Different opinions were few and far between during the federal Liberals’ French-language leadership debate on Monday night
Different opinions were few and far between during the federal Liberals’ French-language leadership debate on Monday night
MONTREAL — The first Liberal leadership debate was one in name only, with the four candidates consistently agreeing with each other as they tried to differentiate themselves in the race to succeed Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
The Britannica dictionary defines a debate as a “discussion between people in which they express different opinions about something.”
Though there are rarely fireworks and knockout punches in leadership debates, different opinions were few and far between during the Liberal Party of Canada (LPC) leadership debate in French Monday night.
Mark Carney, Chrystia Freeland, Karina Gould and Frank Baylis met in a TV studio in Montreal for the first of two debates just two weeks before Liberal members elect the party’s next leader.
The discussion covered four main topics: Canada’s place in the world (and particularly its relationship with the U.S.), the economy, government programs and the environment.
But Liberal members who hoped to hear the candidates offer opposing visions for the party and Canada in la langue de Molière were instead offered two hours of participants frequently noting how they agreed with each other — often expressed in choppy French.
All four agreed that Trump was currently the biggest threat to Canada. They agreed that transfers to provinces should not be cut. They agreed that Canada needs to push for a two-state solution to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. They agreed that Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre was bad.
“This is a race inside the family, inside our party, and it’s a really good thing that we are agreed about very many things,” Freeland told reporters after the debate.
U.S. President Donald Trump’s threats to tariff Canadian products and annex the country dominated the debate, coming up more frequently than Poilievre, the Liberals’ main domestic challenger.
Carney said that Trump was “more isolationist” and “more aggressive” than during his first presidency. Freeland called on members to vote for her because she had extensive experience dealing with a Trump presidency before. Gould argued that Canada couldn’t deal with a Trump administration the same way it had the first time around. Baylis flaunted his business experience and said it gave him the expertise to deal with a businessman like Trump.
For many francophone Canadians, it was also the first opportunity to hear each candidate speak extensively and mostly unscripted in French. That was particularly true for Carney, the race’s front runner, whose ability to think and communicate quickly in French has gone largely untested in the public’s eye.
They were very likely disappointed as the former Bank of Canada and Bank of England governor frequently stumbled, hesitated and occasionally needed to be corrected by his leadership rivals throughout the French encounter.
One particularly embarrassing moment for him came when the candidates were discussing Canada’s role in the Israel-Hamas war. After Baylis said that a Palestinian state had to be established without any involvement by the terrorist group Hamas, Carney noted that he was “in agreement with Hamas.”
Freeland quickly jumped in to point out that the party did not support Hamas and he corrected his French to say that he meant “with no Hamas,”
Before the race, a source close to Carney said he was hoping to not only show that his French had vastly improved, but also to showcase more of his personality to Liberal members.
The closest he came to that was frequently noting that Canada had to become “master in our own house”, a reference to a famous electoral slogan used by Quebec Premier Jean Lesage in the 1962 provincial election that ushered in the province’s “quiet revolution.”
The quality and fluidity of the other candidates’ French also varied significantly, with Baylis — the race’s only Quebecer — sounding the most comfortable, followed by Gould and Freeland.
Gould was the only candidate who occasionally shot barbs at other candidates, particularly Baylis and a few times at Carney. For example, she criticized the frontrunner for not promising to hit NATO’s defence-spending target earlier than 2030.
At one point, referring to her time in cabinet, Gould subtly undermined Carney’s new promise to leverage artificial intelligence to boost productivity and cut costs across government.
“When you have experience in government, you know that we already use artificial intelligence to make our services more efficient,” she said.
The debate was originally set to have five candidates, but Ruby Dhalla was kicked out of the race last week after the party said she had committed 10 “extremely serious” violations of the leadership campaign rules.
“The violations include concerns about alleged violations of the Canada Elections Act, certain other election finance matters, non-disclosure of material facts, and inaccurate financial reporting,” according to a statement by Liberal party national director Azam Ishmael.
On Monday, Dhalla appealed her disqualification to the party’s Permanent Appeals Committee. Less than an hour before the debate, the party announced that the appeal had been denied after considering oral and written submissions.
National Post
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