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Left to right: Mark Carney, Pierre Poilievre, Jagmeet Singh and Yves-François Blanchet.

MONTREAL — Leaders of the

Conservative party

,

Bloc Québécois

and

NDP

will be trying to steal Francophones’ support from the

Liberals

tonight during the

election

campaign’s only French-language debate.

For the first time since the start of the campaign,

Liberal Leader Mark Carney

,

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre

, Bloc Québécois Leader

Yves-François Blanchet

and

NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh

will share a stage for the first of two debates at 6 p.m. Wednesday.

Green Party co-leader Jonathan Pedneault was expected to join the debate until the organizing commission gave him the boot on the morning of the event, saying the party

wasn’t running enough candidates to be eligible

.

The topics expected to be debated are cost of living, energy and climate, the Canada-U.S. trade war, identity and sovereignty as well as immigration and foreign affairs. The clash will be moderated by Radio-Canada anchor Patrice Roy.

The debate occurs just two days before the beginning of early voting on Friday and less than two weeks before election day on April 28.

The French debate is a key platform for parties looking to shore up support in seat-rich Quebec. A

new Postmedia-Leger poll published

Wednesday suggests that with 40 per cent support in Quebec, Carney’s Liberals are dominating the Bloc Québécois (25 per cent) and the Conservatives (23 per cent).

That means Carney, who is the least comfortable in French of the four, is likely to be in every other party leaders’ sights that night.

But the Leger poll also suggests that the five leaders are fighting over a surprisingly small pool of undecided voters. Only 20 per cent of Quebec respondents said the debate would affect how they vote, a number that falls to 17 per cent nationally.

The leaders will also be facing off against the Montreal Canadiens NHL team for Quebecers’ attention in the second hour of the debate.

The French debate was originally scheduled for 8 p.m. but

was moved forward two hours

after the NDP and Bloc Québécois complained that the schedule conflicted with the Habs game at 7 p.m.

If the Canadiens win that game, the venerated team is guaranteed the last wildcard spot in the NHL playoffs.

“We’re asking people — especially in Quebec — to choose between a critical democratic

debate

 and cheering on the Habs in a must-win game.

This kind of political discussion shouldn’t compete with something that means so much to so many,” Singh said Tuesday.

National Post

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Clockwise from top left: Liberal Leader Mark Carney, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre, NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh and Bloc Québécois Leader Yves-François Blanchet during the French leaders' debate in Montreal on Wednesday, April 16, 2025.

MONTREAL — Liberal Leader Mark Carney played defence against NDP, Bloc Québécois and Conservative leaders during a French-language debate that alternated between jabs and jokes but competed with the Montreal Canadiens for francophones’ attention.

The first of two federal campaign debates in Montreal began with moderator Patrice Roy exhorting the Montreal Canadiens to win a do-or-die playoff qualification game that forced organizers to change the event’s start time at the last minute.

During the two-hour affair, leaders debated their proposals on the cost of living, energy and climate, the trade war with the U.S., identity and sovereignty as well as immigration and foreign affairs.

But knives started flying fast between

Carney

,

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre

, Bloc Québécois Leader

Yves-François Blanchet

and

NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh

as they debated how they could deal with U.S. President Donald Trump.

After Carney boasted of launching negotiations with the European Union days after becoming prime minister, Blanchet accused him of being an expert in “tax shelters.” He was referring to reports that multiple green investment funds he oversaw at Brookfield Asset management were set up in offshore tax havens.

Singh also took shots at Carney and Poilievre early on. He accused Carney of meeting the king of England (referring to Charles, also king of Canada) instead of increasing aid to families and workers, and Poilievre of wanting to bend the knee to U.S. President Donald Trump and “Americanize” Canada.

Poilievre frequently went after his main opponent Carney, repeating his well-used accusations of Carney having a key role in the “lost Liberal decade” for having worked with the Liberal government under former prime minister Justin Trudeau.

Carney, who was the least comfortable in French of the four leaders, was far less biting and focused on promoting his response to Trump since becoming prime minister in mid-March, picked by the party to replace Trudeau.

He remained on the defensive throughout the evening and focused on his campaign commitment and promoting actions he’s taken or promised during his one month as prime minister.

But the verbal jousting was occasionally interrupted by moments of levity, particularly in response to a question about what American products they ceased purchasing since Trump’s tariffs on Canada. Carney’s opponents emphasized they buy their own groceries, something he admitted in the Liberal leadership that he didn’t do.

Blanchet, Singh and Poilievre realizing they had all stopped buying American strawberries specifically earned a laugh from the group.

