Taxes, trade, tariffs among key topics for federal leaders on first full campaign day

This composite image shows, left to right, Liberal Leader Mark Carney on March 21, 2025; Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre on March 4, 2025; NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh on Jan. 22, 2025, in Ottawa. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick, Adrian Wyld, Justin Tang

Federal party leaders spent their first full day on the election campaign trail talking about taxes, transfers, tariffs and the trades.

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre is promising a middle-class tax cut, following a Liberal pledge that involves a smaller reduction to the same tax rate.

After Liberal Leader Mark Carney promised on Sunday a one percentage point cut to the lowest income tax bracket, Poilievre said Monday he would drop the lowest income tax bracket by 2.25 percentage points.

“This is a tax cut for everybody who has ever got up early in the morning and work hard to build our country,” Poilievre said at a paper products plant in Brampton, Ont.

Poilievre argued this cut would save the average Canadian about $900 a year.

In Newfoundland on Monday, Carney pledged to not reduce transfers to individuals and provinces, saying they would not be among the potential cuts in a review of government programs aimed at curbing the expansion of the public service.

Carney was in Gander, Nfld., a town that famously fed and housed thousands of airline passengers after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States.

He said the town epitomizes the Canadian value of looking after each other.

“What Gander did, when the world was shaken, is the country we know and love,” he said.

Both Poilievre and Carney pledged Monday that they would release costed platforms during the election campaign.

NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh started the day in Montreal pledging to use suitable federal Crown land to build more than 100,000 rent-controlled homes over a decade.

He also promised to train 100,000 people in the skilled trades.

Singh’s bus was on the road Monday afternoon to downtown Toronto, with an evening event planned.

With so many seats it can make or break a party in a close election, the Greater Toronto Area will loom large in the campaign.

Asserting Canada’s sovereignty and economic strength has become a major focus for the three main parties. Their leaders are trying to present themselves as the people best able to handle U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariffs and threats of annexation.

Bloc Québécois Leader Yves-François Blanchet is proposing a law that would set quotas for the use of Canadian companies in federal procurement.

Last week, Blanchet said the election will be one “fraught with danger for Quebec — trade, immigration, language and secularism, regions, seniors, the environment … but also one of opportunity.”

Meanwhile, Prince Edward Island Premier Rob Lantz said both the federal Liberals and the Conservatives have promised to eliminate the tolls on the Confederation Bridge, which links the province with mainland Canada.

The Conservatives have confirmed they plan to do so, while the Liberals have been asked for comment.

Also on Monday, Canada’s chief electoral officer Stéphane Perrault said he prpjects the federal election will cost taxpayers roughly $570 million — “slightly less” than the last election in 2021.

And the independent Leaders' Debates Commission announced Monday that it is planning a French-language debate on April 16 and an English one the following night.

Quebec broadcaster TVA had proposed a third debate at the expense of the four main political parties, but cancelled the proposal Monday after the Liberals declined to participate.

The election will be held on April 28.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 24, 2025.