Front Burner - Recapping the high-stakes leaders' debate

Episode Date: April 18, 2025

As the federal election reaches the homestretch, four party leaders squared off in Montreal Thursday evening in the only English-language debate of the campaign. Liberal leader and polling frontrunner Mark Carney took heat from all sides as the Conservatives' Pierre Poilievre, the NDP's Jagmeet Singh and the Bloc's Yves-François Blanchet kept the barbs coming his way all night.Aaron Wherry is a senior writer with CBC's Ottawa bureau. He breaks down how everyone performed and what we learned from them — as well as the controversy surrounding the debate commission itself, and the drama that led to post-debate reporter scrums being canceled.Make sure to watch our election night livestream on Monday, April 28 starting at 8pm Eastern. You can find it here on the CBC News YouTube channel and on the CBC News TikTok.

On the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz comes an unprecedented exhibition about one of history's darkest moments. Auschwitz, not long ago, not far away, features more than 500 original objects, first-hand accounts and survivor testimonies that tell the powerful story of the Auschwitz concentration camp, its history and legacy, and the underlying conditions that allowed the Holocaust to happen. On now exclusively at Rom. Tickets at Rom.ca. This is a CBC Podcast. Hi, everyone. I'm Jamie Plesson. Two nights, two debates. My colleague Erin Wary is with me.

We have just finished watching the only English language debate between the party leaders. We're going to go through a lot of the big beats, talk about what we saw from the leaders tonight. I think there was a lot of helpful stuff that came out. Also, stick around for the end of the conversation because we are going to go through a really unusual and unfortunate series of events that led to the scrums where journalists asked questions to candidates at the end to be cancelled. It all started with a decision that allowed fringe right-wing outlets to dominate the

French language debate scrums and it only escalated from there. All right, Aaron, hi. Aaron Alexander Hey, Jamie. Jamie Dillion It is 1030 Eastern Time, Thursday night. We've just finished watching the debate, and to steal a quip, I saw another regular guest of this show, Make Online, David Moskrop, was the winner of the debate tonight confirmation bias? You know, it's funny, I imagine the public doesn't know this, but usually after every debate the parties all send out releases explaining why their guy was the winner. And of course, very objective takes.

You know, I think if you probably had a favorite tonight going in, you probably didn't change your mind, but there might be some movement around the edges. So I suspect that's what we'll talk about. Big picture observations here. How would you characterize the entire debate, maybe? I mean, it's pretty clear that at least the other party leaders think Mark Carney is the front runner. Given the amount of attention they focused on him and the attacks they focused on him,

I think there's a pretty clear kind of divide that has emerged in this campaign and is apparent in the debates over sort of what particularly the conservative leader, Pierre Poliev, and the liberal leader, Mark Carney, view as the ballot question. Do you think for Carney it was Trump in Canada's place in the world, I guess. And for Poliev, it was cost of living. Yeah, I think that's I think it's even bigger than that. I think it's almost

you know, the way I've come to look at it is Mark Carney views it as Donald Trump is the biggest problem facing Canada. And Pierre Poliev thinks Justin Trudeau and liberal policies are the biggest problem facing Canada. And Pierre Polyaev thinks Justin Trudeau and liberal policies are the biggest problem facing Canada. And I think for both leaders, everything kind of flows from that sort of distinction. Right, right, right.

Polyaev did that many times tonight. You know, we're in a very weak position to face Trump kind of stuff. Let's dig into their individual performances a little bit more. Mark Carney, as the front runner, as you mentioned, had the most to lose tonight by virtue of him being the front runner. How under siege was he by the other candidates? Did any of them actually get the best of him at any point or set him up to make some kind of mistake at some point?

Yeah, I don't know if the liberals would have come out of this debate thinking that their guy, you know, suffered any kind of grievous blows. I mean, he definitely was under pressure and there was a lot of criticism being lobbed at him. And I felt even at times that Mr. Blanchet, particularly the Bloc Québécois leader and Mr. Pauli, the conservative leader, were almost just trying to get under his skin and see if they could get him to lose his temper.

