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OTTAWA — Canadians continued to head to advance polls on Sunday as federal leaders campaigned in the battleground province of British Columbia and in the capital.
Liberal Leader Mark Carney and NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh published documents on Saturday outlining their full campaign commitments and what they say they’ll cost.
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Read the Liberal’s costed campaign promises here and the NDP’s costed campaign promises here.
You can’t afford a 4th Liberal term of higher taxes, higher spending, and higher inflation.
It’s time for Change with a Conservative government that cuts taxes and caps spending to make your life more affordable.
Vote Conservative. Vote for Change. pic.twitter.com/p5CZBg1Hwa
— Pierre Poilievre (@PierrePoilievre) April 20, 2025
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre kicked the day off at a grocery store in Surrey, B.C., with another announcement on inflation.
Arguing that a reduction in government spending would ease pricing pressures, Poilievre said a Conservative government would cut Ottawa’s annual budget for consultants by $10 billion.
“Inflation is what happens when governments spend money they don’t have, so they just print the cash. More money bidding on a fixed supply of goods equals higher prices for everything,” he said.
Statistics Canada reported Tuesday that the annual rate of inflation cooled slightly to 2.3 per cent nationally in March, while food prices increased 3.2 per cent year over year.
Poilievre also railed against the Liberals’ campaign platform which proposes $129 billion in new spending over the next four years on top of existing commitments.
Carney pitched his platform as an investment in making Canada more self-reliant in response to the trade war with the United States.
It’s time to build a Canada you can afford.
My government will make Canada the world’s leading energy superpower, build homes at a pace not seen since WWII, and train thousands more skilled trades workers.— Mark Carney (@MarkJCarney) April 20, 2025
On Sunday, Poilievre accused Carney of “printing money” during his time as Governor of the Bank of England and blamed him for that country’s recent bout of high inflation.
Carney led the Bank of England from 2013 to 2020 and was responsible for little of that country’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Inflation surged in Canada and the United Kingdom in the pandemic recovery period and peaked in both countries in 2022.
Poilievre did not answer directly Sunday when asked whether he would maintain the national freeze on purchasing or transferring handguns, introduced by the Liberal government in 2022.
He argued handguns on Canadian streets are largely brought in from the United States and said he would crack down on firearm traffickers to address handgun violence.
Owning a registered handgun purchased before the freeze remains legal in Canada, while such guns can be transferred legally only among certain exempted businesses and individuals.
After concluding his announcement and taking four questions from media outlets chosen by his campaign, Poilievre appeared to ignore reporters shouting additional questions — including one about when the Conservatives would release their fully costed election platform.
The Conservatives have said their platform is coming soon.
This weekend I joined over 550,000 people in Surrey to celebrate Vaisakhi.
There was an abundance of love filling the streets as we gathered to celebrate the birth of Khalsa – a commitment to pursue justice and truth.
What an incredible celebration with the Sikh community from… pic.twitter.com/X6CGtaF3ff
— Jagmeet Singh (@theJagmeetSingh) April 20, 2025
Singh was also in British Columbia on Sunday, talking about cost-of-living concerns at the home of a young family in Victoria. He repeated his campaign pledges to cap price for food essentials and to legislate protections against price gouging at the grocery store.
B.C. has become a key battleground in the general election as polls show Liberal and Conservative candidates making inroads in some ridings represented by NDP members of Parliament.
The NDP won 13 of B.C.’s 43 seats in the 2021 federal election, but polls suggest those incumbent New Democrats may be vulnerable this time.
Angus Reid polling released on April 14 projects a virtual two-way tie in B.C., with the Liberals and Conservatives at 42 per cent each, the NDP at 11 per cent and the Greens at just three per cent.
In Metro Vancouver, the Liberals hold the lead with 49 per cent of voter intention, though both the Conservatives and NDP have chipped away at that lead in the latest poll.
The Angus Reid polling was conducted online between April 10-13. Because the poll was conducted online, it can’t be assigned a margin of error.
Angus Reid president Shachi Kurl said B.C. is one of the last federal “strongholds” the NDP has, in part because the party has done so well provincially. Singh himself is running in the B.C. riding of Burnaby Central.
She said some of the B.C. regions where Poilievre has campaigned recently have large populations of Asian or South Asian descent and are places where the Conservative message on law and order is likely to “resonate well.”
With the Liberals polling well in Ontario and Quebec, she said, the Conservatives will need to succeed in B.C. if they hope to form government after April 28.
“For the Conservatives, the path to victory has to be delivered through B.C., and for the NDP, (it’s about) holding on to dignity and/or party status,” Kurl said.
The Liberals can win the election without taking B.C., she added, but the province would amount to “extra insurance” for the incumbent government.
Singh was asked Sunday if he was advocating strategic voting to shore up the party’s support against possible Conservative gains in the region.
“I’m calling for people to vote according to what they care about most. And if they want to stop a Conservative here on Vancouver Island, the best way to do that is to vote for a New Democrat,” he said.
Singh also said Canadians concerned about cuts under a Liberal government should “send a New Democrat to Ottawa” to fight for them.
Carney, who is running for a seat in Nepean outside Ottawa, was set to hold a rally there Sunday afternoon.
Sunday was the second to last day of advance polls, which got off to a record-setting start on Friday.
Elections Canada said nearly two million people turned out to cast a ballot on the first day of advance voting, leading to long lineups at some polling stations.
A spokesperson for the independent agency said polls remained “very busy” on Saturday and workers were making adjustments to reduce lineups.
— by Craig Lord, with files from Brenna Owen in Surrey, B.C.
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