Everything You Need To Know About What Happened At The Foreign Policy Debate

It's being called the best debate yet.

Justin Trudeau was aggressive, Tom Mulcair was steady, and Stephen Harper got unusually heated during the last and only bilingual debate of the 2015 election.

Nathan Denette / The Canadian Press

On some issues — Israel, supply management, the value of trade deals — the three men vying to be Canada's next prime minister were in agreement. On others, they were worlds apart.

The leaders brought their A-game to the Munk debate on foreign affairs in Toronto as they fought over everything from sending troops to fight ISIS, to how many refugees should be let into the country, to new spying powers.

A live audience (mostly) kept the leaders from talking over each other long enough to lay out their positions, in what some are calling the best election debate in ages. Here are the key moments:

On refugees, Mulcair and Trudeau called on the government to do more while Harper warned of buyer's remorse.

Harper insisted he was "not chasing headlines" with his refugee policy, but was letting in people at a responsible rate.

"Some countries opened the floodgates and let everybody in and now they're trying to reverse those policies," said Harper.

Harper described going to a refugee camp in Jordan and said "we cannot pretend there are no security risks."

Mulcair chastised Harper for saying it's "chasing headlines" to call for Canada to do more during the worst refugee crisis since the Second World War.

Trudeau invoked his father, Pierre Elliott Trudeau, allowing thousands of Ugandan refugees into the country in 1972. That wasn't popular at the time, the younger Trudeau said, but his father did it because it was right. He called on Harper to do the same.

Mulcair and Trudeau had a lengthy head-to-head battle over the new anti-terror laws brought in by Bill C-51.

Trudeau has been under heavy fire from the left for supporting the bill, albeit with the promise to amend it if he becomes prime minister. He insisted the Liberals would strike a balance between security and defending freedoms.

He also mocked Harper's prolific talk of terrorism.

"Harper wants us to believe there's a terrorist hiding behind every leaf and every rock," he said to laughter from the audience. (Though the laughter might not have been all for him.)

But Mulcair then attacked Trudeau for not having the courage to stand up to Harper and vote against C-51. "I had the courage of my convictions... you didn't," he said.

Harper was mostly sidelined during this portion of the debate. But he did get into the fray when it came to stripping citizenship from convicted terrorists.

Harper asked Trudeau how he could oppose such a measure, kicking off near-shouting match between the two politicians. Trudeau said it was un-Canadian to create a two-tiered citizenship instead of jailing wrongdoers. Harper at one point warned about the possibility of a terror attack in Toronto on "the scale of 9/11."

Mulcair and Trudeau both said Canada should not be sending the Armed Forces to fight ISIS in Iraq.

Trudeau said Canadian troops should be used to train local forces in Syria and Iraq. "Canada has a strong and real capacity to do that," he said.

But, he said, Canada should not be involved in the U.S.-led bombing campaign.

"Sending in Western troops isn't always the best possible outcome in fact sometimes it makes things worse."

Mulcair also said Canada should not be involved in the bombing campaign, and said an NDP government would focus on providing aid and stopping the flow of resources, such as weapons and funds, to ISIS.

"We don't think that our proper place is in that combat mission," Mulcair said, adding that only 12 of the 60 countries involved in the mission are undertaking combat roles.

Harper, on the other hand, argued Canada needs to continue the mission in a combat role in addition to providing aid. The only way to stunt the spread of ISIS, he said, "is to keep the military pressure on them."

The ghost of Pierre Elliott Trudeau loomed large. At one point Trudeau made a tribute to his father, who died exactly 15 years earlier.

Trudeau accused his opponents of being eager to insult his father's legacy. "Let me be very clear: I am incredibly proud to be Pierre Elliot Trudeau's son," he said.

Mulcair, who had earlier referenced the elder Trudeau locking up hundreds of people during the October Crisis, dismissed the eulogy as a low blow.

"I'm sorry Mr. Trudeau thinks I'm being insulting to his father. I'm talking about historical fact," he said.

Speechwriters pulled out all of the stops in their search of a sick burn.

Alex Boutilier @alexboutilier

The #zingers are *flying*. #zingers

11:58 PM - 28 Sep 2015

After Stephen Harper declared his dedication to the North, Trudeau quipped, "we've all seen your summer photo ops." He then summed up Harper's arctic commitments as "big sled, no dogs."

Mulcair used Trudeau's support of C-51 to mock his foreign policy chops. "You can’t even stand up to Harper on C-51. How are you going to stand up to Putin?" he said.

Mulcair also repeated a jab about Trudeau relying on speechwriters that went over well during the most recent French-language debate, and argued that NDP premiers have the best record of balancing budgets with the exception of Bob Rae, and "it turned out Bob Rae was a Liberal."

Harper dismissed his opponents' fears about C-51 by saying “the threat we face today is not CSIS, it is ISIS.”

Trudeau said Stephen Harper had hurt Canada's chances of exporting oil south through the Keystone XL pipeline because of his antagonistic relationship with the White House. "Canadians are worried about their jobs," he said, "because their prime minister doesn't like Barack Obama."

The leaders will face off one final time at a French debate this Friday in Montreal.