Departmental Plan 2025-26
On this page:
- From the Executive Director
- Plans to deliver on core responsibilities and internal services
- Planned spending and human resources
- Corporate information
- Supplementary information tables
- Federal tax expenditures
- Definitions
From the Executive Director
I am pleased to submit the Leaders' Debates Commission's Departmental Plan for 2025-26. This Plan provides parliamentarians and Canadians with information on what we do and the results we are trying to achieve.
The Commission was created in the lead up to the 2019 federal general election by Order in Council P.C. 2018-1322 and amended by OIC P.C. 2020-0871 and 2024-0598. Our core responsibility is to organize leaders' debates during each federal general election – one in each official language.
The Commission has now organized leaders' debates in the 2019, 2021 and 2025 general elections, providing greater predictability and stability to the Canadian debate environment. All leaders invited agreed to participate in the debates we have organized thus far. The Commission has also made important gains over the past electoral cycles, increasing viewership and reach.
To accomplish its mandate, the Commission focused on key objectives: organizing two leaders’ debates in the 45th general election, one in each official language, and promoting awareness of and access to these leaders' debates. The Commission is now preparing its final report to Parliament, which will outline findings, lessons learned, and recommendations. In so doing, we will assess how the debates served the public interest and voters.
Making an informed decision is part of a thriving and healthy democracy. Debates are democratic exercises that belong to the voting public. They are about serving the public interest and responding to the needs of voters by helping them make an informed choice at the ballot box. Debates play an essential role in Canada's democracy, there to help voters learn about the leaders' policy positions and party platforms and shed light on the leaders’ character and abilities. A live debate provides a rare opportunity for all Canadians to hear directly from the leaders of the political parties – unedited and unfiltered.
Our team is committed to best serving the public interest. I invite you to read our Departmental Plan to learn more about how we will focus our energies and resources during the coming fiscal year.
Michel Cormier,
Executive Director
Leaders’ Debates Commission
Plans to deliver on core responsibilities and internal services
Core responsibilities and internal services
Core responsibility: Organize Leaders’ Debates for federal general elections
In this section
Description
Organize Leaders’ Debates for federal general elections
The Commission is mandated to organize two leaders' debates for the federal general election – one in each official language. In order to execute its core responsibility, the Commission:
- issues a Request for Proposal which sets out all the production, promotion and distribution requirements for the leaders' debates and clearly outlines the role and responsibilities of the debates producer;
- enters into a contract with a debates producer for the production, promotion, and distribution of the two debates, one in French and one in English;
- sets the participation criteria for the leaders' debates and determines which political party leaders are invited to participate in the debates.
To that end, the Commission continues to provide greater predictably, reliability and stability to the debate environment. The desired result is an open and transparent organization and delivery of leaders' debates that reach a broad cross-section of Canadians.
Quality of life impacts
The domains and indicators from the Quality of Life Framework for Canada that relate most closely to the Leader’s Debates Commission’s core responsibility of organizing leaders’ debates for federal general elections, are as follows:
- The Commission’s core responsibility contributes to the Good Governance domain of the Quality of Life Framework for Canada and, more specifically, “Confidence in institutions,” through all of the activities mentioned in the core responsibility description.
Indicators, results and targets
This section presents details on the department’s indicators, the actual results from the three most recently reported fiscal years, the targets and target dates approved in 2025-26 for organizing leaders’ debates for federal general elections. Details are presented by departmental result.
Table 1 provides a summary of the target and actual results for each indicator associated with the results under organize leaders’ debates for federal general elections.
