Liberal Leader Mark Carney tours Nova Bus with company president Paul Le Houillier, during a campaign stop in Saint-Eustache, Que., on April 15.Christinne Muschi/The Canadian Press
Liberal Leader Mark Carney says he will release his party’s costed platform before advance polls close on Monday, which is just one week before election day and after the party leaders will have faced off in nationally televised debates.
His comments strongly suggest his detailed governing plan will not be available to those who vote at the beginning of advance polling or to other leaders before they debate him on Wednesday evening in French and on Thursday in English.
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre and NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh have also promised to release costed platforms, without specifying when.
“The fully-costed platform will be released with plenty of opportunity for voters to review it before election day,” said Conservative spokesman Sam Lilly on Tuesday.
Mr. Carney told reporters during a Tuesday campaign stop just outside Montreal that the Liberals plan “a full, costed platform, in great detail,” adding it would “come out before the advance polls close.”
Four days of advance voting begin across the country on Friday. Election day is April 28.
The three parties have all made large campaign promises, but have not clearly explained how they will be paid for. The leaders have said such details won’t be disclosed until their platforms are released.
Mr. Carney said the platform will show how the party’s various economic promises are interlinked.
“Look, I’ve been through all the numbers. I know all the numbers. I know how to count. We’ll be in a very good position: Spending less, but also investing more as a country to build this economy strong,” he said.
The Liberal Leader made the comments in response to questions from reporters Tuesday, after he promised a new mid-career retraining program aimed at several “priority” sectors of the Canadian economy.
Speaking at a bus manufacturing facility in Saint-Eustache, Que., Mr. Carney said the proposed benefit would provide up to $15,000 for workers in manufacturing, health care, construction, artificial intelligence and technology.
The proposal is in addition to an earlier campaign promise to cover apprenticeship training costs of up to $8,000 for skilled trade workers.
In Montreal on Tuesday, Mr. Poilievre pledged new measures to protect seniors from financial scams, including forcing banks and cellphone companies to do a better job at detecting fraud.
Mr. Poilievre cited several recent examples of people falling prey to “grandparent scams,” where fraudsters claim to be loved ones in trouble and needing money for bail, as well as scams where people are defrauded by believing they are being contacted by their own bank.
“We all love our parents, and we worry about them. We worry that life is becoming more complicated and dangerous for them, and that’s why we need to protect our seniors, especially in this modern age,” he said.
Mr. Poilievre said that if his party forms government, he would introduce a new law that he called the “Stop Scamming Seniors” act. It would bundle together measures to crack down on fraud.
A Conservative government would impose a mandatory minimum one-year jail sentence for fraud over $5,000, three years for fraud over $100,000, and five years for fraud over $1-million. There would also be minimum fines of 10 times the amount defrauded.
For companies, he would impose penalties of up to $5-million per violation on those that fail to use technology to stop scams. He would also require the automatic flagging and blocking of suspicious activity, such as unusual transactions, and create a protocol requiring a 24-hour transaction delay for high-risk transactions on the accounts of seniors – or anyone else who requires protection.
NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh, also in Montreal ahead of Wednesday night’s debate, criticized both the Liberals and Conservatives Tuesday over their plans to scrap the capital gains tax increase introduced in the last federal budget.
Mr. Singh said this decision means the federal government loses $19-billion over the next five years, money it could use to pay for things like hiring more doctors and expanding pharmacare.
“The entire Liberal Party was in favour of it, was defending it, said it was a great thing to do, and then all of a sudden flip-flopped on it,” Mr. Singh said outside a hospital.
Mr. Carney has said he will do away with the planned increase to taxes paid on capital gains over $250,000 to encourage more business investment to counter the effect of U.S. tariffs.
With a report from Campbell Clark in Saint-Eustache, Que., and The Canadian Press