TUESDAY RECAP: Conservative platform focused on improving Canadians' standard of living
Follow our updates throughout the day ahead of the April 28 election
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Follow the Toronto Sun’s live coverage of Canada’s 45th general election and tariff-related news, with contributions from Brian Lilley, Bryan Passifiume, Lorrie Goldstein and columnists Joe Warmington and Warren Kinsella, as well as contributions from the Sun’s editors and reporters covering the election ahead of the April 28 vote. Plus, you can find all of our election coverage here.
POILIEVRE’S VISION FOR A PROSPEROUS NATION
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Pierre Poilievre says he wants to make life more affordable for Canadians and he says that includes making each of us richer, Brian Lilley writes.
In announcing his election platform on Tuesday, Poilievre took time to talk about the standard of living in Canada and how it is falling for younger Canadians.
He pointed to a federal government report, one produced by the Privy Council Office that serves the prime minister, which predicted falling living standards over the next 15 years.
With that, Poilievre detailed his plan that includes a 15% cut in personal income taxes for anything below $57,375, which he says will save the average worker $900 per year. It includes fully scrapping the carbon tax and not just the part Liberal Leader Mark Carney eliminated. It also includes cutting taxes and development charges on new builds to reduce the price of a home.
WARMINGTON: POILIEVRE ADDRESSES DYSTOPIA PREDICTED IN GOVERNMENT REPORT
These Hunger Games will not be fiction or on a movie screen.
This will be the real kind of starvation and quest for survival — a dystopia that Prime Minister Mark Carney’s own Privy Council Office warns could be possible just 15 years from now as the country slides into the abyss.
Canadians will not be able to say they were not warned about a possible economic apocalypse that may have them hunting for rabbits and squirrels in parks to feed their families.
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre has warned them.
Read the rest of Warmington’s column here …
TORY PLATFORM RELEASE DRAWS MIXED REVIEWS
It charts an ambitious course, Bryan Passifiume writes, but do the numbers add up?
Pundits were having their say about the newly released Conservative platform on Tuesday, which held few surprises but spelled out party Leader Pierre Poilievre’s answer to the past decade of the Justin Trudeau Liberals.
“It’s certainly consistent with their values, there’s no dramatic break from what Pierre Poilievre has been saying for much of his political career,” said Akaash Maharaj, a senior fellow with the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy.
Among the promises within the Tory platform include a 70% deficit cut — a policy Stephen Taylor describes as both ambitious and necessary.
OUR EDITORIAL: MARK CARNEY’S FUN WITH DEFICIT NUMBERS
Taxpayers should be suspicious of so-called “fully costed” campaign platforms during elections, our editorial department writes.
Former Liberal prime minister Justin Trudeau’s “fully costed” platform in the 2015 election, which brought him to power, predicted federal deficits over the next four years — from 2016 to 2019, the year before the pandemic hit — would total $24.1 billion
But Trudeau’s actual deficits from 2015 to 2019 totalled $91.4 billion — almost 180% higher than his “fully costed” estimate in 2015.
In that context, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre’s platform released on Tuesday, unlike Liberal Leader Mark Carney’s released on Saturday, didn’t resort to accounting tricks to minimize the deficits he said a Conservative government would run over the next four years.
Poilievre estimated them at $31.4 billion in the 2025-26 fiscal year which began on April 1, $31.5 billion in 2026-27, $23.6 billion in 2027-28 and $14.2 billion in 2028-29.
TORIES’ ‘STRONG POSITION’ ON FIGHTING CRIME EARNS TPA SUPPORT
A platform which promises to take Canada’s violent crime epidemic seriously has scored the Conservatives a nod from Canada’s largest municipal police union, Bryan Passifiume writes.
On Tuesday, the Toronto Police Association offered its support to the Pierre Poilievre’s Tories, while sharing responses from Canada’s two major party leaders on what they’ll do to solve increasing levels of social disorder.
“It is clear to us there is only one party that has maintained a strong position on public safety issues and proactively supported police services,” the association posted on social media Tuesday.
Toronto’s was the latest police union to throw its support behind the Tories this election.
