Charest, Baber and Aitchison take part in final Conservative leadership debate

Three of the five candidates vying to become the next leader of the Conservative Party of Canada took part in the race's final debate Wednesday evening in Ottawa.

The bilingual event, with the first half taking part in English, came just over one month from when the party will select its third permanent leader in five years on Sept. 10. 

Jean Charest, the former Quebec premier and one only three candidates who took part in the debate, chided the presumed frontrunner, MP Pierre Poilievre, for not participating.

Charest likened Poilievre's decision to "a fish that says it doesn't want to swim in the ocean" and thanked Conservative MP Scott Aitchison and former Ontario MPP Roman Baber for showing up on Wednesday. 

WATCH | Charest calls out Poilievre for being skipping final debate

Charest's campaign team extended its criticism of Poilievre on Twitter:

MP Leslyn Lewis also did not participate in the debate but was not specifically criticized for her absence. 

The party confirmed Wednesday it has already received roughly 150,000 ballots from a voter list with more than 670,000 names. The number of party members is more than double the size it was when Erin O'Toole was chosen to lead the Conservatives in 2020.

The federal government's ArriveCan app, which requires travellers to pre-register before entering Canada for non-essential travel, came up early in the debate, during a discussion of long wait times at airports. 

In June, Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino said the much-criticized app could help speed up border bottlenecks and may have uses beyond the COVID-19 pandemic.

"I will not allow Canada to turn into a surveillance state," Baber said. 

WATCH | Candidates talk airport issues and ArriveCan app

Charest said a Conservative government led by him would scrap the app on its first day in office.

"We should do away with it," Charest said. "There's enough bureaucracy. We don't need to layer it on."