Canada

Canadian Green Party leader Elizabeth May, who has been excluded from Thursday's campaign debate on the economy, declared on Tuesday that she would unofficially take part via Twitter.

The federal Liberals are threatening to pull out of a leaders debate on foreign policy later this month over concerns that it won’t be bilingual as promised.

When they meet before the cameras in August, the three party leaders will be facing off in a national debate organized for the first time by someone other than the Election Broadcasting Consortium.

Elizabeth May hopes the prime minister will change his mind about boycotting the national televised leaders’ debates ahead of the federal election this fall.

The unofficial kickoff begins Friday, as Prime Minister Stephen Harper, NDP leader Tom Mulcair and Liberal leader Justin Trudeau don cowboy hats to attend the Calgary Stampede and press the flesh with voters.

Stephen Harper sure is hard to read, but in the game of high-stakes poker over the election debates, he seems to have misread the other players.

Canada’s New Democrats believe Canadian universities are “not really neutral” enough venues in which to hold the leaders’ debates.

Peter Mansbridge, CBC's host of the panel, was joined by regulars Andrew Coyne, Chantal Hébert and Bruce Anderson for a discussion on how many leaders' debates should there be, what format should they take and who should be allowed to participate.

Then it’s settled. There will be five televised leaders’ debates in the coming election campaign. Or there will be two. Unless there are three. The Green Party will be included. Or it won’t.

CBC News' plans to host a live debate with the Manitoba NDP's three leadership candidates fell through after Greg Selinger declined to participate. Theresa Oswald initially agreed to take part, but backed out once she heard Selinger was out.

Issues the association hopes to address in the debate include the loss of affordable housing, changes to density bonus provisions, the proposed performing arts centre and the public consultation process.

The three candidates vying to lead Alberta's NDP spent their final debate on Thursday slamming the governing Tories and warning of an even worse future should the official opposition break through on the right.