Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau fielded a barrage of attacks from left and right during a chaotic and unfocused two hours at the official English-language debate Monday night.From Green Party Leader Elizabeth May, on his climate plan: “If you have a fire in a four-storey building, getting a one-storey ladder doesn’t do it.”From Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer, on Trudeau’s repeated invocation of Ontario Premier Doug Ford: “You are oddly obsessed with provincial politics. If you want to run for the Ontario Liberal leadership, it’s open.”And from NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh, who said Trudeau has “nice words,” but has governed like a Conservative: “Mr. Trudeau, you sound a lot better, but you’ve done the same.”The debate furiously bounced between topics in a dense and at times hard to follow format, with the six leaders given a minute or less to speak to questions from the Canadians randomly drawn from nearly 9,000 submitted questions, five moderators and each other. The night began with a pointed barb from Scheer, who did not respond to a question on Canada’s role in the world: “Mr. Trudeau can’t even remember how many times he’s worn Blackface,” Scheer said. “Mr. Trudeau: you are always wearing a mask.”Trudeau’s reply came soon after via an exchange with People’s Party Leader Maxime Bernier, whose far-right positions played a surprisingly central role in the first hour: “Mr. Bernier, your role on this stage is to say publicly what Mr. Scheer thinks privately,” Trudeau said.Another pointed exchange came following a question on Quebec’s Bill 21, which bans religious symbols in the public service.“This is a bill that says to people that because of the way they look, they can’t do a job,” Singh said, speaking passionately to his personal experience with racial prejudice. “So why won’t you fight it i ...
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