Party leaders come out swinging for French-language debate
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It was a debate that got fiery.
The first French-language debate of the campaign featured heated clashes on respect for Quebec, child-care funding, and who can provide stable and adequate health-care funding.
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Party leaders come out swinging for French-language debate Back to video
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In the very first minutes, his rivals challenged Liberal leader Justin Trudeau on why he called the election in the first place.
Each of them slammed the campaign as unnecessary.
With the federal government recently signing daycare deals across the country, Conservative leader Erin O’Toole faced attacks from Trudeau and Bloc Quebecois Leader Yves-Francois Blanchet on whether a Conservative government would honour a $6-billion deal for daycare.
O’Toole said he would respect Quebec’s current system and also fund families directly.
The Conservative leader accused the Liberals of manipulating a 2020 video O’Toole appeared in where he discussed ideas for health care.
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In the Liberals’ tweeted version of the video, O’Toole appeared to express support for two-tier health care.
“At the beginning of the campaign, Mr. Trudeau manipulated a video to try to confuse Canadians,” O’Toole said.
“That is entirely not true,” Trudeau countered.
Twitter marked the video — tweeted by Liberal candidate Chrystia Freeland on the seventh day of the campaign — as “manipulated media.”
O’Toole — repeatedly challenged on how he would balance the budget in 10 years — promised that on health care, he would consult the premiers.
“I will have a meeting with the premiers in the first 100 days in office,” he pledged.
O’Toole swiped back at Trudeau for mismanaging a series of claims of sexual misconduct in the military.
“Unfortunately, we saw a cover-up from Mr. Trudeau’s office,” O’Toole charged, saying Harjit Sajjan, the minister of defence, has also not done enough to tackle and root out the problem.
“It is unacceptable,” he said.
Trudeau countered by saying, “On the contrary, the minister of defence relayed the complaint to independent authorities.”
There was also a heated exchange between NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh and Blanchet on the issue of denouncing systemic racism.
A House vote once led to a Bloc MP facing criticism from the NDP for not agreeing that systemic racism was an issue.
The Bloc leader accused Singh of not being forceful enough in denouncing “Quebec-bashing” in his caucus.
“Quebecers are very sick of this,” Blanchet said.
“I definitely want to hear from Mr. Singh — who has portrayed us as racists — that Quebecers are not racist.”
Singh fired back: “It is completely wrong what Mr. Blanchet is saying. We have always said we are against Quebec-bashing.”
“Honestly, it is desperate,” Singh said of the Bloc leader’s accusation.
The next debates are on Sept. 8 and 9.
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