Sorry, I'm getting to it. Thirdly, one project, one review, and relying on provincial. Yes, it is possible on our system. It is the impact assessment. I see it is it is agreed on you know, as much as mr Carney would say would say, you know, I've only been the prime minister for a month He is essentially the the incumbent and he is The pretty clear frontrunner. So he was sort of taking criticism from all sides But I don't know for people who are who are sort of in the Carney camp at this

point or who are ready to vote liberal, I'm not sure whether this would have necessarily shaken up the race. Yeah. He didn't lose his cool, you know, at any point. Any standout moments from him where you thought that was great, that was a strong moment? I think he's at his strongest generally when he's talking about his big economic plans or talking about the crisis of Trump and having to face that head on. We can give ourselves far more than Donald Trump can ever take away. If we have one Canadian economy, not 13, and if we just look at that agreement we got with the provinces,

look at what Ontario and Nova Scotia have just announced in terms of their steps towards this, this is within our grasp. There was a line, I'm sure it was prepared ahead of time, of him saying to Pierre Poliev... I know it may be difficult, Mr. Poliev. You spent years running against Justin

Trudeau and the carbon tax and neither, they're both gone. Okay, they're both gone. And we're in In terms of quips, you know, I'm not sure Mark, he quips very often in those situations, but I think that was sort of his, his one liner of the night. And then I think the rest was kind of falling back on that sort of reassuring presence that he's trying to project and talking as, you know, trying to convey the sense that he's a substantive, serious guy. And I'm not saying this was necessarily like a standout debate moment, but it was kind of funny when Yves Francois Blanchet, the Bloc leader, was talking about how... The building of those pipelines will take at least, at least 10 to 14 years. Mr. Trump will be 90 years old, not president, no more. And somebody, of course, less terrible will be there before you can even dream. Pauliiev laughed.

It was a nice moment of levity, I thought. Let's do Poliev. Barring some unforeseen thing that happens in the next week, this was really his last big stage, big national stage. Much has been said in the weeks coming up to this about what version of Polyev we would get tonight. And what version did we get? Well, we got sort of a mix, right? Because he did go after Mark Carney a fair bit. But I don't think in in any of the two debates either tonight or last night that, you know, Pierre Pauli have used

the word woke even once. You know, his sort of culture warrior or sort of very populist, conservative persona, I think he sort of shelved it. And, you know, it's always kind of awkward to have this conversation because we're CBC journalists, but even his answer on the CBC was very, you know, he was asked, well, you know, are you still committed to defunding the CBC? And he said, well, yes. CBC will continue to operate as a self-funded Canadian-owned and controlled non-for-profit

that raises money like other media organizations through sponsorships, subscriptions, advertising, licensing fees, and countless other things that will ensure Canadians who still want to listen and view its content will be able to do so. And at the same time... And that's, you know, very different from the rally version, which is... It warms my heart to think of the beautiful family rolling up in their U-Haul to move into their wonderful new home in the former headquarters of the CBC.

A lot of the main substance was still there, but the presentation was quite different, I thought. And, you know, that's, I think, you know, indicative of him seeing where his sort of vulnerabilities are and trying to steer away from them. Yeah. Best moment? Worst moment? I think, you know, when he hits Mark Carney and saying, you're the same, it's the same party, the same liberals,

I mean, I think, you know, that's a hard thing for Mark Carney to completely steer away from. What is your cost of living like compared to what it was a decade ago? And are you prepared to elect the same liberal MPs, the same liberal ministers, the same liberal staffers all over again for a fourth term? He can't completely run away from the last nine years in office.

