Liberal and Tory Campaign Promises: Small Similarities and Big Differences

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre (L) and Liberal Leader Mark Carney talk following the French-language federal leaders' debate at Maison de Radio-Canada in Montreal on April 16, 2025. Christopher Katsarov/POOL/AFP via Getty Images

News Analysis

The election campaign is nearing its end and Canadians have heard many promises from party leaders, with some appearing to be quite similar and others setting themselves completely apart.

While a lot of minds have already been made up about this election, with record turnout for advance polling, some are still undecided and might play a key role in tipping the balance on voting day April 28.

Liberal Leader Mark Carney and Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre are in a tight race, with most polls currently giving the advantage to Carney.

The Liberals’ key message has been focused around the impact U.S. President Donald Trump and his tariffs are having on Canada and on how to respond, saying the country faces its “biggest crisis in our lifetimes.” Meanwhile, the Conservatives’ key message has been to change course after 10 years of Liberal rule marked by flailing prosperity and higher crime.

The key message has been different, but both parties have made similar pledges around issues like speeding up major projects, building more homes, and spending more on defence.

On other issues, which perhaps don’t move the needle as much among the general public but can still be considered areas of importance for some voters, Liberals and Tories have taken completely different approaches. Such areas include energy, gun control and firearms rights, culture, and foreign aid.

Taxes

Some promises and policies on taxes have been similar among both parties, and it’s fair to say that Conservatives were the first to advocate for them. Much has already been written about Carney setting the consumer carbon tax to zero immediately after he took office, after months of Tory calls and House of Commons motions to “axe the tax.”

Carney cancelling the hike in the capital gains tax was also something Conservatives had advocated for.

The Liberals’ promise to remove the GST on the purchase of new homes was also a policy Poilievre had presented months earlier. What has differed in the campaign is the maximum home price the rebate would apply to. Liberals have said it would apply to homes up to $1 million, whereas Tories said it would apply up to $1.3 million.

Both parties have also pledged to reduce federal income taxes for the lowest tax bracket. In this case, however, Liberals were first out of the gate, but only by a day. Carney promised a 1 percent tax reduction on March 23, and Poilievre promised a 2.25 percent reduction on March 24.

Both parties have released the impact these pledges would have on federal revenues in their costed platforms. Conservatives said the measure would cost $30.2 billion over four years, while Liberals said it would cost $22 billion.

While there are similarities on tax measures, Conservatives go further in promising to reduce the tax burden. They say they will remove the Underused Housing Tax, an annual 1 percent tax on the ownership of vacant or underused housing. They have also promised to let seniors earn up to $34,000 tax-free, an increase of $10,000. The tax on alcohol would be brought back down to 2017 levels.

Poilievre has also promised to get rid of the carbon tax applied to industry, whereas Carney said he would modify the carbon pricing scheme to make “big polluters pay” to compensate for the emissions reduction loss caused by removing the consumer carbon tax.

Housing

Housing has become a major issue in Canada, with affordability becoming increasingly out of reach, and Poilievre had been tapping into the burgeoning frustration among Canadians on housing since he launched his leadership campaign in 2022. Carney, for his part, said he left the world of corporate boards and entered politics to deal with the cost-of-living crisis.

Both leaders have made ambitious pledges to build the housing stock. Poilievre has promised to build 2.3 million homes in five years, whereas Carney said his housing plan would build 500,000 homes a year over the next decade.

Removing red tape to build homes faster is a proposal featured in both party platforms. Liberals have pledged to cut municipal development charges in half for multi-unit residential housing, and said they would work with provinces to compensate for lost revenue. The Tories have pledged to incentivize municipalities to reduce development charges by reimbursing 50 percent of every dollar of relief offered up to $50,000.

If there are similarities around these measures and removing the GST on new homes, there are also stark contrasts.

The Liberals are pledging to get the federal government involved in home building, a feature more common in socialized economies. Tories meanwhile have vowed to cut down bureaucracy and would do so in part by reducing funding to the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation back to 2015 levels, a savings they say would amount to $669 million over four years.

Infrastructure and Energy

Building Canada’s economy with large infrastructure projects has become a key theme for Carney and Poilievre as they seek to position themselves as the best leader to withstand a changing relationship and pressure from the United States.

Both have promised to boost cross-country trade, find new export markets, and speed up the construction of major projects to generate wealth.

Liberals want to create a process where the federal government would take two years instead of five to render a decision on whether a project can go ahead. Conservatives want to create pre-permitted zones ready for development, although a time frame to establish the zones has not been detailed.

On one specific project, the development of the Ontario region rich in critical minerals known as the Ring of Fire, Poilievre has pledged to issue permits within six months. The project has been under assessment by Ottawa for years, with the Impact Assessment Agency saying in January it has finalized the terms of reference with First Nation partners to begin a regional assessment. This regional assessment had first been announced in 2020.

