People’s Party outlines seats with prominent candidates in bid to enter debates

Aug 23, 2019 | 10:02 AM

OTTAWA — The upstart People’s Party of Canada is making another bid to get leader Maxime Bernier onto the official debate stage during this fall’s election campaign.

The Leaders’ Debates Commission had asked the party to provide a list of three to five candidates it believed had the best chance of winning, which would help organizers decide if the PPC met a requirement for participation in the broadcast debates in October.

In a letter to the commission made public today, Bernier writes his young party doesn’t have the money to conduct detailed polling to figure out where support is most concentrated, giving the party its best chance at a seat in the House of Commons.

Instead, the party is providing organizers with a list of prominent candidates who are better known in their ridings and would carry that advantage into the campaign.