Candidates running for leadership of the federal Conservative party will appear on stage tonight for its French-language debate.
The event is taking place in Laval, Que., north of Montreal, and comes as a deadline approaches for candidates to have their supporters signed up as party members in order to be eligible to vote in the contest.
Former Quebec premier Jean Charest and longtime Ottawa-area MP Pierre Poilievre are expected to dominate much of the debate as both can speak French fluently and have charted a path to victory through the province.
Patrick Brown can also speak French and has spent the race campaigning against a controversial secularism law in Quebec that prohibits some public servants in positions of authority from wearing religious symbols on the job, which he says is an affront to religious freedom….