Poilievre defends economic growth projections in Conservative platform as ‘essential’

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

OTTAWA — Pierre Poilievre is defending the Conservative campaign platform’s heavy reliance on economic growth in a period of deep uncertainty.

The Conservative leader was in Hamilton, Ont., on Wednesday, with just days to go before the federal vote on Monday and a day after he released the party’s costed campaign platform.

That plan promises to reduce the federal deficit to $14 billion in four years. It also banks on billions of dollars in unrealized revenues from cutting “red tape” and getting new projects built over that horizon.

Poilievre was asked Wednesday whether those projections are realistic given Canada is just two months into a trade war with the United States -- and as some economists predict the country could hit a recession if the trade uncertainty is not resolved quickly.

“Now, you ask me in a period of economic weakness, after the Liberals have been in power for three terms, whether it is wise to campaign on economic growth? It’s not only wise, it’s essential for a change that we grow our economy,” he said.

Poilievre said he would end Liberal laws that he claims are holding back Canada’s economic growth and its ability to get its resources to market. He then attacked the spending levels in Liberal Leader Mark Carney’s campaign platform.

Carney has returned fire at the Conservative proposals, claiming they are based on “phantom numbers.”

Carney said Tuesday that his “numbers are prudent” and the Liberal plan does not “rely” on rosy predictions in a global climate of economic uncertainty tied to the United States’ trade war.

“We are in a crisis. In a crisis, you always plan for the worst, you don’t hope for the best, and you don’t make those types of assumptions,” he said.

The Institute of Fiscal Studies and Democracy, a non-partisan think-tank at the University of Ottawa, released its grades Tuesday for the three main parties’ campaign platforms. It gave the Liberals a rating of “good” while the Conservatives and NDP both received a “pass.”

The final scores for each of the parties were actually quite close: 35/44 for the Liberals, 33.5/44 for the Conservatives and 31/44 for the NDP.

The institute criticized both the Liberal and Conservative platforms on the question of “prudence” -- how they account for fiscal and economic risks and unforeseen events.

It said both platforms included “no consideration of prudence and risk” in their “optimistic” outlooks and gave both campaigns a score of two out of four on prudence.

Commenting on the Conservative platform, the institute noted that the Government of Canada’s planning framework “does not typically book additional revenues for new measures and should not book efficiency savings before having been achieved, since past results have proven disappointing.”

The NDP received a score of three out of four on prudence because its platform included a small contingency reserve and made use of the Bank of Canada’s recent economic scenarios for a wider range of tariff impacts.

NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh has seen support for his party dwindle during this campaign; the latest Leger poll suggests just 8 per cent of Canadians are planning to vote for a New Democrat. Singh is planning to campaign in Edmonton on Wednesday before participating in a virtual forum with the Assembly of First Nations.

Carney has campaign events scheduled in British Columbia on Wednesday, including a rally in Surrey, B.C., in the evening.

Polls suggest the Liberals are leading the Conservatives, and 55 per cent of those polled by Leger say they think Carney will win.

By Craig Lord

With files from Alessia Passafiume and Kyle Duggan in Ottawa

This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 23, 2025.