The Green Party of Ontario is launching a legal challenge and formal complaint with the CRTC, because it's being shut out of this month's televised leader's debate.

CTV.ca News Staff

The Green Party of Ontario is launching a legal challenge and formal complaint with the CRTC, because it's being shut out of this month's televised leader's debate.

Like the three mainstream parties, the Greens are running a full slate of candidates during the province's upcoming October 2nd election.

Peter Rosenthal, the party's lawyer, says he's writing to the debate's producer. He says that if the Green Party isn't allowed to participate in the debate, he expects extensive media coverage to compensate.

"Many Ontario voters have little or no interest in the three major parties and would, therefore, be open to voting for other parties if they were made aware of their platforms," Rosenthal says.

"It is my opinion that recent Supreme Court judgments imply that the electoral fairness implicit in Section 3 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms requires Green party participation in the leaders' debate in the circumstances."

Deputy party leader Peter Elgie says that when the Greens were allowed to join the leader's debate in British Columbia, support for the party jumped from three per cent to 12 per cent.

The party says recent polls indicate they now have six per cent support from decided voters, but in past elections support has been closer to one per cent.

"We are disappointed for the people of Ontario that a few network executives have arbitrarily decided that the Green party will not be provided a voice on the publicly funded, media centerpiece of the election campaign," Elgie says.

The leader's debate will be televised on September 23 by seven broadcasters.

With a report from The Canadian Press