planned. The commission organizing the debates rescinded Green Party co-leader Jonathan Pedneault's invitation Wednesday because the party is not fielding enough candidates.
Most of the leaders participating in the debate, moderated by Radio-Canada's Patrice Roy, will be doing so in their second language. French is Bloc Québécois Leader Yves-François Blanchet's first language. Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre is fluent, while NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh is also comfortable in the language. But the leader who has faced the most scrutiny for his French skills is the Liberals' Mark Carney, a political novice for whom this is his first election campaign.
“That's where the challenge is going to be for Mark Carney: it's going to be to stick to his messages and not take the bait,” said Sandra Aubé, a political strategist and former chief of staff to Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly. Aubé also said it's possible Blanchet could use his mastery of French to throw Carney off balance.
The stakes for each leader are high in this debate, whose audience could be mostly made up of Quebecers. With 78 ridings, Quebec sends the second-highest number of MPs to Parliament (after Ontario's 122). So it's critical in determining which party will form the next government and whether it will be a majority or a minority.
Both the Bloc and NDP have lost a significant amount of support there, according to polls. Aubé said that many voters who would typically vote Bloc are backing the Liberals so far in the polls — which means Carney, who has been enjoying historic levels of support, will be a target. The other party leaders “are going to try to get under his skin to make him talk about things he hasn't prepared for,” Aubé said.
In recent weeks, Singh has pitched his party as the potential balance of power in Ottawa between Carney's Liberals and Poilievre's Conservatives. “I'm going to take on these two leaders, on their offers for Canada, [and] present our vision for Canada — one where we take better care of each other, where we invest in each other, where we lift each other up,” he told reporters on Tuesday.
While Blanchet has made some attempts at drawing attention to Carney's French, it hasn't seemed to dissuade Quebec voters yet. Barring any major mistakes in the language or on Quebec culture, Aubé doesn't believe Carney's French will have a major impact on the outcome of the debate.
The Green Party raised eyebrows on Tuesday after it admitted to deciding not to run 15 candidates in some federal ridings where Conservatives are favored to win. The Greens submitted a full list of 343 potential candidates to the commission to clinch their spot in the debate. But many nominees didn't meet requirements by Elections Canada; in the end, the party has candidates running in 232 of the 343 federal ridings.
On Wednesday, the commission removed the Greens for failing to meet participation requirements. “Deliberately reducing the number of candidates running for strategic reasons is inconsistent with the Commission's interpretation of party viability,” the commission said in a statement.
In 2021, more than four million viewers tuned into the federal leaders' French debate, while more than 10 million watched the English one live. As for Monday's Habs game, 1.2 million hockey fans tuned into that event. The debate is expected to be a crucial moment in the election, shaping the final days of campaigning as candidates vie for the attention of Quebec voters.
