The result of a modern debate is always something of a blur. But what this year's encounters underlined is that this election is primarily about both two very different candidates for prime minister and two very different ideas of what the greatest threat to the country actually is.

Carney, a Harvard-educated technocrat two months into his political career, has capitalized on his image as a steady hand at the tiller in an economic storm.

Last month, in his first speech as Canada’s prime minister, Mark Carney vowed to make the nation “a superpower in both conventional and clean energy.” The “conventional” reference could be seen as matter of course in a nation whose energy sector is still dominated by oil and gas.