And I think that's the strongest argument Pierre Polyev has to play. And that's why he sort of leans on it as much as he does. There was a line that he delivered tonight, which I would also guess was prepared beforehand, where he talked about how... Justin Trudeau's staffers are actually here with you at this debate in Montreal,

writing the talking points that you are regurgitating into the microphone. How can we possibly believe that you are any different than the previous 10 years of liberal government? 25 seconds left in this segment for you to respond to that. Look, I do my own talking points. Thank you very much. Um, the... To be fair, Carney responded quick quickly,

but I thought it was, um, it was a good moment for Poliev. Do you want to do a worse moment or I don't know if that's fair, maybe a moment where things were a bit rougher for him? I think on, uh, climate issues, his hand is a bit weaker. He makes this argument that we should export LNG and that it will reduce emissions. We sent our gas to India, for example, to displace half of their demand for electricity. We could reduce emissions by 2.5 billion tons, which is three times the

total emissions of Canada. That's the way we bring emissions down and jobs up. It's common sense. And now it's time for the next question. And then he then tries to make the argument that we should be bringing more production to Canada, and that will lead to lower emissions. But the missing piece in that, of course, is that he doesn't really have much to say

about how he'd lower Canadian emissions. And I think that is, when the topic moves to climate change, it's maybe just because I follow that issue more than others, it's a pretty, I think, glaring hole in the sort of larger offer he makes. On the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz comes an unprecedented exhibition about one of history's darkest moments. Auschwitz not long ago not far away features more than 500 original objects firsthand accounts and survivor testimonies that tell the powerful story of the Auschwitz

concentration camp its history and legacy and the underlying conditions that allowed the Holocaust to happen on On now exclusively at Rom. Tickets at Rom.ca. Oh Canada, a vast idyllic land filled with beavers, loons, lumberjacks and polite friendly folks. We have those things for sure, but there's a darker side to the Great White North, full of mystery, crime, the paranormal and dark history. Join me, Mike Brown and co-host Matthew Stockton, every Monday for the Dark Poutine podcast as we tell dark stories from north of the 49th parallel.

With the odd away game covering more international cases, you can listen to Dark Poutine for free wherever you find your favorite podcasts. Support for the NDP and the Bloc have collapsed with those voters largely migrating to the liberals. And I wonder if you think either Jagmeet Singh or Blanchett did anything tonight that might entice some of those voters to come back. I mean, I think it was a more important night. Of the two, it was a more important night

for Jagmeet Singh. And I think I'm interested to see how people feel about how he approached this, because he was very insistent on getting in and interrupting and needling both Pierre-Paulier of Ed Mark Carney and challenging them. Your hard work should once again pay off with a powerful paycheck that buys you

an affordable home on a safe street. So you wanna save people $2,000. And that's what we will deliver. You wanna save people $2,000, but cut their dental care, which is $1,000. False. False. Cut their childcare, which is $1,000. False. Cut pharmacare coverage, which is $1,000 and that's what we will deliver you want to save people $2,000 but cut their dental care which is thousands of dollars cut their Child care which is thousand dollars cut pharmacare coverage was just thousands of dollars. That's not a very good math deal right there You're like 10 years from now in 20 years from now as the world uses less. We want to have more market share We need to do that. My government my government

Will move that but by definition a subsidy isn't when we buy a pipeline I'm talking about subsidies that go to oil and gas companies. Dependent, separate from the country, oil and gas companies. That's what I'm talking about. The figure you quoted last time. I think it was a bit of a metaphor for the position he's in at large in trying to just get into the conversation that has the idea that they will fight and they will hold these other guys to account. I just don't know in this setting of a debate whether people, how viewers are going to feel

about that kind of approach. Were there moments where you thought he might have helped anyone on stage? There were a couple of moments where he leapt in to attack Pierre Poliev in kind of, I don't know, I would assume, an inadvertent way, sort of helped out or bailed out Mark Carney. You know, Pierre Poliev had started in on this attack about the industrial carbon price and that was directed at Mark Carney. And suddenly Jagmeet Singh sort of leapt in

to needle Pierre Poliev about it and questioned his knowledge of the situation. Mr. Carney didn't answer my question. I asked how much would the industrial carbon tax on Canadian steel add to the price of a car? He won't answer because he knows that it will be very expensive because there's lots of steel in cars. Now well Mr. Carney has temporarily hidden the carbon taxes. You don't know the answer either. He's just throwing out random questions. Thousands of dollars, thousands of dollars in extra costs.

