The NDP promises big spending and tax revenue in Saturday’s campaign, while Jody Wilson-Raybould raises the specter of the SNC-Lavalin affair.

OTTAWA: The day the New Democrats revealed that their campaign promises would lead to massive increases in government costs and revenues, Liberals and Conservatives exchanged shots at the economy from both sides of the GTA, and the specter of the matter. SNC-Lavalin returned to the campaign.

With NDP leader Jagmeet Singh campaigning in Vancouver on Saturday, and just nine days before Election Day on September 20, the New Democrats revealed how their plan to raise taxes on corporations and the wealthy would bring in $ 166,000. millions in federal revenue over the next five years, much more than liberals and conservatives propose.

But the NDP also promises significantly more spending of nearly $ 215 billion on new programs that exceed its expected revenue from its new taxes by $ 48 billion during that time.

Liberals, by comparison, propose roughly $ 78 billion in new spending over the next five years, while Conservatives promise $ 51 billion. And like those two parties, the NDP does not set out to balance the federal budget in the next five years.

Among the most expensive programs the NDP promises to implement are:

$ 38.5 billion to create a universal pharmacy;

$ 18.4 billion to implement a guaranteed basic income for people with disabilities;

$ 17.5 billion in indigenous child welfare;

$ 14 billion to build 500,000 new affordable homes;

$ 11.8 billion for public transportation;

$ 11.1 billion in dental care for people without private insurance.

The NDP is also committed to maintaining the liberal government’s already allocated spending of $ 30 billion for five years to implement $ 10-a-day child care programs across the country.

The federal deficit, however, would be comparable to the projections of the Liberals and Conservatives: the deficit under their plan would reach $ 145 billion this year under the NDP plan, and would decrease to $ 34 billion by 2025-26.

The reason this is possible is because of the new NDP taxes, including the 1 percent tax on wealth in excess of $ 10 million that would generate $ 60.2 billion over the next five years, and the broad application of taxes to capital gains that would generate $ 44.7 billion, according to analyzes conducted by the Parliamentary Budget Officer.

The party would also raise more than $ 9 billion over the next five years by preventing oil and gas companies from accessing resource sector tax breaks.

“The plan has been very clear to Canadians: we are going to invest in you,” Singh said in Vancouver on Saturday afternoon. “And we are not going to put the burden on you. We are going to ask the ultra-rich to pay their fair share. “

Earlier, in a Mississauga backyard, Liberal leader Justin Trudeau made his own broad appeal to progressive voters, positioning his party as the only alternative to Erin O’Toole’s conservatives, whom he accused of favoring economic policies of ” drip “that fall short of what most Canadians need.

Trudeau pointed to child care, where the Conservatives would eliminate the Liberals’ nascent child care programs, worth $ 30 billion over five years with seven provinces on board so far, and replace it with tax credits for parents. The Liberal leader also lashed out at conservatives for climate action, claiming O’Toole would undermine federal efforts to cut emissions.

“The choice in this election is whether we move forward with a progressive vision to support families and build a better economic future for them, or we go back to an approach that failed Canadians time and time again,” Trudeau said.

As Trudeau spoke in Mississauga, O’Toole addressed a lectern in front of a GO station in Whitby and criticized the “uncontrolled spending, loans and debt” of the liberal government. He promised, without promising new money, that a conservative government would prioritize transit projects in the GTA and control inflation by balancing the federal budget within 10 years.

O’Toole also dealt with a question about the upcoming publication of a book from Jody Wilson-Raybould, the former liberal cabinet minister at the center of the 2019 controversy over SNC-Lavalin.

Wilson-Raybould has long claimed that he faced inappropriate pressure from Trudeau and his staff to intervene in a criminal case against the Montreal-based company and offer a settlement to postpone prosecution. The Globe and Mail published an excerpt from Wilson-Raybould’s book on Saturday, in which it portrays Trudeau as “an accomplice or incompetent” and suggests that he wanted her to “lie” to make the controversy go away.

O’Toole said in Whitby that this is “a reminder that Mr. Trudeau will say and do anything to win” and that the Liberal leader has pushed women like Wilson-Raybould and former Whitby MP Celina Caesar-Chavannes out. about politic.

Canadians no longer believe in Justin Trudeau. It ran on ‘sunny roads,’ it promises a different style (and) a different approach to politics, “O’Toole said.

“We saw how he treated Jody Wilson-Raybould, how he put the interests of a corporate entity that puts pressure on a judicial process before doing the right thing.”

Back in Mississauga, Trudeau denied that he ever wanted Wilson-Raybould to lie about the situation, noting how the controversy was studied by parliamentary committees and scrutinized for months in the media. He also characterized his differences with Wilson-Raybould as an “unfortunate” episode in his general quest to improve the lives of Canadians.

“When you do great things, not everything always turns out the way you would like it to,” he said. “And the people who were allies and fellow travelers in a particular fight give different perspectives in different directions. And it is unfortunate. But obviously I don’t spend a lot of time thinking about it. I spend my time focusing on how we are going to continue the hard work of being there for Canadians. “

While most of his comments involved criticism of conservatives, Trudeau also went to the trouble to portray the NDP in a negative light. He reiterated his accusation that NDP leader Jagmeet Singh is being “deeply cynical” by hinting during the campaign that a liberal or conservative government would be equally bad for the country.

“For Canadians, it makes a huge difference,” Trudeau said in French, later accusing the NDP of claiming that liberals have done “nothing” about climate change since 2015.

“I’m sorry, a price for nationwide pollution, over and above the objections of conservative prime ministers to the Supreme Court, is nothing,” Trudeau said.

“It is deeply cynical to try to convince people that others have done and are not doing anything when you can’t do your homework yourself and come up with a credible plan.”

In Vancouver, Singh defended his characterization of liberals as “bad” and conservatives as “worse”, noting in particular the track record of the Trudeau government after six years in power, a period in which annual gas emissions Canada’s greenhouse effect has increased slightly. according to government figures.

Singh also criticized Trudeau for increasing government support for the fossil fuel sector, which has come primarily through the Crown’s independent agency Export Development Canada.

“We shouldn’t be caught in a battle between the bad and the worst,” Singh said. “We are saying that we can do much better.”