Leaders hunker down to prepare for debate

May – piqued at the Globe’s snub and calling the debate a private, corporate event – assembled hundreds of supporters at a Victoria church, where she videotaped short bursts for distribution via social media.

May said Thursday she expects to reach thousands of Canadians through Twitter.

The Bloc Quebecois were also overlooked by the Globe and Mail for the debate.

Green Party Leader Elizabeth May is not letting the absence of an invitation keep her out of tonight’s federal leaders’ debate in Calgary.

The party is teaming up with the social media company to film and tweet May’s responses to statements by the three invited leaders.

“The disadvantage is, I’ll get 30 seconds to insert what I would have said. Harper, with all due respect, that isn’t true, ‘” she acknowledged.

Sean Humphrey, the Globe and Mail’s vice-president of marketing, has defended the Calgary format, saying it will “lead to focused discussion on the Canadian economy”.

Canadians used social media during the federal leaders’ debate Thursday night to both fact-check what they were hearing and also poke a little fun and the discussion continued long after the cameras were turned off.

The brush-off prompted Twitter Canada’s Steve Ladurantaye to suggest a parallel digital debate, something he helped the Scottish National Party do in Britain earlier this year.

Conservative leader Stephen Harper, NDP leader Thomas Mulcair and Liberal leader Justin Trudeau are the only leaders invited to take part in the event.

Whether the line was something Harper had prepared or just said off the cuff, one-liners are an essential part of a leader’s tool kit leading up to debates, as they can serve to crystallize complex policy ideas in a way that stick in people’s minds.

“We’re falling behind and we do not have job equity”, she said. May also says she would make apprenticeships in the trades more accessible.