CARNEY’S TROUBLING RELATIONSHIP WITH THE TRUTH
Mark Carney is showing once again that he’s willing to tell bald-faced lies to get elected. On Monday, the Liberal leader even doubled down on one of his lies when confronted with the truth, Brian Lilley writes.
While making a health-care announcement in Charlottetown, P.E.I., Carney was confronted by a reporter after claiming that Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre would ban abortion in Canada.
“You have just accused Mr. Poilievre of using the notwithstanding clause to attack abortion rights. But Mr. Poilievre explicitly said he would not do so. So why this accusation?” the reporter asked.
Carney’s answer was shocking.
“It’s an accusation, but it’s not an accusation; it’s a fact,” Carney said.
Let’s be clear, this isn’t Carney claiming that he’s worried Poilievre would use the notwithstanding clause to ban abortion. He’s not saying he has concerns about this, he’s saying it is a fact when reminded that Poilievre has said the opposite.
CARNEY NOT PRIME MINISTER MATERIAL: LeDREW
Not a president!
With the media focus on Trump and his usurping of power, making him so omnipotently powerful, Canadians could be forgiven for forgetting that we have a parliamentary system of government, so this is a reminder — we elect members of Parliament, who elect one parliamentarian as our prime minister, who is the leader of the party with the most seats, Stephen LeDrew writes.
This prime minister selects the cabinet, made up of ministers who administer their departments. The prime minister of Canada must be a parliamentarian, with the knowledge and experience to command the confidence of the House, and to get business approved by the House.
In this time of tremendous challenges to our way of life, many of which have been brought upon us by the decade of Trudeau malfeasance, condoned by the same backroom advisers and cabinet ministers who are now advising Mark Carney, we need someone who knows the ropes — not a beginner!
RECORD AMOUNT OF BALLOTS CAST AT ADVANCE POLLS
Elections Canada says a record number of Canadians cast their ballots early in advance polls this year, The Canadian Press reports.
The agency says that, over four days of polling between Friday and Monday, 7.3 million people voted. That’s up 25% from early voting figures in the 2021 federal election.
Elections Canada says it made adjustments to deal with long lineups at polling stations in the early part of the long weekend.
Until 6 p.m. Tuesday, voters can still cast a ballot early at an Elections Canada office.
DOORBELL CAM RECORDS TESTY EXCHANGE WITH LIBERAL CANDIDATE
Liberal candidate Mark Gerretsen said he regretted responding to a resident who insulted him earlier this month, the Kingston Whig-Standard reports.
Gerretsen was caught on camera in a brief but testy 12-second interaction, recorded on a doorbell camera and posted to social media, which started innocently enough when Gerretsen knocked on a door and a male resident opened.
Since being posted, the video has been share 1,300 times and attracted 2,600 comments.
In an interview Monday, Gerretsen said he should not have engaged in the back and forth.
POILIEVRE RELEASES PLATFORM
A Conservative government would cut Canada’s deficit by 70%, according the party’s newly released platform.
Speaking to reporters in Woodbridge on Tuesday, Pierre Poilievre unveiled his party’s plan, one that he says is far more responsible than the Mark Carney Liberals’ spending and debt-heavy platform.
“It is a plan that will lower taxes and debt by getting rid of bureaucracy, consulting fees, waste, and excessive foreign aid to dictators, terrorists and global bureaucracy,” he said.
“It’s a plan to build homes by removing taxes and bureaucracy, it’s a plan for safe streets by locking up criminal for a change.”
Canada’s next government will face a $31.4 billion deficit, the platform states.
The platform itself contains few surprises, with notable program changes including ending the Liberal-era firearm confiscation, streamlining the pubic service through attrition, ending Canada’s Low Carbon Economy Fund and Canada Greener Homes Loan programs and halting funding drug shooting galleries.
Other campaign stalwarts — eliminating the capital gains tax hike and cutting the lowest income tax bracket by 15% — also make an appearance.
Read the full story here.
WHERE THE LEADERS ARE TUESDAY
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre is in York Region where he’s holding a press conference in Woodbridge to release the party’s costed platform. He will then attend a rally this evening in Vaughan.
Liberal Leader Mark Carney is in Quebec City and Trois-Rivières this morning, with a rally scheduled tonight in Laval.
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