Erin O’Toole’s two mothers and what the other leaders said about their families in Thursday’s debate.

OTTAWA – Zingers flew faster than mosquitoes on a hot summer night during the English-language leaders debate Thursday, but the buzz wasn’t just because the leaders were attacking each other.

It was also what they said about their moms.

With conditions in Canada’s long-term care homes exposed by the brutal cost of the pandemic there, three of the leaders were asked if they would place their own parents in one today.

Liberal leader Justin Trudeau’s father, Pierre, died 21 years ago this month.

But his mother, Margaret, turns 73 this week, and Trudeau said the issue of his future is “certainly something we’re pondering.”

Parents across the country shrugged, wondering if Trudeau was committing a serious filial sin, admitting that he was considering placing his mother in long-term care without her knowing.

It seems that Trudeau realized he was on the cusp of a big misstep, and he moved quickly to clarify.

“She is doing wonderfully right now. We won’t have to make that decision right now, ”he said.

“Don’t worry mom.”

Meanwhile, something in the way conservative leader Erin O’Toole voiced a statement about her upbringing triggered another round of head scratching.

In response to a question about how he would make it more affordable for Canadians to go green, he replied that he was “raised by two strong women who were teachers and they told me to be straightforward.”

Raised by two moms? That? Google search O’Toole’s story seemed to shoot at that exact moment.

So what was he referring to?

O’Toole’s biological mother, Mollie, died of breast cancer when he was a child and his father, John, remarried. Peggy O’Toole would continue to raise Erin and her three sisters, along with two more children.

Both women were teachers, and in her victory speech after winning the party leadership last year, O’Toole paid tribute to the formative role they have played in her life.

“My mother, who passed away when I was nine, was a teacher. And throughout my life, I wished he were here to give me advice. Right now, I wish he were here to see his son succeed, ”he said.

“But I know it is here tonight because I can see it in my daughter, who shares its name. Fortunately, I have had my stepmother, also a teacher, to guide me to this day. “

Green party leader Annamie Paul often links her personal life to the political messages she is trying to convey to voters, and the leaders’ debate was no exception.

For two hours, viewers learned of her husband’s connections to the peace talks in Afghanistan, his brother’s firing from his oil patch job during the pandemic, the reality his grandparents faced as they aged. But they had to keep working and the lessons from their own mother. Ena.

“My mother grew up on a farm, in a small community, and learned very young and taught us that we have to give the word to the neighbors, and they have to be able to count on her, so that when you need help, they are there for you” Paul said during an exchange in which she criticized Trudeau for not keeping his own word.