The odd place of leaders’ debates in Canadian election campaigns

Much has been made of the gap in political experience between Mark Carney and Pierre Poilievre. This week’s leaders’ debates will put the comparison in real time, as they face off in the campaign’s showcase event. 

It is both leading candidates' first foray, as Yves-Francois Blanchet and Jagmeet Singh each have federal leaders’ debate experience under their belts. Poilievre competed in two debates during the 2022 Conservative leadership contest, including one that grilled candidates on their favourite binge-worthy show. Carney, meanwhile, went untested in the lopsided 2025 Liberal leadership campaign.

But what kind of impact have debates had on campaigns? They have consistently maintained an odd place — rarely a major turning point, they are often an instructive event, but at times draw more attention to rules and process than results and performance. 

For example, in 2011, the French-language debate was moved to avoid a conflict with a Montreal Canadiens playoff game — only the first round! — and in 2021, a moderator made a bigger splash than any leader when Shachi Kurl described Quebec’s secularism law as discriminatory in the lead-up to a question. 

Considering the 2024 Joe Biden-Donald Trump Presidential debate may be one of the most consequential political debates of the 21^st century, it is helpful to remind Canadians how relatively inconsequential our own federal leaders’ debates have been since their inception in 1968.

The Globe and Mail headline the morning after Canada’s first federal leaders’ debate in 1968 foreshadowed a bumpy future for the institution: “Canada’s first national debate by big four politicians bogs down in boredom.” 

The debate featured Liberal Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, Progressive Conservative Leader Robert Stanfield, New Democratic Party Leader Tommy Douglas and Creditiste Leader Real Caouette. Considering it included two major historical figures in Douglas and Trudeau, it might be surprising how the prime minister noted, “I thought the whole thing was pretty dull … I wouldn’t want to impose another one on the Canadian public.” 

Notably, the start of the tradition was so insignificant, we didn’t have another until Trudeau faced Joe Clark and Ed Broadbent in 1979. Clark’s Tories were moving ahead in the polls, so Trudeau and Broadbent were on the attack and appeared to “win” the debate. But it was Clark who was elected prime minister. There were no leaders’ debates in Pierre Trudeau’s triumphant 1980 comeback campaign, but the event returned in 1984.

Featuring sharp exchanges between Brian Mulroney, then the new leader of the PC Party, and Liberal prime minister John Turner, the 1984 English language leaders’ debate is still the standard-bearer. 

Fun party trick: Next time you sit down to watch a Canadian leaders’ debate with your friends, make a bet that any political pundit reacting to the contest will reference the “You had an option, sir” moment as a measure of whether there was a consequential exchange in the debate. 

Considered the pièce de résistance of Canadian political debates, PC leader Mulroney cornered Liberal leader and Prime Minister Turner on appointments he had made for Trudeau once he took office. In the aftermath of the debate, a small Liberal polling lead turned into a 10-point Tory advantage, which weeks later turned into a historic PC blowout, solidifying the debate in history.

In somewhat Canadian fashion, the greatest drama of federal leaders’ debates has not been the debates themselves, but the rules that govern them. From 1993 to 2000, the debates included all five party leaders, a more inclusive but also more crowded stage for the national audience to consume. 

After the merger of the Canadian Alliance and the Progressive Conservative parties into the Conservative Party in 2003 and the arrival of the upstart Green Party, new debates about the debates emerged. During the 2008 race, a major story of the campaign was disagreement over the inclusion of Green Leader Elizabeth May. 

The May disagreement was just the start of growing disgruntlement with the consortium of broadcast networks that oversaw the debates, which led to several debates hosted outside that traditional group by Macleans/City-TV, The Globe and Mail and TVA. With the breakdown of the consortium came the creation of the Leaders’ Debate Commission in 2018.

While the majority of debates did not prompt major polling shifts, we can find signs of political life in these events by digging a bit deeper into the 2011 cycle. 

By 2011, NDP Leader Jack Layton had competed in more debates than any previous leader (ten – tied with Gilles Duceppe). As the leader of a perpetual third-place party, Layton played the feisty attack dog with the charm of a golden retriever. 

Layton’s 2011 English-language debate performance centered on attacks against Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff (including a tough line on Ignatieff’s poor House of Commons attendance). Polling in the mid-teens before the debates, Layton’s performance ultimately led the NDP to the historic 30.6 percent it received on election day. 

In what has been a historic political year with unexpected movement in voting intentions in response to unthinkable external pressures on Canadian politics, this week’s leaders’ debates arrive with high expectations of a clarifying event. But as debate history has shown, these expectations may not be met.  

J.P. Lewis is professor at the University of New Brunswick. Lewis is a regular media contributor in New Brunswick and his main area of publication and research is cabinet governance.