“It’s a delicious conversation,” chuckled Poilievre.

During a debate on the cost of living, Singh accused Poilievre of only overseeing the building of six homes when he was the minister responsible for housing in Stephen Harper’s Conservative government. Poilievre countered that it was in fact 200,000 and that he was proud of his work.

Moderator Patrice Roy occasionally slipped an editorial comment into his questions, at one point asking leaders what they had to “hide” by making the “totally irresponsible” decision not to publish their costed platforms before the debates.

Only the Bloc Québécois has published its full platform but has not published independent costing estimates of some of its commitments.

Poilievre, Carney and Singh all dodged the question but promised their costed platforms would be published in coming days, suggesting it would only be after the two debates. They also said they would be fiscally responsible all the while cutting taxes and supporting Canadians.

“These are Harry Potter budgets… they want to do magic. They want to spend more money but cut at the same time,” Blanchet said of the other leaders’ platforms.

Most leaders were equally evasive when responding to questions about energy development and their views on pipelines. Only Poilievre unequivocally stated support for more pipelines and the development of nuclear energy all the while opposing to the Liberals’ electric vehicle mandate beginning 2030.

Carney said he supported pipeline development but also said he would respect a province or a First Nation’s opposition. He argued that Canada needed to focus on low-risk and low-carbon oil and gas.

Singh said he would prefer that public money be invested in clean energy. Blanchet insisted that any new pipelines would have to be approved by Quebec all the while casting doubt on the province’s apparent newfound interest in oil and gas development.

Poilievre told Blanchet that it the lack of an East-West pipeline in Canada means Albertan oil must pass through the U.S. before making it to Quebec, which poses a risk amid Trump’s increased protectionism. Blanchet countered that that was a strawman argument.

Another heated moment in the debate came during discussions on the Israel-Hamas conflict. Poilievre said that he would cease Canada’s funding of controversial organization United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNWRA) for its reported ties to terrorist organization Hamas.

The response earned a rebuke from Singh, who repeatedly called the argument “disgusting.” Carney said that to use the word “genocide” to describe the situation in Gaza was akin to politicizing the issue.

Late in the debate, Singh accused moderator Patrice Roy of treating him unfairly by cutting him off every time the NDP leader brought up health care during the debate. After the debate, he told reporters that his comments were made in the heat of the moment and that he wasn’t mad at Roy.

Green Party co-leader Jonathan Pedneault was expected to join the debate until the organizing commission gave him the boot on the morning of the event, saying the party

wasn’t running enough candidates to be eligible

.

The debate occurred just two days before the beginning of early voting on Friday and less than two weeks before election day on April 28.

Watch the full debate:<h3

The French debate is a key platform for parties looking to shore up support in seat-rich Quebec. A

new Postmedia-Leger poll published

Wednesday suggests that with 40 per cent support in Quebec, Carney’s Liberals are dominating the Bloc Québécois (25 per cent) and the Conservatives (23 per cent).

But the Leger poll also suggests that the five leaders are fighting over a surprisingly small pool of undecided voters. Only 20 per cent of Quebec respondents said the debate would affect how they vote, a number that falls to 17 per cent nationally.

The leaders also faced off against the Montreal Canadiens NHL team for Quebecers’ attention in the second hour of the debate.

The French debate was originally scheduled for 8 p.m. but was moved forward two hours after the NDP and Bloc Québécois complained that the schedule conflicted with the Habs game at 7 p.m.

If the Canadiens win that game, the venerated team is guaranteed the last wildcard spot in the NHL playoffs.

Moderator Patrice Roy acknowledged the last-minute change at the start of the debate all the while imploring the Habs to win to make it all worth it.

National Post

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Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre, left, and Liberal Party Leader Mark Carney.

The Leaders’ Debates Commission

clawed back some basic semblance of self-respect on Wednesday morning

when it disinvited the Green Party from this evening’s French-language debate and tomorrow’s English-language follow-up. The party has only nominated 232 candidates across the country, or 69 per cent of the total number of ridings, whereas one of the three rules for a party’s inclusion (you need to satisfy two) demands that, “28 days before the date of the general election, the party has endorsed candidates in at least 90 per cent of federal ridings.”

And then it gave back all that self-respect with interest: Journalist Justin Ling

reports for the Toronto Star

that while limiting other media outlets to one journalist each at post-debate scrums with the leaders, Ezra Levant’s online Rebel News site managed to strong-arm the commission into granting his outlet

five

spots. Whatever you think of Levant or Rebel News, that’s utterly ridiculous — and guaranteed to incite a riot among competing reporters.

