5 Takeaways From the Conservatives’ Costed Election Platform

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre responds during the French-language federal leaders’ debate in Montreal on April 16, 2025. The Canadian Press/Christopher Katsarov

The Conservatives released their costed platform the day after the last day of advance polling, keeping focus on cutting the tax and regulatory burdens on Canadians and aiming to reduce the deficit by 70 percent in four years.

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre on April 22 introduced his platform as one that would “restore” Canada’s promise by lowering costs and crime while increasing the country’s per capita GDP. Poilievre said his government would cut spending on bureaucracy, consultants, and foreign aid while boosting economic growth through expanded resource production.

Besides having a strong tough-on-crime stance, here are five other takeaways from the platform.

Reducing the Deficit by 70 Percent, With an Asterisk

Poilievre, who has long criticized increasing government debt, has attempted to put fiscal responsibility at the core of his costed platform. The Conservatives say that under their plan, Canada’s deficit would drop from the Parliamentary Budget Officer’s projected $46.8 billion deficit in 2025–26 to just over $14 billion by 2028–29—a decline of 70 percent.

The Tories do not provide a plan for when they would balance the budget. The Conservatives’ plan would run a $100 billion deficit over the next four years, smaller than Mark Carney’s projected $130 billion deficit over that period.

The Conservatives say their key measures will boost production and thus increase government revenue in taxes to offset expenses. The party says this includes $12.8 billion generated from the additional homes its plan would see built, $11.2 billion from the auto sector after repealing the Liberal government’s electric vehicle mandate, $5 billion from the oil and gas sector after scrapping the emissions cap, and $2 billion after removing the Clean Fuel Regulations.

Carney said the Conservatives’ platform is using “phantom numbers” to make its accounting look better than it actually is. The Liberal leader also told reporters that if his party used the same assumptions in its budget, then Ottawa would have a fiscal surplus by 2030.

For their part, the Tories note that their platform was created with input from former chief economic analyst at Statistics Canada Philip Cross, and former Associate Deputy Minister at Finance Canada Tim Sargent.

Axing of Taxes

Poilievre had previously made “Axe the Tax” a prominent political slogan, in reference to his party’s commitment to eliminate the Liberal government’s carbon tax, thereby decreasing the cost of food, fuel, and heating. But they stopped using the slogan after Carney reduced the consumer carbon tax rate to zero as his first act as prime minister.

Poilievre’s platform still says a Conservative government would axe the carbon tax “in full,” which includes the federal industrial carbon tax backstop that Carney has kept. But the Tories plan to take a hatchet to other taxes as well.

As previously announced, the Conservatives would cut the lowest personal income tax rate from 15 percent to 12.75 percent, while also scrapping the capital gains tax hike and axing taxes on reinvestment in Canada. These three measures would cost a combined $55.5 billion over the next four years. This would be offset by revenue gain from capital gains measures, reducing the cost by around $13 billion, bringing it down to $42.4 billion. The Liberals have also pledged to cut taxes for the lowest income bracket by 1 percentage point, from 15 percent to 14 percent, and to cancel the capital gains tax hike.

Also on the Tories’ chopping block would be the GST on all new homes that cost less than $1.3 million. The Liberals have said they would remove the GST for homes up to $1 million for first-time homebuyers only.

In an effort to woo Canadians concerned by ever-increasing taxes, the Conservatives would also introduce the Taxpayer Protection Act. This would ban the introduction of new or higher federal taxes without Canadians first voting in favour of them in a referendum.

The Conservatives would also get rid of the escalator tax on alcohol; the planned food packaging tax on fresh produce that could raise grocery costs by up to 30 percent; and the Underused Housing Tax, applying to vacant or underused housing, which the platform says “costs more to administer than is collected in taxes.”

More Energy Production and Building Infrastructure

Poilievre’s platform argues that over the last 10 years, Canada’s economy has been “strangled” by government red tape, particularly when it comes to energy projects like pipelines and liquid natural gas terminals. Poilievre has also said Liberal policies have made Canada more dependent on the United States to sell its resources, sending billions of dollars of investment south of the border.

The platform says the Conservatives would get rid of the Impact Assessment Act, which puts additional federal regulatory requirements on major projects such as pipelines and which the Tories say in effect makes new major projects impossible for investors. Carney has said he would keep the legislation but streamline approval of major projects.

The Tories also say they would remove the ban on oil tankers from operating off the coast of B.C., to allow more markets for Canadian oil and gas resources.

In addition, the Conservatives have promised to create a National Energy Corridor to rapidly approve and build critical infrastructure. The party says this would fast-track approvals for projects like transmission lines, pipelines, and railways.

Carney has made promises similar to those of Poilievre on this front, pledging to put in place a “First Mile Fund” to build transportation networks connecting energy extraction sites to rail lines and roads, and a “One Window” approval process to streamline approvals for large-scale infrastructure processes.

