The four people fighting to become the next leader of the Parti Quebecois took part in a debate Monday night in Quebec City.

Le Devoir hosted the debate, and solicited 700 questions from the newspaper's readers.

Jean-Francois Lisée, who was one of the last candidates to declare, appears to be riding a late surge of popularity with the public.

He had difficulty getting support from fellow MNAs, only winning over five of them after Veronique Hivon was forced to drop out of the race due to a debilitating ear infection.

But he has since managed to raise more money than the fellow candidates, and polls indicate he is neck and neck in support with Alexandre Cloutier.

Cloutier, the establishment's choice, has the most backing from other MNAs for the position.

Martine Ouellet, as the only candidate with a strong desire for fight for Quebec independence, has surprisingly little support from PQ supporters.

The fourth candidate is Paul Saint-Pierre Plamondon, a lawyer.

Plamondon began the debate, which focussed on the topics of culture and education, by thanking Le Devoir for organizing an event that dealt with something other than "secularism and the referendum timeline."

Ouellet discussed bilingualism, and said while she supports individuals learning as many languages as possible, she did not think that Quebec institutions, including the courts, should have to do anything in a language other than French. At a previous debate Cloutier was booed for pointing out that federal law requires Quebec's legal system to operate in English at the request of the accused.

When it came to education, Ouellet said that Quebec should provide free tuition to all students in university, including those doing post-graduate degrees.

"Everyone should have the same chance," said Ouellet.

Both Cloutier and Lisée said that the PQ has to do more for education than the Liberal party.

"Education must always be the priority of a nation," said Lisée.

High school graduation, and the differences between linguistic groups also came up.

Plamondon blamed the high dropout rate in Quebec high schools on a lack of political will to invest in the system.

Meanwhile Cloutier said he believed the higher graduation rate among anglophones was due to more involvement from the community than francophone parents.  

He said francophone school boards should take lessons from anglophone boards, which have graduation rates about 10 percentage points higher than francophone public schools.

But when it came to anglophone universities, the candidates were not so generous. 

Ouellet and Plamondon said funding for Quebec's three English universities should be "looked at" considering how many students leave the province while Lisée hinted their funding should be cut. 

"There is effectively a financing bias in favour of anglophone universities," said Lisée.

Cloutier said the educational talk also exposed the cultual draw for English schools. 

"The real question is why do our young francophones want to go to Cegep in English?" questioned Cloutier.

Voting in the leadership race begins Wednesday at 8 a.m. both online and via phone.

PQ members can rank their first, second, and third choices on the run-off ballot.

If there is no clear majority on the first count, the lowest-ranked candidate will be dropped, and their supporters' votes second choice will be tabulated.

If that still does not produce a majority the third-ranking candidate will be dropped, and their supporters second- or third-choice used.

The voting is scheduled to end at 5 p.m. Friday, with the winner announced once counting is complete.