The way the rules are phrased

, the Greens might actually have a narrow technical case: They did

endorse

a full slate of candidates, and they provided a list of them to the commission; it’s just that not all of them wound up being

officially nominated

as candidates. The rules specifically say “parties are not required to demonstrate that those candidates have been formally nominated with Elections Canada.”

But this utterly hapless party

admitted

it had pulled candidates from the running deliberately, so as not to split the progressive vote in the Conservatives’ favour. It pulled a fast one, and deserves to be disinvited on ethical if not procedural grounds — in addition to being all but a total non-factor in Canadian federal politics. (Greens are currently polling

around two per cent support nationally

, according to the polling aggregator 338Canada.com.)

The Greens having been excluded, however, this election is still shaping up as a low point for the commission.

For starters, on Tuesday, the French-language debate was moved up by two hours, to 6 p.m. EDT, to avoid conflicting with a Montreal Canadiens game in which they can clinch a playoff spot. The idea, creditable on its face, was to get more eyeballs on the debate.

But there are two problems with that. One,

the debate is two hours long

. The Habs game starts at 7 p.m. EDT, midway through the debate. So when it comes to the eyeballs … mission unaccomplished. Two, the rescheduling means the debate starts at 3 p.m. on the West Coast, which is a really silly time to have a national debate.

But of course, it’s

not

really a national debate. This manoeuvre just proves it.

We all know that “the French-language debate” is usually just “the Quebec debate.” There’s one debate for the 22 per cent of Canadians who live in Quebec, or rather the minority of that 22 per cent who are consumed by nationalist, linguistic, jurisdictional and sovereigntist angst, who will be represented by Bloc Québécois leader Yves-François Blanchet. And then there’s one for the 78 per cent of Canadians who don’t live in Quebec and have little time for any of that stuff.

Indeed, it’s a very fitting representation of the way Quebec-nationalist elites think about language, and the influence they wield in Ottawa, that we have “a French debate” and “an English debate” in the first place: those elites see bilingualism as a threat to French, whereas the rest of the world sees bilingualism and multilingualism as a benefit on its face. Surely a truly, proudly, functionally bilingual country would have

bilingual debates

, translated for the unilingual in real time.

Having said all that, the English-language debate starts at 4 p.m. PDT on Thursday, which is only 60 minutes less silly a time to broadcast a national debate than the French-language one.

On social media, I have seen some defend the rescheduling on grounds that nowadays, people can stream these debates whenever they please online, so the time really doesn’t matter. This is true!

But then: Why reschedule for the hockey game?

And hang on. Wasn’t the commission created after the 2015 election with the enthusiastic support of people who didn’t like the fact that other organizations (Maclean’s magazine, The Globe and Mail, the Munk Debates and TVA) were hosting their own leaders’ debates and broadcast/streamed them where not every Canadian could supposedly see them?

Why yes, yes it was.

“It was not always clear to the public where and when they could access the debates since some were carried on a specialty channel or online,”

Radio-Canada reported at the time

. “(Ryerson University journalism professor David) Nayman asks why Canadians ‘should have to rack their brains’ to find them’.”

Again: This was 2015. Not 1995. The internet was quite well established by then.

Now we’re supposed to pretend 3 p.m. and 4 p.m. debates, organized by the same old fuddy-duddy broadcasters’ consortium that consistently disappoints Canadians with their product, is the right way forward because people can stream them on the website of parliamentary TV channel CPAC after the fact — just as they could 10 years ago?

Nuts to that. Mr. Carney or Mr. Poilievre, if you seek proper debates in future, tear down this commission. And in the meantime, organize a one-on-one bilingual debate for next week and stream it wherever and whenever you want to. No one can stop you — certainly not this misbegotten commission, which only exists to lend credibility to holding the fewest number of debates imaginable, and in the least imaginative ways.

National Post

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California’s governor is trying to drum up more Canadian tourism to his state by distancing himself from U.S. President Donald Trump. And he’s doing that literally, reminding Canadians how far from Washington his state is.

“California, it’s the ultimate playground,” Gavin Newsom says in a video recently posted to social media. “Two thousand miles from Washington and a world away in mindset.”

He’s being modest on that front. Sacramento, the capital of California, is 2,357 miles (or, for Canadians, 3,794 kilometres) from Washington as the crow flies. By car, it’s about 400 miles further. But Newsom is not shy in boasting of the state’s “world-class wine, food and outdoor adventure.”

