People’s Party Leader Maxime Bernier not invited to federal election debate

People’s Party of Canada (PPC) Leader Maxime Bernier will not be participating in the upcoming federal elections debates, the commission overseeing the events said Saturday.

In a news release, the Leaders’ Debates Commission said the leaders of the Bloc Québécois, Conservative Party of Canada, the Green Party of Canada, the Liberal Party of Canada and the New Democratic Party have been invited to participate.

So far, the NDP and Greens have accepted the invitation.

The commission said in the release that in order to participate, the parties had to meet certain criteria:

• Parties had to have at least one Member of Parliament in the House of Commons when the election was called
• Candidates for the parties had to have received at least four per cent of the number of the valid votes cast in the last general election
• Parties have a level of national support of at least four per cent in leading national public opinion polling organizations, using the average of those organizations’ most recently publicly reported results

The PPC doesn’t have an MP in the House of Commons and is polling nationally at around 3.27 per cent, the commission said.

The debates will be taking place at the Canadian Museum of History in Gatineau, Que., on Sept. 8 in French. The English debate will be on Sept. 9.