With Canada’s federal election less than a week away, all major federal political parties have now released their official platforms for how they hope to lead the country.
This is a difficult time for many Canadians; with ongoing crises such as the housing crisis, the toxic drug crisis, the tarnished Canada-US relations and more, this election is setting itself up to be one of the most important and divisive in the country’s history.
As of this publication, the Liberal Party of Canada is leading in the polls by five points, but the Conservatives are hot on their trail and gaining traction ahead of election day.
In BC and on Vancouver Island, where the NDP have historically had a bit of a stronghold, polls indicate that many are turning away from the NDP and voting for the Liberal or Conservative instead.
Green Party of Canada co-leader Elizabeth May is also at risk of losing her Saanich–Gulf Islands riding to the Conservatives, according to 338Canada.
For those who are undecided on their vote, or those who wish to know about how each party says they intend to lead Canada, below is a brief summary of each major party’s platforms:
Liberal Party of Canada
Liberal leader, and current Prime Minister Mark Carney released their detailed platform on Saturday, April 19th.
Carney’s Liberals say they intend to focus their efforts on uniting, securing, protecting and building in Canada.
Under the ‘Unite’ section of their platform, the Liberals assert that the United States will not get their way in the ongoing trade war.
Instead of relying on the US for trade and goods, Carney hopes to build up the Canadian economy by $200 billion.
Carney hopes to incentivise Canadians and Canadian goods to be able to flow freely across the country, allowing provinces and territories to lean on each other instead of the US.
The Liberals also say they would work to protect Canada’s unique identity, history and geography through initiatives such as increasing funding CBC.
In the ‘Secure’ portion of the Liberal’s platform, Carney says he intends to expand the Canadian military in an effort to protect the country’s northernmost borders against potential Chinese and Russian threat.
This section of the platform also focuses on protecting Canadian sovereignty, protecting veterans, defending the economy, food security, securing communities and global leadership.
Under ‘Protect,’ the Liberals say they intend to protect that which makes Canadians feel Canadian, such as public health care, Canada-wide child care and bilingualism.
Additionally, this section of their platform focuses on helping Canadians young and old, improving relations and reconciliation with Indigenous Peoples, improving women’s rights and protecting Canada’s renowned natural environments.
Lastly, the Liberal platform’s ‘Build’ section focuses on building not only homes, but building up the economy.
Carney has said before that he wants Canada to be the strongest country in the G7, and his platform echoes this claim.
His platform says the Liberals will improve affordability, build housing, improve the country’s immigration policies and processes and focus on clean energy while building and growing the economy.
Additionally, Carney’s platform includes a detailed fiscal and costing plan, as well as a commitment to improving equality through a gender based analysis.
Read the full Liberal platform online here.
Conservative Party of Canada
The Conservatives waited until Monday, April 21st to release their party’s platform.
Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre says that his plan for the Canadian economy “could not be more different” from the Liberals’ plan.
His platform is divided into seven sections that focus on cutting taxes, building homes, stopping crime, fixing the budget, increasing military spending, improving people’s quality of life and protecting the Canadian identity.
Through these seven sections of their platform, Poilievre promises his main focus will be to cut the deficit by 70% by cutting spending on foreign aid and social services, lowering taxes, building homes by cutting taxes and paying cities to cut taxes and locking up criminals.
Some of their bigger plans are to cut the income tax by 15%, eliminate GST on homes over $1.5 million, reinstate apprenticeship grants that help people get registered in the trades and dissolve the carbon tax in its entirety—allowing industry to not pay for the pollutants they emit.
In terms of the criminal justice system, the Conservatives have made promises to create a three-strike rule that would give 10-year sentences to those who commit three “serious” crimes and give life sentences to human, fentanyl and firearms traffickers.
His platform also includes a fiscal platform, but no equity or equality commitment.
The Conservatives’ 30 page platform is available online here.
New Democratic Party
The NDP released their platform on Saturday, April 19th.
NDP leader Jagmeet Singh and the NDP have divided their platform up into nine sections focussing on healthcare, building homes, lowering bills, lowering taxes for working people rather than the rich, increasing Canada’s independence, supporting a green economy, taking action on reconciliation, strengthening democracy and fiscal responsibility.
The NDP’s healthcare plan seeks to connect more people with family doctors, lower the costs of drugs and dental costs, improve public healthcare rather than divesting from it and expanding mental healthcare coverage.
Their home building and affordability plan would see rental protection introduced, making it easier to afford a home by replacing the current Housing Accelerator Fund with a new strategy and taking action to help the homeless.
Singh and the NDP’s platform also has a strong focus on ending price gouging on groceries and removing GST from essential goods.
When it comes to taxation, the NDP wants to give tax breaks to the lowest tax brackets while increasing taxes for the ultra-rich.
Economically, the NDP focuses their platform on green energy initiatives, protecting small businesses and increasing Canadian industry.
The NDP’s platform specifically has a section focused on reconciliation, and details their plans to end funding discrimination for Indigenous communities, and close the infrastructure gap with Canada’s Indigenous communities.
When it comes to democratic process, the NDP seeks electoral reform on a large scale and wants to allow 16 and 17-year-olds to vote.
Fiscally, their platform details plans to reject service cuts, build infrastructure and invest Canada’s money in its people.
However, the NDP’s platform does not include a specific fiscal plan.
The NDP’s full platform is available here.
Green Party of Canada
The Green Party of Canada and its co-leaders Elizabeth May and Jonathan Pedneault released their platform first of any of the major parties on Thursday, April 17th.
Theirs is divided up into four parts, focussing on economic plans, safeguarding Canada’s future, security for all Canadians and government reform.
Despite it being only four parts, their platform document is 124 pages long.
The first part of their platform, the economic plan, promises fair taxation, a slow phase out of fossil fuel reliance, improving transit to better meet the needs of communities, investing in innovation across all sectors and ensuring fulsome support of small businesses, among other initiatives.
Some key points of their plan to safeguard Canada include changing foreign relationships to lean more on other countries instead of the United States, standing with Canada’s allies and being more active in international crisis situations such as what is taking place in Palestine and strengthening Canada’s military to protect the country from new, evolving threats.
As Canadians may assume, their climate action plan is fulsome and focusses on emissions reduction, a transition to clean energy, waste reduction and environmental protection.
In terms of bringing about security for Canadians, the Green Party’s plan focuses on affordable housing as a top priority, ending speculation on housing, increasing rent control and protections, expanding funding for unhoused youth and adults, ending poverty by making benefits accessible, increasing the minimum wage and the federal income tax floor.
Their promises regarding democratic reform are fulsome and include increasing transparency, ensuring campaign integrity and election oversight are improved and increasing access to government information.
The Green Party did not include a detailed fiscal plan in their platform.
Their full platform is available online here.
The Bloc Québécois are not running any candidates on Vancouver Island and do not share their platform in English, but their platform is available online.
