The People’s Party of Canada “will not be ignored.” A recent campaign email urged supporters to stand outside the Federal Leaders’ Debate venue to protest Maxime Bernier’s exclusion.
Approximately 20 protestors chanted “Let Max Speak” outside of the French debates on Wednesday and more are expected to gather on Thursday for the English debate.
According to the Leaders’ Debate Commission, to be eligible to participate in the debate, a party leader must either have at least one MP in the House of Commons, have a national support level of at least 4%, five days after the date of the election call or have received at least 4% of the vote in the 2019 federal election.
There are also a few dozen PPC supporters here. Mostly civil though a counter protester started arguing about lockdowns. pic.twitter.com/eRMtHipyRd
— Andrew Lawton (@AndrewLawton) September 8, 2021
Although the PPC did not meet the criteria, they have been consistently polling ahead of the Green Party, which will be included in the debate.
According to an exclusive True North poll, the PPC and Greens are effectively tied nationally. Further, the PPC is ahead of the Greens in Ontario, on the Prairies and in BC. The PPC also has candidates in over 90% of ridings across the country, while the Greens have candidates in less than 75% of ridings.
The PPC is attracting more attention than most of the major political parties. Google searches for Bernier’s party outnumber all of the other parties. The PPC is getting more than double the searches than the Conservative Party, almost four times as many searches as the Liberal Party and almost six times as many as the Green Party, which is lagging behind the others.
Bernier has previously said that the decision to exclude him “confirms the existence of the political establishment cartel which has sought to deny the existence of the PPC since its inception.”
The PPC has accused “establishment elites in the government and media” of silencing them. Bernier says the media has portrayed the PPC as “racist and intolerant” and has not included them in their daily coverage.
The PPC claims that Bernier was excluded because he will disrupt the mainstream narrative and that if “given a credible platform, his message will resonate with average Canadians.”