Let's let him. I actually do know the answer. It happened on pipelines, too, where he kind of jumped into needle Pierpaulio. He mocked Pierpaulio about housing and how many affordable housing units had been created when Pierpaulio was the minister in charge of that file. First of all, Mr. Seng, the Toronto Star, the Toronto Star debunked your falsehoods on that. No, it was six homes, and that's the facts.

And I appreciate neither Liberals or NDP are very good with math, but in that year, the year I was the minister of I could. You can count up to six, which is great. Because Mark Carney was very, I don't know that Mark Carney very often pressed the case against Pierre Pauliev, and in a way, I don't know that Mark Carney very often pressed the case against Pierre Polyev.

And in a way, it sort of helped that Jugmeet Singh was there to sort of launch the attacks that Mark Carney didn't. We are not going to get into every issue that they discussed over two hours tonight. And I'll just say for people listening that we have an episode currently slated to run early next week where we are actually digging into a bunch of policy proposals with experts across the country. So I do, I hope you will tune into that. But I do want to go through a few moments that I think did produce interesting daylight and or good exchanges from the candidates. Considering Trump has loomed so large in this election, he did not come up a ton. And are you surprised? A little bit, although I think as I thought about it more as the debate went on, I think the... If there's a reason he didn't come up,

it's because there's really only one leader on that stage who wants to talk about him, and that's Mark Carney. And, Perapoliev doesn't want to have that conversation. Uh, Jardimit Singh doesn't really... There's no advantage to him to having that come up. doesn't really, there's no advantage to him to having that come up. And so I think that sort of lined up for the discussion to kind of, you know, you saw this particularly in that first segment where it was, I think, supposed to be about Trump and tariffs and then instead became a conversation about pipelines.

You know, the other, the non-Mark Carney leaders on the stage saw a better advantage in talking about things that aren't necessarily directly about Donald Trump. SONIA DARA, MSNBC ANCHOR, CREDITS, CREDITS, CREDITS I thought a very interesting bit was the discussion over the notwithstanding clause. And just to explain it a little bit, Polyev has said that he is willing to use this tool that allows you to override the Charter of Rights and to stack multiple life sentences. And that would mean someone convicted of several murders would have to serve their sentences back to back to back. The Supreme Court ruled that that is not constitutional. And just tell me a bit

about the interactions that this section produced. Yeah, I think, you know, this gets complicated, but I think Pierre Polyov has framed this in terms of I'm going to use the notwithstanding clause to protect Canadians. And I will use the constitutional powers that are created for this purpose to ensure that mass murderers stay in maximum security penitentiary for life. They will only come out in a box. We will also have- The sort of ends justify the means, using this clause. He even frames it in terms of protecting Canadians' rights.

To be clear, I want to uphold the charter rights of Canadians under Section 7 to life, liberty, and security of the person. Right now, that right is violated by multiple murderers who are given discounts. And the argument against that from Mark Carney, I think you heard it from most specifically tonight, is, you know, once you start using the notwithstanding clause to overrule judicial verdicts,

to set aside charter violations, you know, where does this lead? I think it's a very dangerous slope to override judgments of the Supreme Court of Canada. In fact, the Charter of Rights and Freedoms exists to protect Canadians from people like us on the stage, politicians who may use their power to override fundamental rights. And the issue in using... It is given how much this issue has come up,

especially at the provincial level in recent years, it is very relevant, I think. And then this would be, I think it also needs to be underlined. If Pierre Pauli were to form government and if parliament were to use the notwithstanding clause, this would be the first time the federal parliament has ever used it. I want to ask you straight about some issues that matter to younger people in this country, because I know that a lot of people listening are of younger generations.

