It’s being called the best debate yet.
Justin Trudeau was aggressive, Tom Mulcair was steady, and Stephen Harper got unusually heated during the last and only bilingual debate of the 2015 election.
On some issues — Israel, supply management, the value of trade deals — the three men vying to be Canada's next prime minister were in agreement. On others, they were worlds apart.
The leaders brought their A-game to the Munk debate on foreign affairs in Toronto as they fought over everything from sending troops to fight ISIS, to how many refugees should be let into the country, to new spying powers.
A live audience (mostly) kept the leaders from talking over each other long enough to lay out their positions, in what some are calling the best election debate in ages. Here are the key moments:
Nathan Denette / The Canadian Press
On refugees, Mulcair and Trudeau called on the government to do more while Harper warned of buyer's remorse.
Harper insisted he was "not chasing headlines" with his refugee policy, but was letting in people at a responsible rate.
"Some countries opened the floodgates and let everybody in and now they're trying to reverse those policies," said Harper.
Harper described going to a refugee camp in Jordan and said "we cannot pretend there are no security risks."
Mulcair chastised Harper for saying it's "chasing headlines" to call for Canada to do more during the worst refugee crisis since the Second World War.
Trudeau invoked his father, Pierre Elliott Trudeau, allowing thousands of Ugandan refugees into the country in 1972. That wasn't popular at the time, the younger Trudeau said, but his father did it because it was right. He called on Harper to do the same.
Mulcair and Trudeau had a lengthy head-to-head battle over the new anti-terror laws brought in by Bill C-51.
Trudeau has been under heavy fire from the left for supporting the bill, albeit with the promise to amend it if he becomes prime minister. He insisted the Liberals would strike a balance between security and defending freedoms.
He also mocked Harper's prolific talk of terrorism.
"Harper wants us to believe there's a terrorist hiding behind every leaf and every rock," he said to laughter from the audience. (Though the laughter might not have been all for him.)
But Mulcair then attacked Trudeau for not having the courage to stand up to Harper and vote against C-51. "I had the courage of my convictions... you didn't," he said.
Harper was mostly sidelined during this portion of the debate. But he did get into the fray when it came to stripping citizenship from convicted terrorists.