A

press release

from the governor’s office notes that, since Trump started his second term as U.S. president, tourism to California from Canada has declined for the first time since the pandemic, dropping 12 per cent in February compared to the previous year.

Last year, it noted, 1.8 million Canadians travelled to California, spending $3.72 billion. It also claims that California is America’s top tourist destination, making more than $150 billion in 2023. (

New York State

gets more visitors but they don’t spend as much.) According to the release, nearly 1.2 million California workers depend on jobs in tourism and hospitality.

“The Golden State and Canada have always shared so much in common,” Newsom says in his video, as flags of the two regions pop up in front of him. “Sure, you know who’s trying to stir things up back in D.C., but don’t let that ruin your beach plans.”

Newsom is coy about “you know who,” showing only an image of the White House. But a

pinned post on his X account

discussing his pursuit of trade deals with international partners is more direct.

“Donald Trump’s tariffs do not represent all Americans,” he says in that one, “particularly those that I represent here in the fifth-largest economy in the world.”

Newsom also reposted remarks from British Columbia Premier David Eby, who met with him on Monday. “

@CAgovernor

expressed to me that he values our trade relationship,” Eby wrote. “We spoke about the role of BC lumber in helping rebuild communities impacted by wildfires — and we are ready to help meet that need.”

Newsom announced on Wednesday that his state will file a lawsuit challenging Trump’s authority to impose sweeping tariffs.

The suit will argue that Trump’s use of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act to impose tariffs on Mexico, Canada and China or a 10 per cent tariff on all imports is unlawful. The act lets a president freeze and block transactions in response to foreign threats.

The lawsuit, to be filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, will also argue that enacting such tariffs requires approval from Congress, Newsom’s office said.

Still, not everyone is buying the state’s pro-tourism message.

“Clearly it’s a response to what’s happening,” B.C.’s minister of housing and municipal affairs, Ravi Kahlon,

told Global News

.

His advice for would-be travellers? “Hold the line. It’s working. There’s a reason why there’s an ad campaign being run by the California state. There’s a reason why there’s ads being run by U.S. states. It’s because Canadians have responded with a clear message: we’re not a 51st state, we’re not going to take this lightly, we believe all the tariffs should come off, and I’m proud of Canadians, I’m proud of British Columbians.”

With files from the Associated Press

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Bloc Québecois leader Yves-Francois Blanchet scrums with reporters in Montreal Monday April 7, 2025.

OTTAWA — A new Postmedia-Leger poll reveals that support for Quebec sovereignty, which had fallen below 30 per cent due to U.S. President Donald Trump’s threats to annex Canada, is back.

Even though Canada is engaged in a tariff war with its closest ally, support for Quebec independence

has reached 36 per cent according to new data

.

“So, it’s interesting to see a little bit of movement there. It seems disconnected from the ballot at this stage of the game. You’ve got some of those who are saying they would support sovereignty, but they’re still parking their vote right now with the Liberals, with a federalist party,” said Andrew Enns, Leger’s executive vice-president.

In the province, the Liberals (40 per cent) still have a 15-point lead over the Bloc (25 per cent).

“Right now, (Quebecers) think Carney is a better prime minister to (protecting the country from America) than certainly Mr. Poilievre. And certainly, Mr. Blanchet isn’t necessarily the guy (they) need at this particular time,” added Enns.

Leger asked 1,001 residents of the province the question about Quebec’s sovereignty.

In March,

Leger reported that 29 per cent of Quebecers

supported Quebec independence. Since then, separatist politicians, such as Bloc Québécois leader Yves-François Blanchet, have argued that this was only a temporary decline due to the fleeting rise of Canadian patriotism among the Quebec population.

Leger also asked the following question in all regions of the country except Quebec: “If a referendum were held in your province to become an independent country, would you vote for or against independence for your province?” An overwhelming majority of the 2,309 respondents (71 per cent) were opposed.

However, 29 per cent of Albertans supported Alberta sovereignty, which echoes

a recent Angus-Reid poll

.

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Researchers found that squeezing workout times into the weekend beats doing nothing at all.

A recent study confirms previous findings that completing the recommended amount of weekly aerobic physical activity in one or two sessions can be as effective as spreading it throughout the week.

The Canadian 24-hour movement guidelines advise adults to aim for 150 minutes of moderate-to-vigorous aerobic physical activity weekly.

However, finding time for daily exercise can be challenging, particularly for those juggling work and other responsibilities. Many struggle to prioritize fitness on weekdays but have more time on weekends.

