TVO's Steve Paikin will host federal leaders' English-language election debate

Longtime TVO journalist Steve Paikin will host the English-language federal leaders' debate during the next election campaign, the independent commission responsible for planning these events said in a media statement Monday.

While a TVO broadcaster will be fronting the debate, the Leaders' Debates Commission has picked CBC to produce, promote and distribute the English debate.

Radio-Canada will do the same for the French-language debate, which will be moderated by one of that network's main anchors, Patrice Roy.

The debates will be "widely distributed and streamed across the CBC's and Radio-Canada's television, digital and social media platforms, as well as on YouTube," the commission said.

Other broadcasters and media organizations can distribute the debate on their platforms for free, the commission said.

A spokesperson for CBC/Radio-Canada did not say whether the country's other major broadcasters, like CTV, Global and the French-language TVA, have agreed to air the debate on their networks and digital platforms.

"There's nothing more to add today. We'll share details about the production and distribution partners further down the road," the spokesperson said.

CBC News has asked the major party leaders if they will participate in these debates and will update this story accordingly.

The commission, a government agency created in 2018 to organize federal leaders' debates, says it picked CBC/Radio-Canada to handle these two contests because the company has "decades of experience and a long history of producing and broadcasting large-scale national and international events, from the Olympic Games to national commemorations to major political moments."

A previous report from the commission on past leaders' debates found CBC/Radio-Canada "may be the only broadcaster to have all the necessary in-house skills" to stage an event like this.

Both Paikin and Roy have hosted leaders' debates in the past.

Paikin, the host of TVO's current affairs program The Agenda, has moderated three federal debates (2006, 2008 and 2011) and five Ontario provincial leaders' debates. Roy moderated the 2019 and 2021 federal debates.

The commission-sanctioned English-language debate in the 2021 election was widely criticized for its format.

The commission produced a postmortem report that concluded it was "too rigid, too complex, too confusing, involved too many journalists on stage and did not sufficiently generate debate between the leaders."

The ratings for that debate were also poor compared to previous leaders' debates.

To avoid a repeat of that experience, the commission said it would require more control over the format and the choice of moderator.

In its statement Monday announcing the debates, the commission said the debates will follow "a simple format that encourages meaningful exchanges between the leaders, helps Canadians learn about their policy positions and party platforms and sheds light on the leaders' character."

It also said there will be a "simple and intimate set" with a production design that "keeps the focus on the leaders and on the content of the debate."

The debate will involve only the leaders, Paikin and Roy, "with no other journalists or hosts on stage," said the commission.

The commission said it required CBC/Radio-Canada to pick moderators who "embodied the characteristics defined by the commission."

Those characteristics set by the commission included "experience moderating debates" and "substantial hours of live television experience running panels or programs with many people on stage or set."

The commission also said it wanted someone with "gravitas and authority" who is "knowledgeable about the major issues of the election campaign." It called for moderators capable of formulating and posing questions "in a neutral way" that "does not express an opinion or frame a question to the leaders in an opinionated or partisan way."

Paikin and Roy will be involved in settling on a format and working with a team to formulate the debate's questions and themes, while keeping the debate focus and attention on the leaders and leaving "rebuttals largely to them," the commission said.