At Issue panel weighs in on Munk foreign policy debate

The National's At Issue panel weighed inon Monday's Munk foreign policydebate between the party leaders and how each of the candidates fared.

Postmedia/National Post columnist AndrewCoynesaid the event showed thethree main partyleaders Conservative Leader Stephen Harper, NDP Leader Tom Mulcair and Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau "on thetop of their game."

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Coynealso praised the format that"allowed them to beheard," while notingthe bit of feedback from thelive and mostly respectfulaudience was sometimes useful.

"I was proud of our democracytonight," Coyne said. "Ithink that people would have learned more why the leaders hold thepositions for the reason they do today,and that was a greataddition to the democraticarsenal."

Toronto Star national affairs columnist Chantal Hbertcalled itthe "best debate and certainly the most bearable tolisten to," although she added it didn't live up to its billing as abilingualformat.

Hbertsaid she felt Trudeauwas "fairly effective" in an exchange with Harper on BillC-24 and the revocation of citizenship ofthose convicted of terrorism-related offences an issue the Conservative view as a strongpoint for their leader.

"Why it matters that he did wellin that exchange is that thereare scores of voters who comefrom other areas of the worldwho do have dual citizenship whowill be listening to thatconcept of two-tieredcitizenship and be sensitive tothat argument," she said.

Pollster Bruce Anderson of Abacus Data agreed it was "the best debate by quite a bit."

"I thought all three leaders came with their arguments ready to deliver to Canadians, and for the most part, especially Mr. Trudeau and Mr. Harper, I would say, delivered them pretty well," Anderson said.

"It was forward-looking and it was values-based and it was a nice mix of emotion and fact-based argument."

Watch the full segment above, and findmore stories and features from The National here.