Liberal Leader Carney promises year-long measures to help retirees cope with tariffs

Liberal Leader Mark Carney speaks during a meet and greet at the Victoria Edelweiss Club In Victoria, B.C., on Sunday, April 6, 2025. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick

VICTORIA — Liberal Leader Mark Carney on Monday promised temporary supports to help retirees cope with U.S. tariffs that are punishing markets around the globe.

Campaigning in Victoria — where almost one in four people are seniors — Carney announced that he would lower the minimum amount that must be withdrawn from a Registered Retirement Income Fund by 25 per cent.

“Seniors won’t have to withdraw as much of their hard-earned savings when markets are volatile, as they will continue to be until this trade war is sorted out,” Carney said.

The federal government made that same temporary move in 2008 to cope with the global financial crisis, and again in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Carney also promised to boost the Guaranteed Income Supplement by five per cent to help low-income seniors “weather the storm.”

The Liberal party said the measure would provide those seniors with up to $652. Both the GIS and investment measures would last for only a year.

In a post on the social media platform X late Monday, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre re-announced two party promises he made earlier in the campaign for seniors. He said that he would grant a two-year extension to the age cutoff for Registered Retirement Savings Plans contributions, allowing seniors’ RRSPs to mature until they reach age 73.

His party also promised to increase by $10,000 the basic personal amount for seniors, which allows them to earn a certain amount of money before paying taxes.

Seniors are a core demographic the Liberals are pursuing in this election campaign. Multiple polls show the party enjoying strong support among baby boomers who are alarmed by U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariffs — and older people tend to vote in large numbers.

An April 5 analysis by Abacus Data, which combines data from multiple online surveys fielded over the end of March, shows Carney’s Liberals up 17 points among boomers since December, putting them at 38 per cent compared to the Conservatives’ 33 per cent.

The polling industry’s professional body, the Canadian Research Insights Council, says online surveys cannot be assigned a margin of error because they do not randomly sample the population.

Carney’s Victoria stop — which began Sunday night with a rally — marks the first time his campaign has ventured west of Manitoba.

During that rally, Carney needled Alberta Premier Danielle Smith — who has come under fire in recent days for telling the right-wing Breitbart News that the White House should pause the tariffs until after the election and suggesting that Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre is “very much in sync” with the Trump administration.

Smith declared victory last week when Trump stopped short of imposing tariffs on all Canadian imports, including energy, and instead proceeded with his planned tariffs affecting Canadian sectors such as automotive and steel.

Carney told the crowd in Victoria that the national effort to convince the Americans to abandon tariffs has seen Ontario Premier Doug Ford make multiple appearances on the conservative Fox News network.

“We’re sending Doug Ford on to Fox News to show them we’re not messing around up here. And we’re going to send Danielle next, we’re — well, maybe we won’t send Danielle,” Carney said with a grimace. “That was a bad idea.”

Smith shot back at Carney on Monday, saying that his jokes suggest the same kind of dismissive attitude she encountered when dealing with former prime minister Justin Trudeau.

“I’ve noticed this with progressive men — how much they talk about how much they support women, until they meet a strong conservative woman,” Smith told reporters Monday. “The attitude is, ‘Sit down and shut up.’ Well, I don’t shut up. I make sure that Albertans know exactly how I feel about issues and I’m going to continue advocating for my province whether (Carney) likes it or not.”

Following his news conference Monday morning, Carney, in his capacity as prime minister, met with B.C. Premier David Eby.

Greeting Carney outside the B.C. Legislature, Eby said he planned to focus their meeting on U.S. tariffs — particularly the news that the U.S. will more than double its duties on Canadian softwood lumber imports, from 14.54 per cent to almost 35.45 per cent.

The Liberals and Carney have surged in most polls in recent weeks as Canadians say Trump’s economic threats are their top source of concern.

Janie Rollins stopped to watch Carney as he walked up to the provincial legislature. She said she’s leaning toward voting for the NDP, because she feels the Liberals have failed to deal with B.C.’s housing shortage. 

“They’re not really doing the viewpoint of the people that are low income; they’re condemning people on the street,” said Rollins.

She argues there’s been an increase in homebuilding for costly homes, meaving more people are falling behind. Rollins said her niece has put off having children, because she can’t find an affordable home.

“I want to see people have a future, particularly young people,” she said.

On Monday night, Carney held a rally with thousands in Richmond, B.C., just outside Vancouver. He echoed his previous themes of standing strong against American encroachment, and said Trump has so far given Canada “the best of a series of bad deals,” a reference to Washington’s targeted tariffs.

At Sunday’s rally in Victoria, Sylvia Samborski said she’s supporting Carney because he seems able to handle Trump’s threats against Canada’s economy and sovereignty.

“A lot of Canadians are really fearful right now, and I think that we feel hope right now, because we have somebody who’s articulate, intelligent and experienced,” she said, adding that concerns about the U.S. are particularly acute in a region right on the border.

“We’re well below the 49th parallel down here,” Samborski said, adding that her American friends are “scared” of Trump’s policies.

Rally participant John Ellis said he prefers Carney over the NDP, which took all but one of the seven Vancouver Island ridings in the 2021 election.

He said locals want better roads and infrastructure for booming communities, something he said the NDP didn’t focus on enough during the last Parliament.

“It would be nice to have somebody in Ottawa with a voice in Parliament, and we haven’t had that for a very, very long time,” he said.

— With files from Kyle Duggan in Ottawa and Matthew Scace in Calgary.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 7, 2025.