Got this in my e-mail yesterday. Pretty standard stuff.
André invites you to watch the PC Party leadership candidate's debate this Wednesday April 23rd, at 5:00pm, Eastern time, on CBC Newsworld.

I almost overlooked the significance of the next part (I nearly failed to note it's noteworthiness), having given it only a cursory glance. But, when I perused it again (OK, enough ridiculous words), I found that the next paragraph said this:
The five candidates will be discussing various topics such as free trade, regional development and immigration, as well as the place of women in politics and the death penalty. We invite you to send us your comments after the debate to info@andrebachand.com .

Whoa. Dude. Like, did he just say, like 5 candidates? Don't get me wrong man, I'm no counting nazi, like my girlfriend, but even I know that there are....um... OK, whatever.
No wait! 7 candidates!

So like then I decided to smoke another doob, and then do some investigationism into this.

The first place I went was that good old Tory standbye, Torydraft. I can always count on them to know what needs to be known. Here's an exerpt (that means little bits) of a letter sent by some complainy guy named Rob Fricker:
***
"The following is the text of an email I sent the CBC Ombudsman et al:
URGENT

To: The President of the CBC, The Ombudsman, Don Newman, David Mathews, Mark Boldutch and anybody else in the CBC that can influence your position on who is included in and excluded from the PC Leadership Candidates Debate on Wednesday, April 23 and early May.

It has come to my attention that you intend to hold a "leadership debate" amongst just a portion of the bonafide leadership candidates and that you are excluding 2 (originally 3) of the candidates from participation." Full text
***

Now, the Torydraft letter doesn't list the names of those who won't be at the debate, and since I'm feeling all investigatey today, I went to the Don Newman site. The excluded candidates are Chandler and Grafftey.

The Don Newman site usually has a few streamy clips of their past shows, so later I'll be sure to put up a link for those who want to see highlights of the Tory leadership debate.

I've been dying to figure out where the following song comes from:
"Mares eat oats and does eat oats and little lambs eat ivy. A kid'll eat ivy too wouldn't you?"
My mom used to sing it when I was a kid, and I've been trying to figure out if it's a real song, or just something she came up with after hitting her head.