Carney expected to be top target in French-language leaders' debate

Verity Stevenson · CBC News

· Posted: Apr 16, 2025 4:00 AM EDT | Last Updated: 10 minutes ago

Federal party leaders are getting ready for their first debate of the election campaign this evening. 

The French-language debate will take place this evening at 6 p.m., followed by the English debate tomorrow at 7 p.m. Both debates are happening in Montreal at the CBC/Radio-Canada building downtown, in a large studio in its ground-floor atrium. 

The time slot for this evening's debate was moved up two hours by the Leaders' Debates Commission following requests from parties that it not conflict with a Montreal Canadiens' game the same evening with potential playoff implications. 

The majority of the five leaders participating in the debate moderated by Radio-Canada's Patrice Roy will be doing so in their second language.

French is the first language of the Bloc Québécois's Yves-François Blanchet and the Greens' Jonathan Pedneault. Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre is fluent, while NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh is also comfortable in the language. 

But the leader who has faced the most scrutiny for his French skills is the Liberals' Mark Carney, a political novice for whom this is his first election campaign.

"That's where the challenge is going to be for Mark Carney: it's going to be to stick to his messages and not take the bait," said Sandra Aubé, a political strategist and former chief of staff to Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly. 

Aubé also said it's possible Blanchet could use his mastery of French to throw Carney off balance.

WATCH | More than halfway into the election, here's what the leaders are focusing on: 

78 seats in Quebec

The stakes for each leader are high in this debate, whose audience could be mostly made up of Quebecers.

With 78 ridings, Quebec sends the second-highest number of MPs to Parliament (after Ontario's 122). So it's critical in determining which party will form the next government and whether it will be a majority or a minority. 

Both the Bloc and NDP have lost a significant amount of support there, according to polls.

Aubé said that many voters who would typically vote Bloc are backing the Liberals so far in the polls — which means Carney, who has been enjoying historic levels of support, will be a target.

The other party leaders "are going to try to get under his skin to make him talk about things he hasn't prepared for," Aubé said.

In recent weeks, Singh has pitched his party as the potential balance of power in Ottawa between Carney's Liberals and Poilievre's Conservatives. 

"I'm going to take on these two leaders, on their offers for Canada, [and] present our vision for Canada — one where we take better care of each other, where we invest in each other, where we lift each other up," he told reporters Tuesday. 

While Blanchet has made some attempts at drawing attention to Carney's French, it hasn't seemed to dissuade Quebec voters yet. Barring any major mistakes in the language or on Quebec culture, Aubé doesn't believe Carney's French will have a major impact on the outcome of the debate.

The Green Party raised eyebrows Tuesday after it admitted to deciding not to run 15 candidates in some federal ridings where Conservatives are favoured to win.

The Greens submitted a full list of 343 potential candidates to the commission to clinch their spot in the debate. But many nominees didn't meet requirements by Elections Canada; in the end, the party has candidates running in 232 of the 343 federal ridings.

Pedneault has spent much of the campaign so far in the Montreal riding he's trying to win: Outremont. This week, leading up to the debates, all four other party leaders with spots in the debates have spent time in the province and in Montreal.

Supply management and religious symbols

The leaders have had other opportunities to defend their platforms to Quebecers, too. 

This weekend, Poilievre and Carney were on the ultra-popular Tout le monde en parle show. And earlier this month, all five were interviewed in a two-hour segment on Radio-Canada called Cinq chefs, une élection. Carney faced questions about how far he was willing to go to protect supply management of poultry, dairy and eggs — major economic sectors in the province. He was also asked to rate his French (he gave it a six out of 10). 

Poilievre said he'd improve the Canadian military and increase border security, using them as bargaining chips with U.S. President Donald Trump. He said he opposed Bill 21, Quebec's secularism law, which prohibits public servants, including teachers and police officers, from wearing religious symbols. 

Anne-Marie Dussault, a Radio-Canada television host who has moderated several provincial and federal debates, says her colleague Patrice Roy has pushed for moderators to be able to ask follow-up questions, which leaders had in the past refused to allow. 

"Follow-up questions sometimes are the most important," Dussault said, noting as well that debates are a high-pressure environment for all involved.

"It's hard to be appreciated by anyone. People look at the debate from their own lens. If they're Liberal, if they're Conservative, NDP or Bloc — they say, 'Ah, why did she ask that question? Why didn't she ask the other one?'" Dussault said. 

In 2021, more than four million viewers tuned into the federal leaders' French debate, while more than 10 million watched the English one live. As for Monday's Habs game, 1.2 million hockey fans tuned into that event. 

"People say that in Quebec, hockey is a religion," Dussault said.