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The election debates are organized by a consortium of broadcasters.

At the meeting, the consortium told party representatives that it intends to invite Prime Minister Stephen Harper, NDP Leader Tom Mulcair, Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau and Green Leader Elizabeth May to two sets of debates, one near the beginning of the campaign and one near the end.

All four two-hour debates would be filmed in the presence of a studio audience, with some questions from Twitter.

The English language debates would be hosted by anchors from three networks: CBC’s Peter Mansbridge, CTV’s Lisa LaFlamme and Global’s Dawna Friesen.

The inclusion of May, who participated in the 2008 but not the 2011 debate, would be a significant win for the Greens.

Bloc Québécois leader Mario Beaulieu will be invited to participate in the two French-language debates, but not the English ones.

In previous debates, when the Bloc Québécois held dozens of seats in the House of Commons, leader Gilles Duceppe participated in both the English and French language debates.

Jean-François Fortin, leader of the two-member Forces et Démocratie party, issued a news release Friday complaining that it was excluded from the meeting and will be excluded from the debates.

Fortin and Jean-François Larose, the party’s other MP, were in the lobby outside the meeting.

There is no guarantee that the consortium’s proposal will be accepted by the parties. Some political insiders are quietly suggesting that in the changed media landscape it may be time for someone else to run the debates.