They are thinking about owning a home. They are thinking about being able to afford rent, to afford childcare. They're thinking about climate change, which I know we've talked about already a little bit. And did you hear any candidates tonight really try to reach them? And if so, how? I mean, I think Pierre Polly have made at one point a very direct appeal to young people. Mothers went to bed with empty fridges and empty bank accounts,

worried how they'd feed their kids, that seniors worried they'd be evicted from their homes, that young people believed they'd never be able to own a home in the first place. Now, in retrospect, you look back on the liberal decisions that you advised Justin Trudeau to take. Will you look at the camera in the eye and apologize to the many people who suffered as a result of the inflationary policies that you... And I think the issues of housing and climate were touched on. But I don't know that, you know, one of the drawbacks of, of, uh, of having a single debate and it's two hours and you're covering three dozen topics is that an issue like housing that really could go for an hour or two on its own.

Doesn't get hashed out as much. an hour or two on its own, doesn't get hashed out as much. Related to climate, pipelines took up a lot of time tonight. They took up a majority of a section that was actually about tariffs for some reason. I don't actually, don't even remember how it seems to have gotten so hijacked, but do you wanna briefly talk to me about what you heard there?

Yeah, I mean, I guess this is the very quintessential Canadian conversation about pipelines that we've been having for decades. You know, look, I think the conservatives were always interested in more pipeline development. The specter of Donald Trump and the potential threats to the Canadian economy and Canadian sovereignty has restarted the conversation amongst liberals about building more pipelines. I think that if there's a split, it's really sort of over under what conditions those pipelines would be built, you know,

what kind of regulations, what kind of environmental protections, you know, and they didn't really get into it except to kind of argue over who loved pipelines more, but it's really sort of over under what conditions and what rules are these things, are these pipelines actually going to be built if they're going to be built? Towards the end of the debate, the candidates got to ask each other

questions, which was kind of fun. Um, it sort of felt like this was designed, uh, as the portion of the debate that a lot of campaigns would want to clip for social media. They got also more questions from the moderator, journalist Steve Bacon. Can I tell you the one that I really want to talk about? It was when Steve Bacon asked them what their like greatest regrets were from the campaign. And I'm still laughing about it. I just got these, we just got these answers with varying degrees

of like, I care too much. I wish I could have cared more. It's like when you do a job interview and you're like, Oh, my greatest flaws that I worked too hard. Um, was that also your favorite moment of the entire debate? Uh, so I am not a big fan of gimmick questions in debates, but this one was entertaining strictly for, you know, Mr. Blanchet went first and he didn't quite have an answer for it.

That's a very good question. I'm not very fond of regrets, I would say. And then Jugmeet Singh went second and having had 30 seconds to think about it, came up with? Not being able to meet as many people as I would love to have. It's a short campaign, and so I can't get to as many communities that I wanted to. I think one of the honours of my job is to be able to meet people

and to hear their stories, and then to take their stories and concerns and bring them to Ottawa and to fight for those people. And then, of course, you know, Mark Carney hears Jagmeet Singh's answer and goes... To be honest, it's the same answer. This is an astonishing country. It is an amazing country.

Oh, I was going to say the same thing. And I also would like to, you know, get, it's really great to travel and so on. And then Pierre Pauliev was like, well, I have to agree with the other two. I actually agree with these two gentlemen. I had a rule that at all my rallies, even when they're really big, I would stand in front of a flag and greet every single person and hear their stories and learn their struggles. It really was sort of a classic kind of like, what's your biggest weakness? I work too hard and care too much, kind of answer.

["The Daily Show"] Normally, we would not end this conversation talking about the scrums with journalists that happened, that happened after the debates. To be honest, they're usually kind of boring. They're not big newsmakers. But as I mentioned in the intro, some really crazy stuff has happened that led to tonight's scrums actually being canceled.

The debate commission said that they could not guarantee a proper environment. And do you want to take a stab at what happened yesterday that got the ball on this whole thing kind of rolling? Yeah. So the debate commission has had this problem, I think both in 2019 and 2021, where they have tried to, you know, not accredit certain right-wing websites. The Rebels may be the most well-known of them.

