Women's issues debate called off after Mulcair pulls out

A planned federal leaders debate focusedon women's issues has been called off, after theNDPconfirmed on Monday they won'tbe taking part. The debate was being organized byan alliance of Canadian women's organizations called Up for Debate.

TomMulcairinitiallycommitted to the debate, but NDP party spokespersonAnne McGrath confirmed in a Toronto Star articleonMonday morning the party would not be taking part.

Earlier this month,Mulcair said hewould only attend debates where Conservative Leader Stephen Harper was present, but his public stance on the women's issues debate was unclearuntil Monday morning.

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Jackie Hansen, a spokeswomanfor theUp for Debate group, saysnot enough leaders had confirmed their attendanceto warrant a stand-alone debate. The Conservatives said they would not take part in the debate, while the Liberals, the Greens and the Bloc had already confirmed their attendance.

"We want a critical mass. Not having the current prime minister and the current leader of the opposition present, that's disappointing," Hansen told CBC News.

The Up for Debate group announced their "plan b"on Tuesday morning. They plan to recordone-on-one interviews on women's issues with Mulcair, Liberal leader Justin Trudeau, Green Party leader Elizabeth May and Bloc leaderGilles Duceppe. Harper has not confirmed whether or not he will participate.

The interviewswill be released at a Toronto eventin late September.

The news ticked off a lot of people on Twitter. Much of the criticism was directed at the NDP.

Several shared Mulcair'stweet from November 2014, where he agreed to the debate.

It had many wondering why the NDP decided to back out.

Twitter reminded us there hasn't been a federal leaders debate on women's issuessince 1984.

The leaders of all three major political parties,Liberal prime John Turner, Conservative leader Brian Mulroney and the NDP's Ed Broadbent all attended.

Some thought Harper forcedthe NDP to back out of the debate.

Mulcairsaid adebate without Harper wouldn't make much sense.

And others used it as an opportunity to boastthe NDP'srecord on women.

The NDPare running plenty of female candidates in this election.

NDP MP Megan Leslie blamed it on the other political parties.

In a written statement to CBC News, Leslie said "Mulcairwas the first out of the major partiesto agree inprinciple to participate in the debate on women's issues."

"Since the other leaders refused for months to agree to adebate, TomMulcairhas been working with the "Up for Debate" coalition tofind other ways to highlight women's issues through the campaign."

Many agreed that the move would be tough for NDP supporters to defend.