How to re-watch the federal leaders' debates
English-language debate was Oct. 7; French Oct.10
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
- NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh
- Green Party Leader Elizabeth May
- Bloc Québécois Leader Yves-François Blanchet
- People's Party of Canada Leader Maxime Bernier
Where
Both events were held 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.
The leaders were be asked questions submitted by Canadians as well as from the journalists moderating the debates.
We acknowledge the support of interpreters in sign languages, official languages and Indigenous languages, for services provided through the Translation Bureau and Public Services and Procurement Canada.
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 campaigns and 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 Partnership comprises:
- CBC News
- Radio-Canada
- CTV News
- Global News
- Toronto Star and the Torstar chain
- HuffPost Canada and HuffPost Québec
- La Presse
- Le Devoir
- L'actualité
These are the additional distribution partners:
- OMNI Television
- APTN
- CPAC
- Groupe Capitales Médias
- Groupe V Média
- 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 and triggering a debate about debates. The snub resulted in the creation of the Leaders' Debate Commission.
The commission decided parties had to meet at least two of three 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 secured at least four per cent of the vote in the last election or have a 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.
