Poilievre says Conservative platform coming tomorrow
Hi there, I’m J.P. Tasker. I’m following Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre for the final week of this election campaign.
With only days left in the campaign — and more than two million ballots already cast in advance voting — Poilievre still hasn’t released a costed platform (as Lucas noted, Carney and Singh put theirs out over the weekend).
So I asked Poilievre today: Where’s the platform? What’s the holdup?
He’s been calling for an election for two years — and he, unlike many other opposition leaders in the past, had a relatively robust slate of policy proposals before this campaign even began — and yet there’s still no policy document.
Is it because he’s having trouble making the math work? After all, Poilievre is actually pitching more generous tax cuts and a pricier GST rebate for all new homebuyers — measures that will cost more than what Carney is pitching for housing price relief.
Poilievre said the platform will be released tomorrow and he will detail what he’s going to cut to pay for what he’s proposing, which also includes a major military buildup.
“Our approach is that every new dollar of spending should be met with savings,” Poilievre said.
He gave some hints about what’s going to get the axe: outside consultants, the “wasteful” gun buyback program, plus cuts to the bureaucracy and foreign aid and defunding the CBC.
But he’s also suggesting his aggressive natural resources agenda — through a commitment to approve major oil and gas projects and pipelines — will generate $70 billion in additional revenue.
We’ll have to wait until tomorrow to see how it all adds up.
