WATCH: Poilievre flips script on Carney, sets record straight on security clearance

Less than 24 hours after the French-language debate concluded, the leaders of Canada's four major political parties took to the stage once again, this time in English.

Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre took aim at his Liberal rival, Mark Carney, and set the record straight on questions about why he has opted not to receive his security clearance.

"We have our top-secret security clearance," Carney began, motioning to NDP leader Jagmeet Singh and Bloc Québécois leader Yves-François Blanchet. "I got mine within three weeks, it wasn't hard ... It is now 950 days, if my numbers are right, since you've had the opportunity to get your top-secret security clearance, and you've refused. Why?"

Poilievre responded by first pointing out that he had obtained top-secret security clearance when he was a minister, and that there was thus "no problem getting that" when the time is right.

"When the government made this recent offer," Poilievre continued, "they said that if I got the secret security clearance briefings, that I would be gagged under the security law and I could be prosecuted if I spoke freely about matters of foreign interference."

He noted that "given that Canada has experienced Chinese interference by Beijing — the government of China — in two consecutive elections, I needed to do my job to speak freely without fear of prosecution."

Poilievre went on to remind Carney that even former NDP leader Thomas Mulcair said he "never would have accepted the kind of gag order that your government and and Mr. Trudeau's government was trying to impose on me."

"It's good that I made that decision," Poilievre continued, "because it has allowed me to speak freely about things like the case where one of your candidates actually said that he wanted to send a political opponent to China under a bounty threatening his life or imprisonment, and you refused to get rid of him."

He suggested that "may have had something to do with the fact that [Carney] went to China not long ago to get a quarter-billion dollar loan for [his] company."

"The reality is, you refused to stand up for a Canadian who was being threatened by a foreign government, and I was able to speak freely on that matter because I refused the gag order that the Liberal government of Canada tried to impose on me."

Carney responded by pointing out that China is not the only country alleged to be meddling in Canada's elections, and said, "we'll leave it at that."