| Departmental Result Indicators | Actual Results | Target | Date to achieve target |
|---|---|---|---|
| Number of Canadians who have access to debates organized by the Leaders' Debates Commission | 2021-22: English debate: 35,785,0001 French debate: 35,785,0001 2022-23: N/A 2023-24: N/A |
The proportion of Canadians having access to debates organized by the Leaders' Debates Commission exceeds or meets comparable figures from the previous election |
March 2026 |
| Number of Canadians who view debates organized by the Leaders' Debates Commission | 2021-22: English debate: 10,273,926 French debate: 4,282,628 2022-23: N/A 2023-24: N/A |
The proportion of Canadians viewing the debates organized by the Leaders' Debates Commission exceeds or meets comparable figures from the previous election | March 2026 |
Note:
- This figure has been calculated using Statistics Canada data from its 2020 Canadian Internet Use Survey, which indicated that the vast majority of Canadians (94%) had home Internet access through a fixed broadband connection in 2020. Although this proportion has remained relatively stable overall since 2018, home Internet access among those aged 65 and older increased from 79% to 83% over this period. Both the English and French debates were available on the Internet.
Additional information on the detailed results and performance information for the Leaders’ Debates Commission’s program inventory is available on GC InfoBase.
Plans to achieve results
The following section describes the planned results for organizing leaders’ debates for federal general elections in 2025-26.
Canadians are aware of and have access to debates organized by the Leaders' Debates Commission
Results we plan to achieve
- The Commission will ensure that the leaders' debates are distributed and broadcast free of charge.
- The Commission will ensure that the leaders’ debates reach as many Canadians as possible, including those with disabilities, those living in remote areas and those living in official language minority communities.
- The Commission will ensure that the leaders’ debates are available in languages other than French and English, and in doing so, pay special attention to Canada's Indigenous languages.
- Following the debates, the Commission will prepare a final report to Parliament, outlining findings, lessons learned, and recommendations.
Planned resources to achieve results
Table 2 provides a summary of the planned spending and full-time equivalents required to achieve results.
| Resource | Planned |
|---|---|
| Spending | 3,522,889 |
| Full-time equivalents | 4 |
Complete financial and human resources information for the Leaders’ Debates Commission’s program inventory is available on GC InfoBase.
Program inventory
Organizing Leaders’ Debates for federal general elections is supported by the following programs:
Additional information related to the program inventory for organizing Leaders’ Debates for federal general elections is available on the Results page on GC InfoBase.
Internal services
In this section
Description
Internal services are the services that are provided within a department so that it can meet its corporate obligations and deliver its programs. There are 10 categories of internal services:
- management and oversight services
- communications services
- legal services
- human resources management services
- financial management services
- information management services
- information technology services
- real property management services
- material management services
- acquisition management services
Plans to achieve results
Internal services functions will be provided to the Commission by the Privy Council Office (PCO) through a Memorandum of Understanding between the two parties covering the 2025–26 fiscal year.
Planned resources to achieve results
Table 3 provides a summary of the planned spending and full-time equivalents required to achieve results.
| Resource | Planned |
|---|---|
| Spending | 0 |
| Full-time equivalents | 0 |
Complete financial and human resources information for the Leaders’ Debates Commission’s program inventory is available on GC InfoBase.
Planning for contracts awarded to Indigenous businesses
Government of Canada departments are to meet a target of awarding at least 5% of the total value of contracts to Indigenous businesses each year. This commitment is to be fully implemented by the end of 2024-25.
As part of Phase 3, the Leaders’ Debates Commission is planning to achieve the Government of Canada’s commitment to minimum Indigenous Procurement of at least 5% of the total value of all contracts to indigenous businesses. To meet its target of at least 5%, the Commission, through its contract with the debates producer (the organization contracted by the Commission to promote, produce and distribute the leaders' debates) made the leaders’ debates available in indigenous languages.
Table 4 presents the current, actual results with forecasted and planned results for the total percentage of contracts the department awarded to Indigenous businesses.
| 5% Reporting Field | 2023-24 Actual Result | 2024-25 Forecasted Result | 2025-26 Planned Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| Total percentage of contracts with Indigenous businesses | 8.40% | 5% | 5% |
Planned spending and human resources
This section provides an overview of the Leaders’ Debates Commission’s planned spending and human resources for the next three fiscal years and compares planned spending for 2025-26 with actual spending from previous years.