This pattern has led researchers to use the term “weekend warrior” to describe individuals who complete their recommended weekly aerobic exercise in one or two concentrated sessions instead of spacing it out.

For those who struggle to find time during busy weekdays, this approach could offer a more accessible option to obtain the health benefits of aerobic physical activity.

Published on April 2 in the Journal of the American Heart Association,

the study

found that the “weekend warrior” approach delivers comparable health benefits to more frequent exercise spread throughout the week.

Researchers analyzed physical activity data from more than 93,000 adults using wrist-worn accelerometers to track their body movement over seven days. The study relied on data from the U.K. Biobank, a large biomedical database that provides extensive health and lifestyle insights for research purposes.

The study grouped participants into three categories: “active weekend warriors,” who completed most of their activity within one or two days; “active regulars,” who exercised more evenly throughout the week; and “inactive” individuals.

Findings showed that both “active regulars” and “weekend warriors” experienced similar reductions in the risk of death from cardiovascular disease, cancer and other causes, reinforcing the idea that the total volume of exercise is more important than how it’s distributed throughout the week.

For many Canadians, these findings could be a game-changer. According to ParticipACTION’s latest report card, “less than half of adults in Canada are currently meeting physical activity guidelines, and lack of time is definitely one of the major barriers that people face,” said Markus Duncan, a data scientist at ParticipACTION who studies the benefits of active living.

Duncan emphasized that consistency matters more than timing. “Whether you happen to squish it all into two days or spread it out over the week, as long as you are working towards that, you’re more likely to have better health outcomes.”

For beginners, however, easing into physical activity is crucial. Duncan said that attempting to complete all 150 minutes at once or within two days may increase the risk of injury. “Building up that base level of fitness takes time and can even start with just 10 minutes of going for that brisk walk,” he said.

Even brief aerobic physical activity sessions can make a difference, said Robert Ross, an exercise physiology professor at Queen’s University who worked on the Canadian 24-hour movement guidelines. “The greatest reduction in health risk doesn’t occur from going from 130 minutes to 150; it occurs when you move from doing very little to something.”

“The most recent meta-analyses are suggesting that as little as three or five minutes of moderate to vigorous physical activity in a day is associated with substantial reductions in health risk,” Ross said.

Whether it’s enjoying a fun activity on the weekend or sneaking in a dance session, the key is to move whenever you can and in a way that feels right for you.

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Montreal Canadiens' Ivan Demidov (93) scores his first HNL goal on Chicago Blackhawks goaltender Arvid Soderblom during first-period NHL action at the Bell Centre in Montreal on Monday April 14, 2025.

Welcome to National Post’s campaign Power Meter, where we will track the shifting tides of the election. As the race unfolds, we’ll rank parties, candidates and other characters based on momentum, performance, and public perception. Who’s gaining ground? Who’s losing steam? Keep checking in as we measure the moments that could shape the outcome.

NHL HOCKEY:

We should have known when we created the Election Power Meter that NHL hockey would be the most powerful force of all. A regular season game that had a 50 per cent chance of being meaningful has singlehandedly changed the leaders’ debate schedule this week. The Montreal Canadiens will be playing for their playoff lives on Wednesday night, with a win or overtime loss guaranteeing a playoff berth. So, worried about low viewership, the debate commission

has rescheduled its own program from 8 p.m. to 6 p.m

. The catch? If the Columbus Blue Jackets had lost on Tuesday night, the Habs would have been playoff-bound anyway and the game wouldn’t have mattered.

POWER METER RATING: UNSTOPPABLE FORCE

JOB LOSSES:

Reports in the Japanese press that Honda was pulling up stakes in Alliston, Ont. to relocate production to the U.S. had Liberal Leader Mark Carney so spooked by the prospect of job losses — bad news for any incumbent —  that he tried to get ahead of the news at a morning press conference on Tuesday. “It’s a war, and we can’t provide guarantees for every situation,” Carney told reporters. Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre condemned U.S. President Donald Trump’s trade war at his own morning press conference. The trouble was that

the reports were apparently unfounded

and were quickly denied by the company.

POWER METER RATING: ELECTORAL POISON

THE GREEN PARTY:

The Green Party was originally expected to join the four major party leaders on Wednesday and Thursday night until a last-minute decision by the debates commission to boot them. It was a strange decision to allow the Greens in the first place, given that the party did not actually meet the requirements to participate. The party is polling at around two per cent support and doesn’t have candidates in the minimum 90 per cent of the ridings in Canada. The commission made its decision on the debates long before the deadline for candidates last week, when the Green Party revealed it only had 232 candidates for the country’s 343 ridings. Now, after some minor media pressure, the commission has reversed itself.

