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With the 2017 provincial election campaign set to start, B.C. Green Party leader Andrew Weaver is counting down to a critical date on his electoral calendar.

Election day is May 9. But Weaver will be red-circling another date: the day of the televised leaders debate, sometime in April.

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“I already have a debating coach,” said Weaver, a University of Victoria climate-change professor.

“It’s going to be a critical moment for our party. I have to be ready.”

As a member of the International Panel on Climate Change that won a Nobel Peace Prize in 2007, Weaver is not exactly unaccustomed to speaking in front of large audiences.

“I can think on my feet — that’s not the problem,” he said. “The problem is this will be a new forum for me. So we’re bringing in some expertise.”

His son, David, happens to be a champion debater at the University of Ottawa and knows some of the best coaches in the country. Weaver declined to identify his coach, for now.