The Conservatives would also get rid of the Liberals’ cap on oil and gas production, and they plan to double oil production in Newfoundland and Labrador, fast-track B.C.’s LNG Canada Phase 2 and the GNL Quebec LNG projects, and expand the Port of Churchill in northern Manitoba to extend the shipping season.

These Conservative policies would no doubt please Canada’s energy sector. A group of 14 energy CEOs  in a March 19 letter asked the party leaders to declare an “energy crisis” and use the associated emergency powers to relax regulations within the industry and increase production levels. Soon after the letter was sent, Poilievre said he agreed with the demands to boost energy production.

Cutting Consultants, Foreign Aid

The Liberals have often accused Poilievre of wanting to implement deep cuts to social programs as he seeks to reduce the deficit. On the campaign trail, the Tory leader said he wouldn’t touch programs such as dental care and pharmacare, which were born of the alliance between the minority Liberals and the NDP during the last session of Parliament.

The Tory platform does not mention cuts in these areas, but a number of Liberal initiatives would be halted in order to reduce government spending. For example, the Tories plan to cancel the Liberal gun buyback program set to impact individuals this spring. They say this would provide $547 million in savings. It is currently unknown how much exactly Ottawa will need to spend to confiscate previously legal firearms that have now been designated as prohibited.

The biggest saving would come from bringing the number of external consultants in the public service back to 2015 levels, the platform suggests.

Conservatives say cutting back on consultants would provide a saving of $23.5 billion over four years.

Another sizeable reduction in government expenditures would come by reducing foreign aid, the party says. Poilievre has often said Canada should not be sending taxpayer dollars to global bureaucracies, “terrorists,” and “dictators.”

During the French-language debate, he reiterated that his government would cut aid to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), the U.N.’s aid agency for Palestinians, given that some of its members were affiliated with the terrorist group Hamas and took part in the Oct. 7, 2023, massacre in Israel. Other party leaders including Carney, the NDP’s Jagmeet Singh, and Bloc Québécois Leader Yves-Francois Blanchet say they would continue funding UNRWA in order to provide essential aid to Palestinians, while Poilievre says he would focus on eliminating Hamas and relying on non-governmental organizations to deliver aid to Palestinians.

Cutting back on foreign aid would provide $9.4 billion in savings over four years, according to the Conservatives’ costed platform.

The Liberal platform has pledged to maintain foreign assistance at $800 million annually.

Some cutbacks would also be done around the housing file, which has been a core issue for Poilievre since the time he began his run for party leader in 2022. The platform says the Tories would bring funding to the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation back to 2015 levels, generating savings of $669 million over four years.

Poilievre also wants to end the Housing Accelerator Fund, a key housing policy of former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. The fund provided money to municipalities for changing local policies to speed up development. This would save $2.6 billion, the party says.

Getting rid of the Low Carbon Economy Fund and the Canada Greener Homes Loans program is also expected to save $1.3 billion over four years, the Conservatives say.

Defunding CBC but Still Supporting Some Media

Poilievre has long promised he would defund the public broadcaster CBC, accusing it of “pro-Liberal” bias.

The costed platform doesn’t say by exactly how much CBC’s budget would be cut. Poilievre’s intention to retain the CBC’s French-language service Radio-Canada across the country is possibly complicating accounting.

In the costed platform, the Tories say that $1 billion per year would be saved from scaling back funding for Crown corporations, including the CBC. The public broadcaster received funding from Ottawa to the tune of $1.38 billion in fiscal 2024–25. It is also funded by ad revenue, which Poilievre says is not fair competition for private media outlets.

The platform says the English-language CBC should be a “Canadian-owned, self-sufficient media organization that is a not-for-profit and supported by listeners, donations, sponsorships, ad revenue, and licensing revenue.”

Carney has made protecting the CBC a key plank of his platform, framing it as a means to defend Canada’s identity against the United States. He said he would provide an initial $150 million funding increase to the public broadcaster’s budget.

Poilievre’s media plan is not related only to the CBC, and it is also framed as a way to protect “our shared Canadian identity.”

The costed platform says $100 million will be spent every year toward “supporting media freedom” over the four-year period, without a full breakdown. Some concrete measures include increasing funding to the Local Journalism Initiative by $25 million for local news, and providing $25 million to support indigenous-language media.

Promises around media seek to “restore free speech, protect personal liberties, honour our shared story, and promote Canadian culture and history.”

Along those lines, the Tories’ platform also promises to introduce a “Freedom of Speech Act” to repeal Liberal laws that it says are censorship laws, and to restore Canadian news content on Meta’s and other platforms. This is likely a reference to the Online News Act (formerly known as Bill C-18), which compels the major social media platforms like Meta and Google to compensate media outlets for displaying links to their news content. Meta has complied by blocking news links for Canadian users on its platforms instead of paying Canadian outlets.

The Conservatives have also opposed the Online Streaming Act (previously known as Bill C-11), which provided the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission more regulatory power over the internet and imposed Canadian content rules on media companies operating on the web.

Another media pledge by the Tories involves ensuring all spending for domestic government advertising goes to Canadian platforms only.