Economic policies quickly becoming a key focus in the federal election
Posted August 27, 2015 12:31 pm.
Last Updated August 27, 2015 12:32 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
TORONTO (NEWS 1130) – With a technical recession looming, all three major party leaders continue their war of words over each other’s fiscal plans.
The Liberals made one of the bigger promises on the federal campaign trail today, but they’re also taking some heat.
Liberal leader Justin Trudeau promises to nearly double the 10-year infrastructure investment from the Conservatives, to make it $125 billion.
He says he’s being honest with Canadians — he will have to run three years of deficits for the investment to grow the economy. “That growth will eliminate the Harper deficit and we will balance the budget in 2019.”
But Conservative leader Stephen Harper doesn’t buy it, saying deficits aren’t needed when we have modest growth. “[Trudeau] said the budget will balance itself. He has no idea what he is talking about when it comes to these things.”
Harper dismissed a poll suggesting his re-election would be negative to the economy.
The NDP’s Thomas Mulcair says he will have balanced budgets, but when asked what has to be cut to achieve that, he gave only a few vague examples of how his spending will be different than the Conservatives.
“[Harper] subsidized oil companies to the tunes of billions of dollars while he’s been in power. We won’t do that. He’s spent a billion dollars fighting First Nations. We won’t do that.”
