Pierre Poilievre pledges ‘ban’ on new taxes in costed platform that projects $14 billion deficit in four years

“This is a hopeful message. And you know this really is the choice. Do you want hope for a change, or do you want fear that keeps us in dissent with rising costs and crime and a fourth Liberal term?” said Poilievre, speaking Woodbridge.

The biggest spending cuts, according to the Conservative platform, are $23.5 billion over four years to trim the number of independent consultants doing government work. Poilievre’s platform says he’ll return to 2015 levels of outside hires.

Poilievre’s platform plans for cuts of $9.4 billion in Canada’s $12.3 billion annual foreign aid budget that provides money for poor and war-torn countries, including Ukraine. A Conservative government would spread cuts out over four years, money that Poilievre previously pledged to reallocate to his Arctic defence plan, which entails building a new Arctic military base, and new icebreakers, ships which the parliamentary budget office has said would cost $8.5 billion alone.

The platform also contains optimistic predictions that cracking down on “criminal tax evasion and overseas tax havens” would net $26.4 billion for the government over four years, and counts on $20 billion in countertariff revenue in the Canada-U.S. trade war — the latter of which the Liberals have also projected in their plan.

“We are inheriting a very large Liberal deficit,” Poilievre said, citing the $46.8 billion deficit for the current fiscal year that began April 1, which the parliamentary budget office has set out as a baseline for political parties to work with through the campaign.

Poilievre said the countertariff revenue would be used in part to pay for many of the tax cuts he has promised, as well as ways to ease pressures on businesses and workers who are hit by the tariff war launched by U.S. President Donald Trump.

“What I’m committed to is redistributing that money to Canadians through tax cuts and through targeted aid to industries that are directly affected.”

He noted he previously pledged a $3 billion loan program to aid businesses through the tariff war.

But other politically popular promises with his Conservative base will not net much new gains for the government treasury in order to deliver the Conservatives’ plan to boost the military 

For example, cancelling what he calls the “Liberal gun grab” or buyback of assault-style weapons would net only $541 million, according to the Conservatives. The PBO has previously estimated the cost of the buyback program at $756 million.

The Conservatives also estimate savings of $12.6 billion over four years from cancelling the expanded capital gains inclusion rate. The PBO has previously costed that at $17 billion over five years.

Liberal Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne criticized the Conservative platform as a short-sighted document, while defending the Liberal platform unveiled Saturday which planned for $129 billion in spending, and some $28 billion in unspecified spending cuts.

“What you’re seeing is that the world has changed, but Pierre Poilievre has not changed. It is clear that in the DNA of the Conservative is cuts. The DNA of the NDP is about taxing. We chose investments, investments that will make a life will make a difference in the life of Canadians,” he told reporters.

Poilievre, however, underscored news stories about a report produced in January, published in the Privy Council Office, that set out what it called a plausible scenario where social mobility continues to decline in Canada, which it says “could create serious challenges for citizens and policymakers.” 

Setting out dire predictions for 2040 if that scenario unfolds, it says “Currently, most Canadians still believe that they have equality of opportunity,” but the report says “This may change. People may lose faith in the Canadian project.”

And it says, “What people believe matters as much as the reality.”

Poilievre seized on the report to warn of the dangers of giving the Liberals a fourth term.