POWER METER RATING: LOSING SPECIAL TREATMENT

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Green Party co-leaders Elizabeth May and Jonathan Pedneault are seen during a news conference in Ottawa, Wednesday, March 5, 2025.

OTTAWA — The committee overseeing the federal leaders’ debates has disinvited the Green party from the proceedings in a surprise last-minute ruling.

The Leaders’ Debates Commission said in a Thursday morning press release explaining the decision that the Greens aren’t running enough candidates to be a factor in the election.

“The Commission’s mandate is to design debates that are ‘effective, informative, and compelling and benefit from the participation of the leaders who have the greatest likelihood of becoming Prime Minister or whose political parties have the greatest likelihood of winning seats in Parliament,’” read the statement.

“(We were) guided by these principles in setting the participation criteria for the 45th general election, including (that) the party has endorsed candidates in at least 90 per cent of federal ridings.”

The Green Party hadn’t named candidates in more than 100 of the 343 federal ridings in play, as of this week, putting it well below the 90 per cent threshold.

Party co-leader Jonathan Pedneault said last week that part of this shortfall was due to a “strategic decision” not to run Green candidates in ridings where the Conservatives were running strong, so as not to split the progressive vote.

“We could clearly hear from the field that (the) local population, progressives, didn’t want a Green candidate running there,” Pedneaut told the media.

The commission said the strategic culling of candidates hurt the Greens’ case for taking part in the debates.

“Deliberately reducing the number of candidates running for strategic reasons is inconsistent with the Commission’s interpretation of party viability,” read one part of the statement.

To qualify for the debates, a party must have had one seat in the House of Commons, have at least four per cent national support 28 days before the election, or have endorsed candidates in at least 90 per cent of ridings 28 days before the election.

By the deadline set by the debate commission, the Green Party was polling at less than three per cent nationwide.

Pedneaut had planned to make his leadership debate debut at Wednesday’s French debate.

A spokesperson for the Greens said the party will be making a statement on the commission’s ruling at 10 AM ET.

The first of two leaders’ debates starts at 6 PM ET on Wednesday.

With files from the Canadian Press

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Federal Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre is joined by his wife Anaida Poilievre and children Cruz and Valentina, as he talks with employees at Kruger Packaging during a federal election campaign event in Brampton, Ont., on Monday, March 24, 2025.

First Reading is a Canadian politics newsletter that throughout the 2025 election will be a daily digest of campaign goings-on, all curated by the National Post’s own Tristin Hopper. To get an early version sent directly to your inbox, sign up here.

TOP STORY

In a long-form podcast interview released this week, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre spoke for one of the first times about his six-year-old autistic daughter Valentina.

“Little Valentina, she has some special needs … she’s non-verbal right now, so she has a hard time communicating with us but we’ve learned to take her cues and really celebrate the raw authenticity that she has,” said Poilievre at the outset of an 80-minute interview on the Knowledge Project Podcast.

“She’s totally real; what you see is what you get … she has none of the games that people play to put on an air of this or that feeling; what’s inside her is what comes out of her.”

It hasn’t been a secret that Poilievre’s first child has autism, but it’s not something that he’s ever brought up unsolicited.

Poilievre has mentioned the word “autism” a total of nine times in the House of Commons, but only in general terms.

When Poilievre and wife Anaida Poilievre made a 2023 visit to a Montreal centre for autistic adults, he gave a speech about wanting to be a “champion for all of the people with autism” — but according to a newsletter account of the event, did not seem to mention his own family’s connection to it.

Although Poilievre’s three-year-old son Cruz frequently appears with him on stage at rallies, one of Valentina’s few public appearances was a March 30 photo posted to Poilievre’s Facebook page in which he’s seen carrying her on his shoulders. “Valentina’s demands: Snacks, toys and unlimited shoulder rides,” reads a caption. She also appeared on his shoulders at a March 24 campaign stop at Kruger Packaging in Brampton, Ont.

Until the election, one of the only definitive airings of Valentina’s condition was in the biography, Pierre Poilievre: A Political Life.

The book speculates that Valentina is one of the main reasons why Poilievre scrapped an expected run for the Conservative leadership in 2020. It says that Poilievre and his wife were “grappling with their daughter Valentina’s emerging special needs.”

In a joint interview last week, Poilievre’s wife Anaida mentioned Valentina’s non-verbal status, but only in answer to an innocuous question about whether her children understood what the campaign was all about.