And then I think in at least one case, it went to the federal court and it got overturned and they had to accredit them. And even in the last, I think it was the last in 2021 there, after that debate, the scrums were sort of, it was at least noticeable that these websites were, were in line to ask questions. But then, you know, last night at the French debate, for whatever reason, the commission, the debate commission let themselves get talked into accrediting, uh, multiple reporters from these outlets and then giving them multiple attempts to ask questions during scrums.

And then those individuals from these websites sort of lined up to ask questions and they dominated the questions. And Jagmeet Singh's responses were probably most noticeable. Will you condemn the rise in acts of hate against Christians today and explain what your party will do moving forward to keep Christians safe from hate in Canada? Again, thank you, but I'm not going to respond to an organization that promotes misinformation and disinformation like Rebel News, so no, I'm not going to respond to your question. So that sort of set up tonight where there was, you know, this this sort of, you know, what happened after the French debates created a certain amount of tension in the media room.

And then further events happened today where there was, you know, multiple incidents, some of them involving our colleagues at the CBC. And and it sort of boiled over into incidents, some of them involving our colleagues at the CVC and, and, uh, it sort of boiled over into, you know, essentially the debate commission shutting down the scrums, uh, because they didn't think they could pull them off essentially. They couldn't, you know, maintain the environment to have these scrums happen. And then, you know, so there was even more conflict and it's, as as you say, like, this is, these scrums are usually not very interesting

and they're pretty perfunctory. And this was all sorts of conflict. And it sounds like, you know, shouting and yelling. And it's just not a great scene for what is supposed to be our, you know, one of the sort of signal moments of an election campaign. supposed to be our, you know, one of the sort of signal moments of an election campaign. Yeah, I think just lots of, and I would say, understandable frustration from a lot of mainstream media in the face of all of these right wing provocateurs being given all of this access. And then also I was watching, as you mentioned, our colleague Rosemary Barton

talk about how she was like confronted. These were right-wing people that publish their own agenda and websites who confronted journalists inside the media center, who confronted David on his set, who directly and personally confronted me inside the media center. These are people that the commission decided to accredit and that is where we are now. I don't know exactly what happened but you heard David Cochran were giving like pretty passionate accounts on television. This is where we've ended up in this election with everything going on with Donald Trump and everything going on in this economy and everything going on in the world This is where the national Canadian election debate has ended up and it's just

exhausting and it's been it is the end product of multiple years of rage firming for narrow political gain and financial benefit the independent Commission that oversees the debate, they have gotten a lot of blowback in the last two days for this and also because at the last minute they yanked the Greens' ability to participate in the debate. And it just seems to me like this is not going to like blow over. No, no. I mean, I think there's sort of two things. One is the media conversation about who is, you know, given access to these events and

how people are treating other people. And then I think there's a larger issue of the debate commission who's just had a miserable week. In previous years, there were complaints about how the debates were conducted. This year, the debates were fine. It was everything else around the debates. And so, this is just going to be an issue going forward. And whoever is in government after this election is going to have to figure out what to do with it. Okay. Aaron, thank you. Anytime. Before anybody goes, Aaron is again, going to be with us on election night. We're doing a live stream.

It's going to be really fun. You can find it on the CBC News YouTube page, the CBC News TikTok page. We are going to link to it in our show notes and promo it all next week. All right. That is all for today. Frontburner was produced this week by Matthew Almah, Matt Muse, Ali James, Joythesheng Gupta, Lauren Donnelly, Karen Outtorn, and Mackenzie Cameron. Our intern is Iza Adeel. Our video producer is Evan Agard and our YouTube producer is John Lee. Our music is by Joseph

Shabason, our senior producer is Elaine Chao, our executive producer is Nick McKay-Blocos, and I'm Jamie Poisson. Thanks so much for listening and we'll talk to you next week. For more CBC podcasts go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.