Spending
This section presents an overview of the department's planned expenditures from 2022-23 to 2027-28.
| Core responsibilities and internal services | 2025-26 planned spending |
|---|---|
| Organize Leaders’ Debates for Federal General Elections | 3,522,889 |
| Internal services | 0 |
Analysis of planned spending by core responsibility
The 2025-26 planned spending presents the planned spending that is accessible to organize leaders’ debates for federal general elections in an election year.
Budgetary performance summary
Table 5 presents how much money the Commission spent over the past three years to carry out its core responsibilities and for internal services. Amounts for the current fiscal year are forecasted based on spending to date.
| Core responsibilities and Internal services | 2022-2023 Actual Expenditures | 2023-24 Actual Expenditures | 2024-2025 Forecast Spending |
|---|---|---|---|
| Organize Leaders’ Debates for Federal General Elections | 699,364 | 643,647 | 706,941 |
| Subtotal (s) | 699,364 | 643,647 | 706,941 |
| Internal services | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Total (s) | 699,364 | 643,647 | 706,941 |
Analysis of the past three years of spending
Table 5 above presents actual spending and forecast spending for organizing leaders' debates for federal general elections in non-election years over the last three fiscal years.
More financial information from previous years is available on the Finances section of GC Infobase.
Table 6 presents how much money the Commission’s plans to spend over the next three years to carry out its core responsibilities and for internal services.
| Core responsibilities and Internal services | 2025-26 Planned Spending | 2026-27 Planned Spending | 2027-28 Planned Spending |
|---|---|---|---|
| Organize Leaders’ Debates for Federal General Elections | 3,522,889 | 0 | 0 |
| Subtotal | 3,522,889 | 0 | 0 |
| Internal services | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Total | 3,522,889 | 0 | 0 |
Analysis of the next three years of spending
The 2025-26 planned spending presents the planned spending that is accessible to organize leaders’ debates for federal general elections in an election year. The Commission does not have approved funding in its reference levels after 2025-26.
More detailed financial information on planned spending is available on the Finances section of GC Infobase.
Funding
This section provides an overview of the department's voted and statutory funding for its core responsibilities and for internal services. For further information on funding authorities, consult the Government of Canada budgets and expenditures.
Graph 1: Approved funding (statutory and voted) over a six-year period
Graph 1 summarizes the department's approved voted and statutory funding from 2022-23 to 2027-28.
Text description
| 2022–23 | 2023–24 | 2024–25 | 2025–26 | 2026–27 | 2027-28 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Statutory | 51,815 | 48,834 | 64,855 | 100,081 | 0 | 0 |
| Voted | 647,549 | 594,813 | 642,086 | 3,422,808 | 0 | 0 |
| Total | 699,364 | 643,647 | 706,941 | 3,522,889 | 0 | 0 |
Text description of graph 1
Analysis of statutory and voted funding over a six-year period
Graph 1 above illustrates the Commission’s spending trend over a six-year period (2022-23 to 2027-28).
Fiscal years 2022-23 and 2023-24 show actual expenditures as reported in the Public Accounts, while 2024-25 presents the forecast spending for that fiscal year. Fiscal year 2025-26 presents planned spending.
The 2025-26 planned spending is higher compared to fiscal years 2022-23, 2023-24 and 2024-25 as it presents the planned spending that is accessible to organize leaders’ debates for federal general elections in an election year.
For further information on the Leaders’ Debates Commission’s departmental appropriations, consult the 2025-26 Main Estimates.
Future-oriented condensed statement of operations
The future-oriented condensed statement of operations provides an overview of the Leaders’ Debates Commission’s operations for 2024-25 to 2025-26.
Table 7 summarizes the expenses and revenues which net to the cost of operations before government funding and transfers for 2024-25 to 2025-26. The forecast and planned amounts in this statement of operations were prepared on an accrual basis. The forecast and planned amounts presented in other sections of the Departmental Plan were prepared on an expenditure basis. Amounts may therefore differ.
| Financial information | 2024-25 Forecast results |
2025-26 Planned results | Difference (planned results minus forecast results) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Total expenses | 686,318 | 3,539,901 | 2,853,583 |
| Total revenues | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Net cost of operations before government funding and transfers | 686,318 | 3,539,901 | 2,853,583 |
Analysis of forecasted and planned results
The difference between the 2025-26 planned results and the 2024-25 forecast results is mainly due to spending that is accessible to organize leaders’ debates for federal general elections in an election year.