“Valentina is non-verbal so it’s hard to gauge what she really understands,” said Anaida.

In the podcast, Poilievre said he thinks a lot about what Valentina’s life will be like when she grows up.

“How is she going to pay her bills when she’s older? What will her life look like when she’s 60? And I probably won’t be around by then,” he said. “So I think, how do we build up a nest egg for her so that she can have a good life? And then I think about a lot of other families that are perhaps not as fortunate as us who have a child with a disability. How do they pay their bills? So I think it’s given me a lot more empathy to the different challenges and hardships that families have to fight through.”

The Knowledge Project Podcast is run by Ottawa-based YouTuber Shane Parrish, and does not typically do political interviews. Tellingly, one of the most-viewed videos on the channel is a series of tips on how to get better sleep.

But as Parrish wrote in notes for his Poilievre interview, this is “one of the most important federal elections in recent memory” and “the stakes are too high for silence.” He added that he had also extended an invitation to Liberal Leader Mark Carney.

The interview largely touches on economic topics, ranging from trade dependency on the United States to lagging Canadian productivity to how Poilievre would respond to the ongoing U.S. trade war.

“I do think you need to retaliate because, if not, there’s no deterrent value,” said Poilievre. He said his strategy if elected would be to offer complete renegotiation of the Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement, provided the tariffs are put “on ice” in the interim.

Poilievre was also asked what he saw as the biggest “misconception” voters had about him, and he said it was the idea that he was “aggressive,” which he attributed to the disproportionate amount of time he spends with voters in dire financial straits.

“I find it very upsetting, and it comes off as aggressive,” he said, adding that his “challenge” in the closing days of the campaign is to convert that feeling into something more positive.

“I want people to go to the polls not because they’re angry, but because they’re hopeful,” he said.

 

THE TORY/TORY SPLIT

One of the more unexpected developments of the 2025 campaign is how Ontario Premier Doug Ford has emerged as a not-so-subtle adversary of Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre. Ford’s campaign manager, Kory Teneycke, has been loudly denouncing the state of the Conservative campaign, and accusing Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre of “looking and sounding a lot like Trump.”

When Ford was asked about Teneycke’s comments in a press scrum, 

he said,

“To be very frank, if Kory was running that campaign, I don’t think Mr. Poilievre would be in the position he’s in right now.”

Ford did not endorse a party in the 2021 election, and he’s vowed to stick to this rule again in 2025.

 Although Liberal Leader Mark Carney promised just last week to make Canada an “energy superpower,” this may not end up involving pipelines. “We must choose a few projects, a few big projects. Not necessarily pipelines, but maybe pipelines, we’ll see,” Carney said in a Sunday interview on Quebec’s Tous le monde en parle. In terms of raw joules of energy currently exported by Canada, the vast majority occurs via oil and gas pipelines to the United States.

LET’S POLL

An Ontario business association is apparently responsible for the mysterious Do You Believe the Polls? group that was witnessed at a Brampton, Ont. rally for Pierre Poilievre.

Reporters for two major media outlets photographed a clump of between six and 10 attendees wearing matching sweatshirts reading “Do you believe the polls?” The group was also seen holding up a professionally made banner reading the same, with links to a just-created Instagram page, Canadian Real Polls.

In comments posted in The Trillium, Peter McCallion, son of the longstanding Mississauga mayor Hazel McCallion, said the group was the work of Mississauga’s Meadowvale Business Association, an entity that just last month was hosting an event for Ontario Premier Doug Ford.

 

THE DEBATES

The two leaders’ debates this week (French on Wednesday, English on Thursday) will be featuring the Green Party, despite the fact that the Greens very obviously do not qualify. The Leaders’ Debates Commission requires that any participant meet two of the three criteria:

  1. At least one MP in Parliament
  2. Polls showing them at four per cent or more
  3. Candidates in at least 90 per cent of ridings

The Greens only meet the first criteria, but the Commission approved them anyway on the grounds that they were polling better a month ago.

Also, Wednesday night’s French-language leaders’ debate was originally scheduled to occur simultaneous with a game by the Montreal Canadiens that could represent the teams’ last shot to secure a playoff spot. After the NDP and the Bloc Québécois suggested the debate be rescheduled, organizers moved the start time from 8 p.m. to 6 p.m.

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Conservative Party Leader Pierre Poilievre and his wife Anaida Poilievre walk into Apollo Sheet Metal during a campaign stop on March 27, 2025 in Coquitlam, Canada.

