OTTAWA – With or without the Conservative Party, the 2015 Leaders’ Debates will take place on October 7 and 8 across Canada’s largest broadcasters.
CBC News, CTV News, Global News, Radio-Canada and Télé-Québec confirmed that the French-language debate will be held between 8:00 PM and 10:00 PM October 7, while the English-language debate will take place from 6:30 PM to 8:00 PM ET on October 8, 2015 in the National Capital Region.
The New Democratic Party of Canada, the Liberal Party of Canada, and the Green Party of Canada have agreed to participate in both of the televised debates. While disagreeing with its exclusion from the English debate, the Bloc Quebecois has committed to participate in the French language debate, prompting the networks to allocate an additional 30 minutes.
Together with Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Vine, Google, YouTube, and CPAC, the Broadcast Consortium promised that the debates will have “unprecedented reach” and be offered across all platforms in both official languages with closed captioning and simultaneous translation. Details on the location and debate format will be announced at a later date.
The broadcasters also reiterated their invitation to the Conservative Party to participate in the televised debates. As Cartt.ca reported, the Conservatives said in May that it would forgo the traditional leaders debates on television to instead take part in as many as five independently staged debates.
