Canada election: Leaders to face off in first debate of campaign

Who gets an invite to the show – and who doesn’t

Hi folks, I’m a senior writer with the politics team in Ottawa.

The commission that runs the debates set three criteria when deciding which party leaders to invite to these debates. A party must meet two of the three in order to make the cut.

The first requirement is that a party must have a sitting MP in the House of Commons who was elected by their constituency while a member of that party.

The second is based on polling. A party needs to demonstrate that it has the support of at least four per cent of the population in the 28 days before the debate.

The third is that a party must be running a candidate in at least 90 per cent of ridings — this year, that means 309 candidates.

The Liberals, Conservatives and NDP meet all three requirements. The Bloc Québécois qualifies under the first two.

The Greens initially qualified under the first and third criteria, but their invitation has stirred some controversy. The party provided a full list of names to the debate commission but was only able to register 232 candidates with Elections Canada — well short of the 90 per cent mark. This morning, the commission made a last-minute decision to exclude the Greens.

The People’s Party of Canada, which has participated in the debates in the past, hasn’t met any of the three criteria and will not be included.