Poilievre said he would repeal the law which enacted this assessment process, Bill C-69, saying it was responsible for blocking projects such as the building of new pipelines. He says without striking down this law, major projects won’t go forward.

Carney has not pledged to repeal C-69 but says his “one window” approval process will speed up the approval of “large-scale, national-interest infrastructure projects.” He said his government will also sign agreements with provinces and First Nations governments to recognize impact assessments made by provinces and indigenous bodies.

A key difference between Carney and Poilievre on infrastructure, other than pledges on C-69, is the degree of commitment to build new pipelines. Poilievre says they’re a necessity to get Western oil to Eastern Canada and new markets, in order to reduce dependency on the United States and other sources of foreign oil.

Carney has been less clear on the need for new pipelines, with some of his latest comments suggesting he does not view them as a priority.

“We have to choose a few projects, a few big projects, not necessarily pipelines, but maybe pipelines, we'll see,” Carney said during an appearance on a Radio-Canada talk show on April 13.

Carney has instead pledged to build an east-west electricity grid to “enhance connectivity to low-emissions electricity needed for industry and the broader economy to reach net-zero emissions.”

Defence

When it comes to promises around defence, there are many similarities as both parties say they want to rebuild the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF).

Poilievre and Carney have pledged to meet the NATO defence spending commitment of 2 percent of GDP. The Conservatives have said they plan to meet this goal by 2030, while the Liberals say their investments will put Canada on track to “exceed our NATO defence spending target before 2030.”

Poilievre had previously said in July 2024 that he would not commit to meeting the 2 percent goal because his government would be inheriting a “dumpster fire” of a budget.

Commitments around what equipment to buy are also similar. Conservatives have said they will acquire two new heavy icebreakers for the Royal Canadian Navy and two new submarines to replace the ageing Victoria-class fleet, while the Liberals say they would also acquire new submarines and heavy icebreakers.

Strengthening the military’s presence in Canada’s far north is also a priority for both parties, but they would go about it differently. Poilievre’s Conservatives plan to build Canada’s first permanent Arctic military base since the Cold War in Iqaluit, build a new Arctic naval base in Churchill, Man., and double the number of Arctic rangers from 2,000 to 4,000.

Carney’s Liberals, meanwhile, would sign a new Canada-Europe Arctic security cooperation agreement, work with Australia to develop early warning radar coverage in the far north, and invest in new ports, railways, and airports that have “dual-use capabilities.” Before the election campaign, Carney also announced $420 million to expand Canada’s Arctic operations through more troop deployments and training exercises in the region.

With the Canadian Armed Forces also facing a recruitment and retention crisis, both parties have vowed to reverse it. The Tories say they would increase the regular force to 71,500 and the reserve force to 30,000, the military’s authorized force strength, within 18 months. The Liberals’ promise on this front is less definitive, calling for the recruitment process to be streamlined and modernized to allow more Canadians to join the military.

Liberals and Conservatives agree on the need to rebuild the military, but on the aspect of military culture they are not on the same page. The CAF has adopted under the Liberal government postmodern ideologies such as critical race theory, which defines races as oppressor and oppressed, to reshape its culture.

Poilievre said he would roll this back by promoting a “warrior culture, not a woke culture.”

The Tories’ costed platform has elements to boost the military and its traditions, such as pledges to erect national monuments to honour military veterans who served in World War II and Afghanistan, and funding for Canadian documentaries about Canadians’ contributions to the World Wars. It also aims to restore Canadian “monuments and heroes” like Terry Fox and Vimy Ridge to passports, as they were taken out in the last update in 2023.

Culture

In addition to military culture reform, there are several other cultural issues the two parties diverge on.

The Tories’ platform says the party would “put an end to the imposition of the Woke ideology” in the federal public service, as well as for its allocation of federal funds for university research.

The Liberal Party platform takes a different approach and uses postmodern concepts. It says the party will review policies and programs using an “intersectional lens” while updating the government’s Gender-Based Analysis Plus framework to ensure it “reflects the identities and values of all Canadians.” The concept of intersectionality involves evaluating how combined traits in an individual, such as race and gender, create an overarching and separate ground for discrimination or oppression.

The two parties also differ on women’s issues. While both have strategies to prevent gender-based violence, the Liberals go further by vowing to establish a new in-vitro fertilization program, investing in research into postpartum maternal health, and increasing support for the Women’s Economic and Leadership Opportunities Fund. The Conservatives say they would protect women’s safety by repealing Commissioner’s Directive 100, which allows male offenders to be housed in women’s prisons.

