The Liberal party released a late-stage election platform Saturday that pledges billions in new spending and charts a major change in priorities from the party’s direction in 2021 under former prime minister Justin Trudeau.
Liberal Leader Mark Carney released his platform after the only two debates of the campaign concluded, and a day after advanced voting began.
It also lands in the middle of a stop-and-go trade war with the United States, Canada’s largest trading partner, and shows the path Carney is trying to chart toward reducing Canada’s reliance on the U.S. and increasing trade and economic activity at home.
“It’s time to build again, big time,” he said, surrounded by dozens of supporters at Durham College in Whitby, Ont.
He was also flanked by Quebec Liberal candidate and current Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne and Anita Anand, the incumbent Liberal in Oakville, Ont., and the current industry minister.
The plan would add $35.2 billion in new spending and tax cuts over the next year and a total of $129 billion over the next four years.
The 65-page document shows a reversal in the proportion of operating and capital spending within the government as Carney eyes attracting and stimulating private-sector investment amid the global economic crisis prompted by U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariffs.
Liberals try to keep Trump as top election issue
Carney said there is no room for “libertarians” during an economic crisis because that’s when the private sector retreats and governments must step up.
“Governments must lead and catalyze private sector investments,” he said. “The core of this platform is investing, and investing here at home is going to build out.”
Carney’s plan includes major government programs including in defence and housing, and major infrastructure investments in ports, highways, and a promise to build out the east-west power grid.
Currently provinces with power to sell ship most of it south to the United States, rather than to other provinces.
The Liberal leader sought to contrast his vision against Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre’s by comparing his rival to Trump and his playbook, saying Poilievre would slash the public service and scrap the single-use plastics ban to bring back plastic straws.
“That’ll show Trump, that’ll show the Americans – we’ve got our straws,” Carney said in a mocking tone.
The Liberal plan would push the deficit up this year from $46.8 billion to $62 billion and factors in $20 billion in revenue from Canada’s counter-tariff response.
Carney also said his plan would introduce some fiscal belt tightening on operations for a federal government that has been spending too much and investing too little.
But while he pledged to balance the operating budget by 2028, the capital budget would still run a $48 billion deficit that year.
Poilievre has previously accused the Liberals of employing a “sneaky accounting trick” to hide that adding billions in new spending would balloon the deficit further.
Most of the Liberal party’s policy planks have already been announced at this point, but the plan includes new measures such as creating an in vitro fertilization program that offers Canadians up to $20,000 for an IVF treatment cycle. This would cost about $103 million a year.
Carney has pledged what he calls a “middle class” tax cut for the lowest income bracket, which will dent federal coffers by $4 billion in the first year, adding up to about $22 billion over four years.
The plan adds $30.9 billion to defence spending over the next four years, largely backloaded into the last two, as Canada aims to meet its NATO target on a faster timeline than the Trudeau government planned.
Canada has fallen under sustained pressure from the U.S. and other NATO allies for lagging behind the pack in defence spending, and Carney has pledged to reach the NATO target of spending the equivalent of 2 per cent of GDP on defence by 2030.
Poilievre has criticized the Liberals for not meeting the target, but has not said when a Conservative government would hit two per cent. The Liberals repeatedly point out that defence spending fell below one per cent of GDP in the final year of the Conservative government in 2015.
It stands at about 1.4 per cent now.
The Liberal platform includes a pledge to introduce legislation to remove the consumer carbon tax while also planning to re-tool the industrial carbon price.
During the Liberal leadership race, Carney pledged a carbon border adjustment – effectively a tariff on imports from major polluters. The platform formalizes this promise into the election campaign, saying it would help protect Canada’s most trade-exposed sectors.
Carney was up late Friday before the release of his platform, going over documents in a hotel lounge in Ajax, Ont., alongside Champagne and campaign staff.
The finance minister had two binders in front of him and a bottle of water, while Carney drank tea. Carney jumped back and forth from a table in the corner of the lounge where Champagne sat to a larger table where many of his Liberal team were gathered, some drinking beer.
Before going up to bed at around 11 p.m., Carney stopped to take a photo with hotel staff.
–with a file from Global News