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Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau was expected to be the target of most attacks, but it turned out to be Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer who absorbed most of the body blows in Wednesday night’s federal leaders’ debate.

The pummelling started on the first question, when Scheer was asked his personal views on abortion. He side-stepped it, promising instead that a Conservative government would not reopen debate on the issue, but could not stop the others from painting him as the outsider.

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“I think we are seeing that we are three aligned on a value, the values of Quebecers, and we have a fourth, a Conservative Party that is not aligned, neither with the right of women, neither with the rights of the LGBTQ community,” Trudeau said.

The first debate attended by Trudeau and the first in French, it was a crucial faceoff for the party leaders in a key battleground province. Quebec has 78 seats, nearly a quarter of the Canadian total, many of them swing ridings that could tip the balance for the parties. For many Quebec voters, it would be the first time they were able to see NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh and Scheer in action. Elizabeth May of the Green party and Maxime Bernier of the People’s Party of Canada were not invited, TVA said, because neither of their parties won a seat in Quebec in 2015.