A more detailed Future-Oriented Statement of Operations and associated Notes for 2025-26, including a reconciliation of the net cost of operations with the requested authorities, is available on the Leaders’ Debates Commission’s website.
Human resources
This section presents an overview of the department’s actual and planned human resources from 2022-23 to 2027-28.
Table 8 shows a summary of human resources, in full-time equivalents, for the Commission’s core responsibilities and for its internal services for the previous three fiscal years. Human resources for the current fiscal year are forecasted based on year to date.
| Core responsibilities and internal services | 2022-23 Actual full-time equivalents | 2023-24 Actual full-time equivalents | 2024-25 Forecasted full-time equivalents |
|---|---|---|---|
| Organize Leaders’ Debates for Federal General Elections | 2 | 2 | 2 |
| Subtotal | 2 | 2 | 2 |
| Internal services | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Total | 2 | 2 | 2 |
Analysis of human resources over the last three years
The Commission’s human resources planning remains consistent in non-election years.
Table 9 shows information on human resources, in full-time equivalents, for each of the Commission’s core responsibilities and for its internal services planned for the next three years.
| Core responsibilities and internal services | 2025-26 Planned full-time equivalents | 2026-27 Planned full-time equivalents | 2027-28 Planned full-time equivalents |
|---|---|---|---|
| Organize Leaders’ Debates for Federal General Elections | 4 | 0 | 0 |
| Subtotal | 4 | 0 | 0 |
| Internal services | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Total | 4 | 0 | 0 |
Analysis of human resources for the next three years
There is an increase in Commission’s human resources planning to organize leaders’ debates for federal general elections in an election year.
Corporate information
Departmental profile
Appropriate minister(s):
The Honourable Steven MacKinnon
Institutional head:
Michel Cormier, Executive Director
Ministerial portfolio:
Leader of the Government in the House of Commons
Enabling instrument(s):
Order in Council P.C. 2018-1322
Year of incorporation / commencement:
2018
Departmental contact information
Mailing address:
1130 Sherbrooke Street West - Suite 801
Montréal, Québec
H3A 1R6
Email:
info@debates-debats.ca
Website:
www.debates-debats.ca
Supplementary information tables
The following supplementary information tables are available on the Leaders’ Debates Commission’s website.
Federal tax expenditures
The Leaders’ Debates Commission’s Departmental Plan does not include information on tax expenditures.
The tax system can be used to achieve public policy objectives through the application of special measures such as low tax rates, exemptions, deductions, deferrals and credits. The Department of Finance Canada publishes cost estimates and projections for these measures each year in the Report on Federal Tax Expenditures.
This report also provides detailed background information on tax expenditures, including descriptions, objectives, historical information and references to related federal spending programs as well as evaluations and GBA Plus of tax expenditures.
Definitions
List of terms
- appropriation (crédit)
- Any authority of Parliament to pay money out of the Consolidated Revenue Fund.
- budgetary expenditures (dépenses budgétaires)
- Operating and capital expenditures; transfer payments to other levels of government, departments or individuals; and payments to Crown corporations.
- core responsibility (responsabilité essentielle)
- An enduring function or role performed by a department. The intentions of the department with respect to a core responsibility are reflected in one or more related departmental results that the department seeks to contribute to or influence.
- Departmental Plan (plan ministériel)
- A report on the plans and expected performance of an appropriated department over a 3 year period. Departmental Plans are usually tabled in Parliament each spring.
- departmental result (résultat ministériel)
- A consequence or outcome that a department seeks to achieve. A departmental result is often outside departments’ immediate control, but it should be influenced by program-level outcomes.
- departmental result indicator (indicateur de résultat ministériel)
- A quantitative measure of progress on a departmental result.
- departmental results framework (cadre ministériel des résultats)
- A framework that consists of the department’s core responsibilities, departmental results and departmental result indicators.
