Much of the debate was dominated by Donald Trump, whom the candidates appear to consider to be a much greater threat than Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre
Much of the debate was dominated by Donald Trump, whom the candidates appear to consider to be a much greater threat than Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre
MONTREAL — The four Liberal candidates running to succeed Prime Minister Justin Trudeau held another friendly debate Tuesday in which they promised to fight U.S. President Donald Trump, recapture the youth vote and fix all of Canada’s chronic woes.
Mark Carney, Chrystia Freeland, Karina Gould and Frank Baylis met once again in a TV studio in Montreal for the final campaign debate — this time in English — just two weeks before Liberal members elect the party’s next leader.
The first half of the debate was dominated by U.S. President Donald Trump, whom the candidates appear to consider to be a much greater threat than Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre.
The candidates spent most of the second hour pitching how they would fix the affordability, housing, economic and health-care problems that have emerged or worsened under the Trudeau government.
Ex-ministers Gould and Freeland in particular celebrated the Trudeau government’s achievements all the while pitching their solutions to fix the woes that emerged under it.
“I am very proud of the record that we have. We’ve made mistakes, absolutely. Nobody is perfect, but we’ve done a lot of good things for this country,” Gould said.
The debate also featured a few more sparks and far less linguistic gaffes than the French debate the night before.
Gould was the candidate with the most pluck throughout the debate, taking swipes at other candidates but singling out frontrunner Carney in particular. “I had kid gloves on tonight,” she told reporters after the debate.
She questioned Carney on his strategy for dealing with President Trump, quizzed him on which Canadian sectors he would protect first and foremost and his pledge to reach NATO defence spending targets only by 2030.
Freeland and Gould have vowed to meet NATO’s target of two per cent by 2027, whereas Carney and Baylis pledge to meet that goal by 2030.
She also accused “some” of her colleagues of adopting Conservative ideas and appearing “Conservative-lite” in their pitches to become prime minister.
Just like in the French debate on Monday, U.S. President Donald Trump was the dominant theme of the first half of the evening and was frequently evoked by Freeland and Carney.
Carney pitched himself as the crisis, negotiation and economic expert ready to take on Trump. Freeland repeatedly referenced her experience negotiating with the Trump administration during his first presidency. Gould said leaders like Trump “underestimate” her and that has the right tools to fight back.
Baylis promised to “call” Trump on his 25 per cent tariff “bluff.” He was the only candidate to promise to cancel the border measures the Liberal recently put in place to placate Trump, such as increased drone and helicopter surveillance along the world’s longest land border.
In the second half of the debate, all four candidates promised to make home ownership accessible again after it slipped out the reach of many young Canadians under their government. They alternatively promised to accelerate build rates, increase the number of tradespeople and boosting salaries.
“It is going to need a great time going forward to be a worker in Canada. it is going to be a great time to be in the trades in Canada, because we are going to build this country,” Carney promised though he did not provide further detail.
“We’re not going to bring house prices down, so we need to get your salaries up,” Baylis promised, noting that he was nearly “embarrassed” to say that he bought his first home decades ago for under $200,000.
He also promised to give Canadians the “best health-care system in the world” if he is elected. Gould and Carney noted that health care is a provincial responsibility but promised to increase health transfers to provinces.
“We didn’t have enough accountability for where that money was going,” Gould said of the transfers to provinces.
Freeland promised to train more doctors, nurse, research practitioners and allow their credentials to be recognized across the country.
Absent from the debate were detailed discussions on energy and natural resources, reducing the federal deficit, increasing the country’s productivity and how candidates would increase and speed up defence procurement.
Speaking to reporters after the debate, Freeland promised to reduce the size of the federal public service, citing attrition and new technologies such as artificial intelligence as ways of cutting the number of bureaucrats.
Carney, on the other hand, told journalists he wouldn’t cut the size of the public service, transfers to provinces or money “to individuals”. He also promised to give Quebec a “veto” power on pipeline projects that would pass through its territory if he’s elected.
Carney took a swipe at Poilievre’s refusal to apply for a top-secret security clearance because he argues that it would prevent him from speaking about and acting on any intelligence he receives from security agencies.
“I’ve already … filled out my forms. It wasn’t that hard to do, I have to say,” Carney said. “This is the kind of irresponsibility at a time when our country is under threat that we cannot afford,” he added about Poilievre.
Tuesday’s debate was slightly more lively that Monday’s French debate, which featured few sparks and certainly no knockout punches between candidates as different opinions were few and far between during the two-hour affair.
It was also dominated by middling to poor French and talk of U.S. President Donald Trump, with each candidate arguing that they were best candidate to counter his threats against Canada.
Tuesday’s debate was not expected to be much more fiery, though the candidates would surely be more eloquent and comfortable in their English mother tongue.
The candidate who had the most to prove — and the most to lose if he did not have a good showing — was Mark Carney.
The frontrunner in the race had a very difficult showing during Monday’s French debate due to his uncertain command of the language on stage. He struggled to get his points across and spoke laboriously compared to his competitors.
Conservatives were quick to jump on one particular gaffe, where he mistakenly said Liberals agreed “with Hamas” as opposed to “on Hamas.”
After the debate, Carney was quick to tell reporters that he had misspoken and noted that the first thing he said was that all Israelis held hostage by terrorist group Hamas must be released.
National Post
Get more deep-dive National Post political coverage and analysis in your inbox with the Political Hack newsletter, where Ottawa bureau chief Stuart Thomson and political analyst Tasha Kheiriddin get at what’s really going on behind the scenes on Parliament Hill every Wednesday and Friday, exclusively for subscribers. Sign up here.
Our website is the place for the latest breaking news, exclusive scoops, longreads and provocative commentary. Please bookmark nationalpost.com and sign up for our politics newsletter, First Reading, here.