However, on the issue of abortion, the Liberals and the Conservatives are similar. The Liberals would make the Sexual and Reproductive Health Fund Program permanent so that there will “always be funding for abortion care in Canada.” While the Conservatives’ platform does not go quite that far, the party pledges it will maintain its two-decade-old policy that it will not pass any laws or regulations restricting abortion.

On the issue of the CBC, Poilievre has long promised he would “defund” the public broadcaster. The Tory leader has, however, said CBC’s French-language service Radio-Canada would be kept.

The Conservatives’ costed platform does not say how much of CBC’s estimated $1.4 billion a year budget would be cut, but says $1 billion a year would be saved by reducing funding for Crown corporations, including the CBC.

Instead, the Conservatives would spend $100 million annually on “supporting media freedom.” Some of these measures include giving $25 million for local news through the Local Journalism Initiative, and providing $25 million to support indigenous-language media.

The Liberals have said that not only would they give a $150 million boost in annual funding to the CBC, but they would introduce legislation to establish statutory funding for the public broadcaster. They argue that this funding should not be at the “whims of government” and should be protected at a rate that is in line with other nations’ public broadcasters.

Guns and Public Safety

On the hot-button issue of firearms, Carney and Poilievre have slim overlap in policy. Both identified the need to stop illegal guns coming into Canada from the United States, which are typically used by individuals involved in gangs and criminality.

Carney has promised more resources for the border agency to stop gun smuggling, such as 1,000 more agents, new scanners, and additional K-9 teams. Poilievre has also pledged to hire at least 2,000 new border officers and to deploy more scanners to detect illegal guns.

The two leaders have also pledged to strengthen the Criminal Code in some capacity to further prevent violent offenders from having access to firearms.

That’s about where firearms policy similarities between Carney and Poilievre stop, diverging in markedly different directions.

Carney plans to continue to implement the Liberals’ gun buyback program, which is set to impact individuals this spring after having been first applied to businesses. Liberals say the ban targets weapons that have been made for war or are of an “assault style.”

Thousands of firearms once considered restricted and non-restricted, which Ottawa started to designate as prohibited since 2020, will have to be turned in to authorities for confiscation. This includes essentially every firearm that can fire in semi-automatic mode which is not a shotgun, a small .22 calibre, or an SKS model. The latter has been spared for now by the Liberal government because it is widely used for hunting by indigenous people.

Conservatives have pledged to scrap the gun buyback, which they say will save $547 million over two years. They say law-abiding Canadian gun owners are not the problem and the Liberals’ gun measures don’t address illegal gun crime.

The Tories also want to clear the firearms licensing backlog, “so that hunters and sport shooters can enjoy their lawful pastimes sooner.” Liberals have pledged to toughen the oversight of firearms licensing.

On other public safety issues, such as reforming bail laws that allow accused individuals to be back on the street promptly after their arrest, both Carney and Poilievre have promised some change.

The Liberals want stricter bail laws for violent and organized crime, home invasion, car theft, and human trafficking, especially for repeat offenders. Carney said he would establish a “reverse onus” for these crimes.

Poilievre would go a step further by repealing Bill C-75, which instructs judges to release individuals charged with certain crimes as quickly as possible and on the least onerous conditions.

Both leaders’ platforms also pledge to impose tougher sentences for certain crimes. The Liberals want to target repeat offenders of car theft and violent and organized crime, allowing for consecutive sentences.

Poilievre has gone further, saying he would use the notwithstanding clause to impose consecutive life sentences for multiple-murderers. The use of consecutive life sentences was struck down by the Supreme Court in 2022, saying it breached the Charter right of protection against cruel and unusual punishment.

The Tories have also pledged a “three strikes, you’re out” rule for repeat offenders, who would face a minimum 10-year jail sentence without access to bail or parole. They have also promised life sentences for mass traffickers of people, guns, and fentanyl.

Foreign Aid

Foreign aid is an area where the potential crossover between Liberals and Conservatives lies in the Ukraine file, but only on support for the country is including in the foreign aid category. Both parties said they are committed to supporting Ukraine and to send it seized Russian assets.

This is where similarities end. Cutting foreign aid is a key element of the Tory platform to reduce the deficit. It says scaling back on money sent to “dictators, terrorists and global bureaucracies” would help save $9.4 billion over four years.

Poilievre clarified this position during the French-language debate, noting when he says Canada is funding terrorists he means entities like UNRWA, the United Nations agency to help Palestinians. The organization came under controversy after some of its employees were found to be Hamas members who participated in the Oct. 7, 2023, massacre in Israel.

Canada had paused its funding to UNRWA after news of the Hamas members broke, but later unfroze a $25 million infusion part of a $100 million pledge made in 2023.

Carney said he would keep funding the UN agency. His platform also calls for maintaining international humanitarian assistance to a minimum of $800 million per year. This is part of protecting Canada’s “proud tradition of supporting the poorest and most vulnerable in times of crisis,” says the platform.