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The leaders of the three main parties met to debate the economy in Calgary Thursday night. The following is a heavily edited transcript of the proceedings.

Moderator: Good evening and welcome to the Globe and Mail debate on the economy, brought to you by the Globe and Mail and featuring the Globe and Mail. Before we bring out the three leaders, let’s pause for about half an hour of uncomfortable banter between our Globe and Mail writers.

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… And we’re back. We have some tough, indeed almost incomprehensible questions for the leaders this evening, so let’s get right to it. First question to you Mr. Harper.

What is your personal plan to create jobs — I mean real jobs, not just taking things out of the ground. Oh, and a shoutout to the good people of Calgary!

Harper: Well, look, obviously, I’ve been very clear. Keep our taxes down, and budgets balanced. I’ve never said things are great. There’s a lot of instability. Out there, I mean, not here. Look, we can do more, but we probably shouldn’t. The other guys would raise taxes and run permanent deficits. Whereas we’d —