With the rising cost of living at the forefront of many voters’ minds, party leaders are making affordability measures central to their campaigns.
To understand what the major federal parties have promised ahead of election day on April 28, CTV’s Your Morning spoke to Moshe Lander, a senior lecturer in economics at Concordia University in Montreal.
You can also learn more about the major federal parties’ affordability measures by reading CTVNews.ca’s Party Platform Tracker. The Liberals, Conservatives and NDP have all said they plan to run deficits to deliver their campaign promises.
Liberal proposals include ‘a little bit’ for everybody
The Liberal platform features several affordability measures. They include cutting the lowest income tax bracket by one per cent; ending the six-month employment insurance wait period for severance packages; and increasing the Guaranteed Income Supplement (GIS) for seniors by five per cent for one year.
While such measures are likely not enough to solve cost-of-living issues, Lander says the Liberals are trying to target key demographics with financial relief.
“There’s a little bit in there for everybody: the one per cent tax cut is for working people, the EI is for unemployed people and the GIS is for retired people,” Lander said. “I don’t think that their plan is missing anything fundamentally other than how they’re going to bring that spending under control over the medium to long-term.”
Conservatives promise ‘more aggressive’ tax cuts
Conservative affordability measures include cutting the lowest income tax bracket by 2.25 per cent; allowing trades workers to write off travelling expenses like food, accommodation and transportation costs; and increasing tax-free earnings for working seniors by $10,000.
Lander notes that these tax cuts are “a little more aggressive” than what the Liberals are proposing.
“Notice that there’s nothing in there for unemployed people,” Lander added. “It’s merely a matter of trying to put more money in people’s pockets – but that’s a traditional Conservative way of doing things, which is you control your own spending, don’t look to us to do it.”
NDP focus on ‘lower-income Canadians’
Affordability measures from the New Democratic Party include increasing the tax-free earnings threshold by several thousand dollars to $19,500; ending the GST on essentials like energy, internet bills and prepared foods; and doubling the Canada Disability Benefit from the current annual maximum of $2,400.
Lander says while increasing the tax-free earnings threshold would benefit all Canadians, the NDP are mostly focusing on one demographic.
“They’re clearly targeting lower-income Canadians,” Lander said. “They’re trying to offer that GST exemption, which is actually bad economics but probably good politics – nobody likes the GST other than economists.”
