Liberal platform promises $130 billion in new spending with deficits projected until 2029

CITYnews halifax / By The Canadian Press and News Staff

With just over a week left in the federal election campaign, both Liberal Leader Mark Carney and NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh unveiled their respective costed platforms on Saturday.

The Liberal platform promises almost $130 billion over the next four years and charts a major change in priorities from the party’s 2021 platform under former prime minister Justin Trudeau.

The platform, which focuses on four principles – unite, secure, protect, and build – highlights several previously announced campaign promises, including $18 billion in new defence spending and almost $12 billion on housing. It also includes $20 billion in countertariffs expected to be collected this year on American imports.

The platform outlines the party’s promise to eliminate federal barriers to interprovincial trade while making it easier for Canadians to buy Canadian, defending workers against U.S. tariffs, rebuilding and reinvesting in the military, and building a stronger health care system.

The platform also states that the Liberal government will have a budget deficit of $62.3 billion this year, but that the deficit would shrink by almost $15 billion to $48 billion by 2028-29.

Calling the next four years “rocky and unpredictable,” Singh released his party’s costed platform at a rally in Burnaby, B.C. on Saturday, promising tax reforms, $7 billion over four years on mental-health coverage, and a wealth tax on the “super rich” with more than $10 million in holdings which it says could raise upwards of $22 billion each year.

The party says it would generate revenue by reinstating the capital-gains tax increase that Carney scrapped shortly after becoming Prime Minister.

The party is pledging to boost employment insurance payments, funded by tariffs on American goods, as well as a rebate for zero-emission vehicles, which exempts any vehicles made by Tesla.

The party laid out the cost of commitments made while noting that those costs are incremental to investments made in the 2024 Budget and the 2024 Fall Economic Statement.

The NDP’s platform would add $48 billion to the deficit over four years, however, those estimates are based on various economic scenarios.

The Bloc Québécois became the first party to release its costed platform on Friday, publishing a document that promised $133 billion in new federal spending over five years.

The main items include $22 billion for a wage subsidy related to the trade war with the United States, and a $15 billion fund for public transit.

The Bloc only runs candidates in Quebec and cannot form the government so the promises made are things the party could push whoever wins the election to do but couldn’t enact on its own.

The Conservative Party is expected to release its fully costed platform in the “coming days.”

Saturday brings another day of campaigning and advance polls, with eligible voters being able to cast their ballot between 9 a.m. and 9 p.m. local time.