Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre’s election platform-promises amount to $90 billion in new measures over the next four years that will be paid for in part by cuts and the economic growth the party says these measures will generate.
“Our platform … 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,” Poilievre said Tuesday during a campaign stop in Woodbridge, Ont.
The Conservative platform, which features a picture of Poilievre and his wife Anaida on the cover, takes the unusual path of accounting for the economic growth of policies that have yet to be implemented.
Neither the current Liberal platform nor the 2021 Conservative platform counted projected economic growth as revenue.
The Conservative platform says over the next four years, that economic growth from new policies will amount to $53.3 billion in tax revenue.
The Conservative platform is also counting on another $77.7 billion over four years that it says will come from cancelling programs, finding efficiencies and streamlining the public service. This number also includes $2.4 billion in savings from lower interest payments on the federal debt.
Even with a combined $131 billion from savings and new revenues, the Conservative platform is projecting a deficit of $100 billion over the next four years, beginning with a deficit of $31.4 billion in 2025-26.
The Conservative Platform also accounts for $20 billion in tariff revenue in 2025-26, but none after that. The Liberal platform made the same calculation.
Watch | Poilievre says tariff revenue will be used for targeted aid, redistributed via tax cuts:
Poilievre says tariff revenue will be used for targeted aid, redistributed via tax cuts
The spending changes over four years that are contained in the platform include: cuts to foreign aid ($9.4 billion), defunding the CBC and other Crown corporations ($4 billion), streamlining the public service ($4.3 billion), reducing funding for artificial intelligence initiatives ($2.28 billion) and cutting red tape ($6.4 billion).
Despite these cuts and others, the Conservative platform pledges that it will not attempt to balance the books by cutting key social programs.
“We will honour current federal health transfer agreements to fund the health care all Canadians deserve, preserve existing dental care coverage and honour existing deals with provinces and territories on child care and pharmacare,” the platform says.
The Pharmacare Act passed Parliament in October. The only provinces tha have existing deals with the federal government are Manitoba, B.C. and P.E.I.
The dental care program has been fully rolled out, and all the provinces and territories have now struck child-care agreements with the federal government.
Speaking during his own campaign stop in Trois-Rivières, Que., Liberal Leader Mark Carney said Poilievre was using “phantom numbers” by including projected revenues in his costed plan.
“These numbers are a joke. We’re not in a joke,” Carney said. “There’s one thing you can write on a paper, there’s another thing that will happen in the economy.”
Carney said he has managed economies in the past, and when setting plans out years in advance “you don’t make those assumptions” about possible revenues.
“If we made the assumptions that the Conservatives did about growth in our platform, we’d be in a fiscal surplus in five years,” Carney said.
Conservative officials speaking on background told CBC News their platform is focused on economic growth, and that’s why those revenues have been included in their forecasting. The officials questioned why the Liberals have not done the same.
WATCH | Carney calls Poilievre’s Conservative costed platform numbers ‘a joke’
Carney calls Poilievre’s Conservative costed platform numbers ‘a joke’
The Conservative platform makes a number of assumptions about the impact of their policies and the government revenues that will result.
For example, by cancelling the increase to the capital gains tax — a promise the Liberals have also made — the Conservative platform says without much explanation that the resulting economic growth will boost government coffers by $13.1 billion over four years.
“This will be like rocket fuel for our economy, incentivizing investors — from small business owners, to farmers, to home builders — to reinvest and build things here in Canada,” the platform says.
The platform goes on to say that the resulting economic boost to the federal treasury will be almost $2 billion over four years from repealing clean fuel regulations, more than $8 billion from scrapping the industrial carbon tax and almost $4 billion from killing the oil and gas emissions cap.
Watch | Blanchet calls Poilievre’s pledge of referendums on new taxes ‘expensive’:
Blanchet calls Poilievre’s pledge of referendums on new taxes ‘expensive’
The platform says removing the industrial carbon tax will “boost our economy and allow our companies to become competitive again with the United States.” (Carney reduced the consumer carbon tax to zero in his first act as prime minister.)
The platform also says repealing C-69, the “no more pipelines” law, will result in almost a $1 billion in tax revenues for the federal government, while repealing the electric vehicle mandate alone will result in enough economic activity to bring in $11.2 billion in federal tax revenue.
According to Canada’s electric vehicle mandate, 20 per cent of light-duty vehicles for the 2026 model year must have zero emissions. That rises to 60 per cent by 2030 and 100 per cent by 2035.
The platform also pledges to introduce a Taxpayer Protection Act that would prohibit introducing new taxes or raising existing ones without first getting permission in a referendum.
The platform also contains Poilievre’s promise to cut the lowest marginal tax rate, or tax bracket, from 15 per cent to 12.75 per cent, which would cost the treasury $14 billion.
When it was announced March 24, the Conservatives provided CBC News with a backgrounder explaining that the tax cut would be phased in over five years.
In 2025-26 and 2026-27 the measure would come halfway in, costing the government $7 billion a year, before being expanded in 2027.
But according to the Conservative platform released Tuesday, the tax cut is being phased in more gradually than first promised. In 2025-26 the cut will cost the federal government a little over $1 billion, rising to $5.4 billion the next year and $10 billion in the third year before hitting $13.7 billion in 2028-29.
The Liberals have also announced a cut to the lowest tax bracket, Their one per cent reduction from 15 per cent to 14 per cent will be fully phased in by Canada Day.
Over four years, the Conservative income tax cut would cost the treasury just over $30 billion. The Liberal income tax cut would cost almost $22 billion.
