Canadian elections used to be based on party platforms and then things got muddy. In recent federal elections parties have sometimes delayed releasing these books of goodies. They are always filled with expensive promises and not so fully costed explanations on how they will be paid for.
Today, the Conservative Party changed its platform tactics from 2019. You might recall – alright, why would you? – the Conservatives, under Andrew Sheer, waited until after the leaders’ debate to put out the party platform. At the time that drew plenty of criticism in the media. So to start the job of defining its new leader as different the first day of campaigning was all about its platform. O’Toole defined his new approach on page one of the 161-page document writing, “You’ll probably notice ideas that you haven’t heard from Conservatives like me before.”
So true. The Conservative document isn’t about reining in spending at all. Instead there’s lots and lots of new programs. And it is not fully costed – yet. Page 161 promises updates after the Parliamentary Budget Office goes over the promises and confirms the Conservative costing estimates. So the program details are all there but fiscally concerned Conservatives might wonder where the money will come from.
The key promises are to create a million new jobs and balance the budget in 10 years. But the promise that jumped out at me was the Conservative commitment to have a one-month GST holiday. That’s right, if elected the Conservatives promise to waive GST on retail sales for a month this fall. Admittedly that is small chump change compared to the rest but for Canadian consumers it represents real and immediate savings. Dan Kelly, the President of Canadian Federation of Independent Business, told CP24 he hopes the holiday will only apply to sales in retail stores. I’m told the holiday would be part of Canada’s holiday spending taking effect on December 1 and indeed apply only to in-store purchases. Now, before you get too hopped up with all of this remember in Ontario the GST is five per cent. The other six per cent is a provincial tax and will stay in place. The hospitality sector’s goodie is a 50 per cent rebate on Monday to Wednesday food and drink purchases.
For this election campaign O’Toole is keen to join the other parties with huge spending promises and get fuzzy about where the money will come from to pay for it all.
The Conservatives kept O’Toole in his hotel bunker, in front of that blue backdrop, for another day.
The NDP jumped the gun for this election and put out its “commitments” last week. That gave Jagmeet Singh news coverage in the hours before the call. Back in 2019 the NDP released its platform months before the campaign even began when Canadian were not focused at all on federal politics. So the party righted that and broke with tradition by not referring to a platform at all. The other thing the commitment document leaves out is a full costing of the many policies being promised. I had to go all the way down to page 110 to get to the “fiscal approach.” There’s a very broad outline on the NDP tax structure but it is nothing like a full costing. If the NDP campaign picks up steam the other parties will be jumping all over the vague numbers released so far. The NDP confirmed that its costing of programs will also be subject to review by the Parliamentary Budget Office.
Singh spent Monday in the GTA. He started in former NDP leader Jack Layton’s Danforth riding. The Liberal MP, Julie Dabrusin, won there easily in 2019. The NDP feel they have a strong candidate for this run. Clare Hacksel is a health professional and active in the community. But it will be a challenge to make up Dabrusin’s 8,000-vote margin.
Singh focused his attack on the rich and what he sees as abuses of the various COVID support programs initiated by the Liberal government. There was nothing new but Singh repeated that paying out dividends and bonuses should be stopped. “That's wrong, and we're going to go after those companies and make sure they pay back their fair share,” he said. It’s worth noting that Singh is not making wild promises of an NDP win in this election. What he says is vote NDP and “we will be there for you.” Framing his appeal for support by making the case that only the NDP puts the needs of working Canadians first.
In the afternoon Singh moved on to Brampton for more campaigning. The NDP plan is to have Singh seat-rich British Columbia on Tuesday.
The Liberal Party did not release a platform Monday but you can be sure it will have its day before the leaders’ debate. Justin Trudeau, the Liberal leader, spent the day on and off the campaign bus in Quebec. To find its ‘pandemic majority mandate’ the Liberals will need to hold onto the 35 seats it has and take some seats now held by the Bloc Quebecois and the Conservatives. Like the other leaders Trudeau was all about jobs and the economy. He promised to keep the programs required by the COVID pandemic going. He said the Liberals will create extend the Canada Recovery Hiring Program until March 31, 2022.
Quebec is important for that majority but the GTA is vital and Trudeau will be in the GTA on Tuesday.
And it looks to be a close race. A Forum Research poll taken on Sunday and released Monday shows that the Conservatives and Liberals are in a statistical tie in the GTA. The poll of 503 GTA voters has 36 per cent of decided / leaning voters supporting the Liberals followed by Conservatives (35 per cent) and NDP (17 per cent). The margin of error on this poll is plus or minus four per cent.
