Green Party settles with commission over exclusion from federal leaders' debate

The federal Leaders' Debates Commission says it has settled with the Green Party after the party vowed to challenge its removal from the spring election debates.

In April, the commission, which is tasked with organizing the French and English debates, rescinded an invitation for Jonathan Pedneault, then co-leader of the Greens, to appear at a pair of leaders' debates in Montreal.

The commission said at the time that it made the decision because the Green Party was not running candidates in the necessary number of ridings.

Parties must meet two of the following three criteria in order to be invited to the debates.

• At least one sitting MP who's been elected as a member of the party.

• At least four per cent national support in opinion polls.

• Endorsing candidates in at least 90 per cent of all ridings 28 days before the election.

At the time the Green Party was invited to participate in the debates, it met both the benchmark for the number of candidates it is running and the number of MPs it has in the House.

Later in the campaign, Pedneault told CBC News that the Green Party had pulled about 15 candidates out of the race in a "strategic decision" not to run them in ridings where the party believed Conservatives would likely win.

Dropping 15 candidates would still keep the Greens above the 90 per cent threshold set out by the debates commission, but even after accounting for those 15 candidates, the party wasn't  running candidates in another 96 of the remaining 343 ridings up for grabs.

"Deliberately reducing the number of candidates running for strategic reasons is inconsistent with the commission's interpretation of party viability," the commission said in a statement at the time.

"The inclusion of the leader of the Green Party of Canada in these circumstances would undermine the integrity of the debates and the interests of the voting public," it added.

The Greens were outraged at the decision, which came on the morning of the first debate, and vowed legal action over the exclusion.

During a campaign stop in Montreal at the time, Pedneault accused the commission of trying to "silence" the Green Party.

"Their last-minute decision to exclude the Green Party of Canada from the leaders' debate is not only unjust and baseless, because we met the criteria — it is undemocratic," he said.

The commission said in a brief statement Tuesday that it has settled with the party but did not provide any details of the settlement.

Pedneault stepped down as co-leader after failing to secure a seat in the April 28 election.