Green Party of Canada no longer invited to participate in federal leaders’ debates

With the federal election just two weeks away and the leaders’ debates taking place this week, the Leaders’ Debates Commission has rescinded the Green Party of Canada’s invitation to participate at the last minute. 

The French-language debate will be taking place on Wednesday, April 16th and the English debate is taking place on Thursday, April 17th, but the Green’s co-leader Jonathan Pedneault is no longer allowed to participate. 

According to the Commission, their mandate is to hold 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.” 

They say that in order to fulfil this mandate, they have to take public interest into account by adhering to their guiding principles of independence, impartiality, credibility, democratic citizenship, civic education, inclusion and cost effectiveness.

Those principles guided the Commission when deciding the criteria for a political party’s leader to be able to participate in the upcoming debate.  

They decided that a party must meet two out of three of the following criteria:

• A leader must be currently holding a seat in the House of Commons when the election was called
• Their party must have a national polling average of at least 4% by the end of March 
• Their party must have candidates in at least 90% of federal ridings at the beginning of April

For the third part of the Commission’s criteria, they determined that the Greens have “intentionally reduced the number of candidates running in the election for strategic reasons” and therefore, do not meet the criteria to participate in the debate. 

Additionally, Green Party co-leader Pedneault does not currently hold a seat in the House of Commons and according to recent polls from 338Canada, the Greens are only polling at around 1% nationally. 

Related:

• Here is everything to know about this week’s leaders debate ahead of the federal election

“The Commission concludes that the inclusion of the leader of the Green Party of Canada in these circumstances would undermine the integrity of the debates and the interests of the voting public,” wrote the Commission in a media release. 

The position of the Green Party is that this decision was brought about by collusion of other political parties to exclude them from the debate, and the Commission caving to pressures. 

“First, CTV cancels a fact-checking segment after a Conservative-led outrage campaign,” said the Green Party in a media release. 

“Then the NDP pressures a nonpartisan advocacy group to change its polling analysis​. And now, the Bloc and Conservatives mount a coordinated campaign to exclude the Green Party from the national leaders’ debates—and the Commission caves.”

The Greens say what is worse, is that the Commission waited until the day of the French debate to inform them they would not be taking part. Additionally, they only informed the Green Party after releasing a statement to the public regarding their decision, according to the Greens. 

“That’s not how an impartial and independent body operates,” said the Green Party. 

“This is the third time in this very election that a campaign of pressure and intimidation has succeeded in silencing voices.” 

The Greens say that prior to today, their eligibility had been confirmed by the Commission, and the only reason they have been ousted is because of third party pressure from political opponents. 

“The Commission was created to ensure fair, transparent and non-partisan debate rules,” the Green Party continued. 

“Instead, it caved under pressure in reversing its own position based on spin, not facts. When institutions designed to protect democracy start bowing to those who undermine it, we’re in trouble.”

The Green Party says that by the Commission excluding them, there will be less pluralism, less mobilization of voters and a sense of jeopardized trust in the electoral system.

Pedneault has yet to make an official statement on his invitation being rescinded.