An Ontario NDP candidate has broken with the party line and is criticizing its promise not to run a deficit by fulfilling its campaign promises.
In a video obtained by CTV's Power Play, Susan Erskine-Fournier, who is running in the Ontario riding of St. Catharines, answers a question about what she likes the least about her party’s platform.
“Well, I think the thing that about our platform that I like the least is that it is very risky to be able to convince people that we're going to pull this budget off without going into a deficit,” she says.
“I don’t like it. I’m not sure how we’re going to do it.”
Erskine-Fournier initially agreed to a phone interview with CTV's Power Play, but proceeded to hang up the phone and did not return any follow-up calls.
The NDP has promised four years of budget surpluses if elected, and says it will still be able to pay for billions of dollars’ worth of election promises through a number of measures, including a corporate tax hike.
The party says its plan would lead to a $4.1-billion surplus next fiscal year, based on projections from the 2015 federal budget, and predicts the federal surplus would continue to hover around $3 billion to $4 billion over the following three fiscal years.
Conservative Leader Stephen Harper has also promised balanced budgets.
Meanwhile, the Liberals plan to run a “modest” short-term $10-billion deficit for the next three years and is forecasting a balanced budget by 2019/2020.
Erskine-Fournier is running against incumbent Conservative Richard Dykstra and Liberal candidate Chris Bittle.
