How to re-watch the federal leaders' debates

Six federal party leaders will face off in the French-language debate tonight. Here's how to watch.

English-language debate was Oct. 7; French Oct.10

CBC News Posted: Sep 06, 2019 4:55 PM EDT | Last Updated: October 11, 2019

Do leaders' debates change how people vote?

5 years ago

8:39

Debates have been a hallmark of Canadian elections since 1968, but what effect do they actually have on voters? Strategists will tell you theyre critical to elections and a lot of planning goes into them. Researchers, on the other hand, say theres evidence they can change votes, though often they don't.

On Monday, Oct. 7, six federal party leaders faced off in an English-language debate.

On Thursday, Oct. 10, the same leaders participated in a French-language debate.

Participants included:

Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau
Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer
NDPLeader Jagmeet Singh
Green Party Leader Elizabeth May
BlocQubcoisLeader Yves-Franois Blanchet
People's Party of Canada Leader Maxime Bernier

Where

Both events wereheld in front of a non-partisan live audience at the Canadian Museum of History in Gatineau, Que., overlooking Parliament Hill.

How to watch or listen

The debates are produced and distributed by the nine media outlets that make up the Canadian Debate Production Partnership, with additional distribution from other partners.

This page will be updated with links to streams as they become available.

English debate

The English debate was held Monday, Oct. 7.

You can re-watch the entire English debate on CBC Gem by following this link.

To read about and watch key moments from the English leaders' debate, follow this link.

French debate

You can re-watch the entire French debate on CBC Gem by following this link.

To read about and watch key moments from the French leaders' debate, follow this link.

Recap: Federal leaders' debate live blog

Leaders clash on climate, immigration, abortion and Bill 21 in intense debate

The leaders werebe asked questions submitted by Canadians as well as from the journalists moderating the debates.

Weacknowledgethesupport ofinterpreters insign languages, official languages and Indigenous languages,for services providedthrough the Translation Bureau and Public Services and Procurement Canada.

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How the debate producer was chosen

In 2018, the government announced plans to set up an independent commission to standardize a transparent process of organizing the leaders' debates.

The mandate of the resulting Leaders' Debate Commission, led by former governor general David Johnston, is to make the debates a more reliable and stable element of federal election campaignsand to ensure the debates are as accessible as possible on a variety of platforms.

In May, the commission issued a request for proposals, seeking bidders to produce the English and French debates. Nine media outlets came together to form the Canadian Debate Production Partnership and won the contract to produce the two events.

The Canadian Debate Production Partnershipcomprises:

These are the additional distribution partners:

OMNI Television
APTN
CPAC
Groupe Capitales Mdias
Groupe V Mdia
Yahoo! Canada
CHCH-TV
Cable 14-Hamilton
Rogers Media
CityNews
CSPAN

During the 2015 election, the Conservatives refused to participate in an English consortium debate, opting for alternative formats andtriggering a debate about debates. The snub resulted in the creation of theLeaders' Debate Commission.

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The commission decided parties had to meet at least two ofthree requirements to participate in the debates:

Have a member in the House of Commons elected under their party's banner.
Be running candidates in at least 90 per cent of all ridings.
Have candidates who securedat least four per cent of the vote in the last election or havea legitimate chance of winning seats based on polling data and the discretion of the debate commissioner.

Initially, Bernier did not qualify to participate in this election's debates, but after sending more information about his party's potentially competitive candidates, the commission changed its mind.

"I consider that more than one candidate of your party has a legitimate chance to be elected," Johnston wrote to Bernier.