OTTAWA — The election is playing out as a story of hopeful Conservative voters versus fearful Liberal voters,

according to a new Postmedia-Leger poll

.

Three-quarters of Canadians who plan to vote Conservative said the emotion guiding them is “primarily a hope for a better future in Canada to live, work, and raise a family.”

Just three in 10 who plan to support the Liberals said hope was driving them to the polls.

By contrast, six in 10 Liberal voters said they were motivated primarily by “a fear of what the future holds for Canada,” with the unpredictable U.S. President Donald Trump threatening trade relations.

Andrew Enns, Leger’s executive vice-president, says the responses reflect the differences between Liberal Leader Mark Carney and Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre.

“In a way, it’s a bit of the ballot-question battle,” said Enns on Wednesday. “Those respondents to our poll who are currently voting Liberal tend to think this election is about the fear of the U.S. and protecting Canada from Trump.”

“And you’ve got the Conservatives who are a bit more inclined on the topic of change, and a future that looks better than the last five or so years (did).”

Enns noted that Trump has tapped into an especially deep-seated fear among Quebec voters, who were most likely to say their vote is being driven by fear. Voters in Quebec were the most likely of any region to say their votes are being driven by fear, at 44 per cent, compared to 40 per cent by hope.

“A lot of Quebecers, even sovereigntists, are saying they see Trump as an existential threat,” said Enns.

“If Canada ever became the 51st state, I guarantee you there wouldn’t be official bilingualism.”

Voters who say they plan to support the Bloc Québécois are evenly split on the question of hope versus fear, at 37 per cent apiece.

Overall, 51 per cent of voters nationally were voting out of hope, while 39 per cent were voting out of fear. Most Conservative, NDP, Green and PPC voters said hope is their primary motivator.

Fifty-eight per cent of respondents said Trump is influencing their voting decision to some degree, with 21 per cent saying he influenced it “a lot.”

Overall, the poll also shows the Liberals hanging onto the lead 43 per cent of support nationally, down one point from last week’s Leger poll. They are five points ahead of the Conservatives, who rose one point to 38 per cent.

Oversampling to dig deeper into Ontario specifically found the Tories three points behind the Liberals (47 to 44) in the parts of the GTA outside metro Toronto, considered a key suburban battleground for both parties. The Liberals show a 10-point lead in the Hamilton and Niagara regions (46 to 36) and a 20-point lead in the eastern part of the province.

Conservatives had more support in the south of the province (46 to 37 per cent) and the north (47 to 43).

The poll also asked respondents about various qualities in the two leaders. Carney was judged to be stronger than Poilievre on managing the relationship with Trump (46 versus 28 per cent), maintaining the economy amid uncertainty (44 versus 31 per cent), handling the cost of living crisis and inflation (38 versus 33 per cent) and improving national unity (36 versus 29 per cent).

The two were tied on being “in touch with the realities of today’s Canada” and “growing your province’s economy.”

Poilievre was judged stronger than Carney on understanding “the concerns of people like me” (33 per cent for Poilievre, 27 per cent for Carney), being capable of fixing the immigration system (35 to 26 per cent for Poilievre) and his ability to lower taxes (39 to 25 per cent).

When asked what each of the two leaders can bring to dealing with Trump, the most common reason cited for Carney was his experience as a central banker, cited by 45 per cent of respondents. For Poilievre, it was his ability to grow the economy, with 30 per cent citing that reason.

The poll suggests Conservatives could still close the gap, as three in 10 Liberal voters say they remain open to changing their mind.

The bad news for Poilievre is that this week’s leaders’ debates look unlikely to have much impact on many voters.

Fewer than two in 10 voters said the debates would affect how they vote.

Just over half said they’d “definitely” or “probably” be tuning into either Wednesday’s French debate or Thursday’s English debate. But Enns said he wouldn’t put too much stock into the self-selected viewership numbers.

“I’d probably put it at 30 per cent who will actually sit down and watch the debates, if we’re lucky,” said Enns.

The debates will be up against the last few days of the NHL’s regular season, with multiple Canadian teams still in the hunt for playoff spots.

It was

announced on Wednesday afternoon

that Thursday’s French language debate will go ahead two hours earlier than originally planned to minimize overlap with the Montreal Canadiens’ last game of the season. 

The survey was taken between April 11 and 14, using a sample of 3,005 adults recruited from a Leger-founded panel. Online polls are not considered representative samples and thus don’t carry a margin of error. However, the poll document provides an estimated margin, for comparison purposes, of plus or minus 1.79 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.

National Post

rmohamed@postmedia.com

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