- Departmental Results Report (rapport sur les résultats ministériels)
- A report on a department’s actual accomplishments against the plans, priorities and expected results set out in the corresponding Departmental Plan.
- fulltime equivalent (équivalent temps plein)
- A measure of the extent to which an employee represents a full person year charge against a departmental budget. For a particular position, the fulltime equivalent figure is the ratio of number of hours the person actually works divided by the standard number of hours set out in the person’s collective agreement.
- gender-based analysis plus (GBA Plus) (analyse comparative entre les sexes plus [ACS Plus])
-
Is an analytical tool used to support the development of responsive and inclusive policies, programs, and other initiatives. GBA Plus is a process for understanding who is impacted by the issue or opportunity being addressed by the initiative; identifying how the initiative could be tailored to meet diverse needs of the people most impacted; and anticipating and mitigating any barriers to accessing or benefitting from the initiative. GBA Plus is an intersectional analysis that goes beyond biological (sex) and socio-cultural (gender) differences to consider other factors, such as age, disability, education, ethnicity, economic status, geography (including rurality), language, race, religion, and sexual orientation.
Using GBA Plus involves taking a gender- and diversity-sensitive approach to our work. Considering all intersecting identity factors as part of GBA Plus, not only sex and gender, is a Government of Canada commitment.
- government priorities (priorités gouvernementales)
- For the purpose of the 2025-26 Departmental Plan, government priorities are the high-level themes outlining the government’s agenda in the most recent Speech from the Throne.
- horizontal initiative (initiative horizontale)
- An initiative where two or more federal departments are given funding to pursue a shared outcome, often linked to a government priority.
- Indigenous business (enterprise autochtones)
- For the purpose of the Directive on the Management of Procurement Appendix E: Mandatory Procedures for Contracts Awarded to Indigenous Businesses and the Government of Canada’s commitment that a mandatory minimum target of 5% of the total value of contracts is awarded to Indigenous businesses, an organization that meets the definition and Arequirements as defined by the Indigenous Business Directory.
- non‑budgetary expenditures (dépenses non budgétaires)
- Net outlays and receipts related to loans, investments and advances, which change the composition of the financial assets of the Government of Canada.
- performance (rendement)
- What an organization did with its resources to achieve its results, how well those results compare to what the organization intended to achieve, and how well lessons learned have been identified.
- performance indicator (indicateur de rendement)
- A qualitative or quantitative means of measuring an output or outcome, with the intention of gauging the performance of an department, program, policy or initiative respecting expected results.
- plan (plan)
- The articulation of strategic choices, which provides information on how an organization intends to achieve its priorities and associated results. Generally, a plan will explain the logic behind the strategies chosen and tend to focus on actions that lead to the expected result.
- planned spending (dépenses prévues)
-
For Departmental Plans and Departmental Results Reports, planned spending refers to those amounts presented in Main Estimates.
A department is expected to be aware of the authorities that it has sought and received. The determination of planned spending is a departmental responsibility, and departments must be able to defend the expenditure and accrual numbers presented in their Departmental Plans and Departmental Results Reports.
- program (programme)
- Individual or groups of services, activities or combinations thereof that are managed together within the department and focus on a specific set of outputs, outcomes or service levels.
- program inventory (répertoire des programmes)
- Identifies all the department’s programs and describes how resources are organized to contribute to the department’s core responsibilities and results.
- result (résultat)
- A consequence attributed, in part, to an department, policy, program or initiative. Results are not within the control of a single department, policy, program or initiative; instead they are within the area of the department’s influence.
- statutory expenditures (dépenses législatives)
- Expenditures that Parliament has approved through legislation other than appropriation acts. The legislation sets out the purpose of the expenditures and the terms and conditions under which they may be made.
- target (cible)
- A measurable performance or success level that an organization, program or initiative plans to achieve within a specified time period. Targets can be either quantitative or qualitative.
- voted expenditures (dépenses votées)
- Expenditures that Parliament approves annually through an appropriation act. The vote wording becomes the governing conditions under which these expenditures may be made.
