OTTAWA – Justin Trudeau invoked his father’s ghost Monday night in an election leaders’ debate that was far more emotional and animated than the dry foreign affairs subject matter might have suggested.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper also amped up his ardour, pounding home the point that convicted terrorists have no home in Canada and can expect to be stripped of their citizenship, while painting his rivals as soft on security.
And the NDP’s Tom Mulcair asserted that New Democrats are prepared to send Canada’s military into combat, provided the mission has NATO or United Nations approval.
READ MORE: key exchanges from the early part of Monday’s leaders’ debate
The debate, the fourth of five during the extraordinarily long, 78-day election campaign, was also remarkable for the capacity crowd of more than 3,000 paying – and occasionally partisan – patrons at Toronto’s Roy Thomson Hall.
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The large live audience helped animate the well-paced debate with applause and laughter that punctuated the three leaders’ most cogent points.
A battle over federal stewardship of the economy was supposed to be this election’s defining issue, but emotive “values” questions have increasingly dominated the discourse.
Those values have been attached to the country’s place in the world: Canada’s handling of an international Syrian refugee crisis; the place of minority religious face coverings at citizenship ceremonies; and rescinding Canadian citizenship from convicted terrorists who hold dual citizenship.
READ MORE: Mulcair, Harper clash over ISIS mission, refugees at foreign policy debate
Trudeau, the Liberal leader considered to have the most to lose in a two-hour debate on foreign policy, came out swinging.
On Syrian refugees, Trudeau drew applause when he invoked nearby Ireland Park in Toronto, where he said 38,000 Irish arrived in 1847 fleeing the potato famine. They arrived to a city of 20,000 citizens.
But it was under attack for supporting the contentious Conservative security bill, C-51, that Trudeau reminded viewers of his famous prime minister father.
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