MISSISSAUGA, Ont. – Prime Minister Stephen Harper unveiled a $6.6-billion campaign platform today that pledges to eliminate the deficit a year earlier than scheduled by cutting government spending.
But the Conservatives don’t say exactly what would get chopped to save the billions of dollars they need to return Canada’s books to black by 2014-15.
The most expensive promise is $2.5 billion for income splitting, which involves shifting income from a higher-income spouse to a lower-income spouse to reduce the overall tax paid by a couple. The Tories announced it this week, along with a slew of other measures that also won’t come into effect until the budget balances.
The platform also includes $2.2 billion to compensate Quebec for harmonizing the GST and PST. That money would flow over the next two years – after a compensation deal is reached with the province.
The "Here for Canada" plan focuses on five priorities: creating jobs, supporting families, eliminating the deficit, getting tough on crime, and investing in the North.
It includes bedrock Tory policies, like eliminating per-vote subsides and promises of Senate reform. There’s also a promise to put defibrillators in arenas across the country.
Some of the new initiatives proposed include a national counter-terrorism strategy and the creation of an office of religious freedom within the Department of Foreign Affairs.
The office, which would cost $20 million over four years, would monitor and promote religious freedom as a key objective of Canadian foreign policy, the platform said.
"This is the map for the road ahead, not a scrapbook of a journey we have taken," Harper told several hundred supporters at a launch event.
"Or, perhaps more accurately when I speak of the other side – not a brochure of all the places they promised they’d take us but never did because they couldn’t really afford it."
The platform borrows heavily from the ill-fated federal budget and pledges to bundle a number of crime bills into an omnibus piece of legislation that the party would pass within the first 100 days of Parliament.
Harper said the spending cuts required to lift the country out of deficit spending won’t hurt programs: "We’re going to be able to find that two, three per cent of government spending that we need to find to get the fat out."
One example he cited was consolidating the government’s computer system.
Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff was in Hamilton today promising continued funding for health care beyond 2014.
Ignatieff sent an "open letter" to Canadians pledging to extend six per cent funding increases after the current health-care agreement with the provinces expires.
"The provinces are coping with budgetary deficits and spiralling health care costs," Ignatieff said.
"It is critical that a new federal government commits to investing in health care beyond 2014, so that provinces can get on with the job of reforming our health care system."
The Tories have also committed to extending the funding increases.
Jack Layton released the NDP’s defence platform in Esquimalt, B.C. – home to Canada’s Pacific fleet – making replacement of the navy’s aging supply ships the top priority.
The NDP leader said all navy ships would be built in Canada, creating thousands of jobs and pouring billions of dollars into the economy.
He also said he would review the purchase of the F-35 stealth fighter and possibly put the CF-18 replacement out to open tender.
Green Leader Elizabeth May, who released her party platform Thursday, is making a whistle-stop train trip from Toronto to Montreal today.
Harper released his platform flanked on stage by 12 people billed as "average Canadians" who are benefiting from party policies. However, one was listed online as the volunteer chair for Tory MP Paul Calandar’s re-election campaign. Another owns a factory Harper visited this week.
People who want to attend Conservative rallies are required to pre-register and, in several high-profile incidents, some have been barred because they were suspected of links to rival groups or parties.
The platform launch marks Harper’s third straight day in the greater Toronto area, where the Tories hope to pick up seats from the Liberals.
Harper has been bogged down by several days of controversy. He finally apologized Thursday to people who were earlier barred from some of his campaign events. His handlers allowed some people into his Hamilton rally Thursday even though they hadn’t gone through the normal Conservative pre-registration process.
Ignatieff had to do some firefighting of his own Thursday after one of his Alberta candidates made what the leader called "utterly, totally unacceptable" remarks about sexual assault during a radio interview.
The candidate, former judge John Reilly, apologized completely and was retained by the leader, but the Tories leaped on the comments to brand the Liberals, once again, as soft on crime.
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