{"id":336738,"date":"2021-09-09T07:10:47","date_gmt":"2021-09-09T04:10:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/federal-election-leaders-debate-theres-a-hole-in-your-platform\/"},"modified":"2021-09-09T07:10:47","modified_gmt":"2021-09-09T04:10:47","slug":"federal-election-leaders-debate-theres-a-hole-in-your-platform","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/federal-election-leaders-debate-theres-a-hole-in-your-platform\/","title":{"rendered":"#Federal election leaders debate: There’s a hole in your platform"},"content":{"rendered":"

“#Federal election leaders debate: There’s a hole in your platform<\/strong>”<\/p>\n

\n Justin Ling: O’Toole found himself on the defensive in Wednesday’s leaders debate, pitching things that were nowhere to be found in his five-year spending document\n <\/div>\n
\n Here\u2019s a riddle: Justin Trudeau\u2019s got one. Yves-Francois Blanchet doesn\u2019t need one. Jagmeet Singh\u2019s is coming soon. Annamie Paul won\u2019t have one. And Erin O\u2019Toole\u2019s got a big hole in his.<\/span><\/p>\n

Give up? It\u2019s a costed platform.<\/span><\/p>\n

And at an over-produced, stilted all-leaders French-language debate on Wednesday night, O\u2019Toole found himself pitching things that were nowhere to be found in his five-year spending document, which he released earlier in the day.\u00a0<\/span>What\u2019s more, he found himself taking flack for it.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Liberal leader Justin Trudeau said the Conservative\u2019s spending engagements are proof that O\u2019Toole is \u201cnot delivering on any of the things that Canadians need.\u201d Bloc leader Yves-Fran\u00e7ois Blanchet chided the Conservatives for \u201cdropping your platform two weeks late, and to <\/span>changing it the next day<\/span><\/a>.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

For starters, the Tories\u2019 spending plan pitches an eye-watering set of deficits: A slightly-inflated $168 billion this year, $57 billion next year, $44 billion the year after, $26 billion the year after that, and $25 billion up to 2026. (Those dwarf even the Liberals spending shortfalls, but the Tories make up for that by recalculating the Liberals\u2019 deficits to make them look bigger\u2014which is certainly one way of doing things.)<\/span><\/p>\n

But O\u2019Toole doesn\u2019t seem terribly afraid of spending more, and perhaps he shouldn\u2019t. His platform costing does suggest that the budget will balance itself, thanks to a growing economy\u2014so long as he can get spending under control in the long-term.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cOver the next couple of years, we are spending\u2014to get businesses back on track,\u201d O\u2019Toole told reporters after the debate. \u201cAnd to focus on the health and well-being of Canadians.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The debate heard from one worried businessman, facing a labour shortage that is making business hard for many. O\u2019Toole pitched his plan to reorient spending away from emergency aid\u2014much of which was designed to help people stay at home during the pandemic\u2014and towards support to get businesses hiring again, and paying more. A GST holiday, for example, would dump nearly $2 billion more spending onto this year\u2019s budget.<\/span><\/p>\n

O\u2019Toole promised stable, dedicated, long-term funding by way of no-strings-attached health transfers to the provinces\u2014something that won him accolades from Quebec Premier Francois Legault, who has loomed large over the Quebec campaign thus far. (<\/span>As I wrote about following last week\u2019s debate<\/span>.)<\/span><\/p>\n

Certainly, Progressive Conservatives in Nova Scotia just romped to an upset majority on huge health-care spending\u2014proving that being centre-right on the political spectrum doesn\u2019t preclude being concerned with a collapsing health-care system.<\/span><\/p>\n

But O\u2019Toole may have been hoisted by his own petard on that one: His spending platform reveals that the $60 billion he promised won\u2019t be arriving for some time.<\/span><\/p>\n

If elected, the Conservatives say they will increase the growth rate of health transfers to the provinces to six per cent per year. Yet, look at their spending document: They are proposing about $3.6 billion over five years, which is only about eight per cent higher than what the government will send to the provinces this year.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The Tories have explained that the majority of the $60 billion will be backloaded to the last five years\u2014meaning they\u2019ll need a second mandate to realize that spending. It also means O\u2019Toole is going to have about $10 billion per year in additional costs to address, as he tries to balance the books: Not an easy feat.<\/span><\/p>\n

And it certainly didn\u2019t impress Blanchet. \u201cIt clearly is not what the provinces and Quebec are asking [for],\u201d he said. \u201cThere\u2019s a hole of $28 billion in his proposal, so it\u2019s not something to be accepted.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Trudeau, too, went after the spending engagements. \u201cThe health transfers that Canadians need now are all backloaded to seven, eight years from now,\u201d the Liberal leader said.<\/span><\/p>\n

But it\u2019s a rather surprising line of attack from the Liberal leader seeing as, even if O\u2019Toole\u2019s health increases aren\u2019t as advertised, they are still larger than the Liberal plan. That\u2019s precisely why Legault spurned his one-time political bro, offering a de facto endorsement of the Conservatives.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

But this will put O\u2019Toole on the defense for a crucial time in the campaign. He continues to field attacks from all sides for his plan to rip up signed childcare deals with a majority of the provinces\u2014Blanchet, particularly, went after the Conservative leader for \u201cdisapp<\/a>earing\u201d $6 billion planned to expand access in Quebec\u2019s subsidized system, which Trudeau had promised before the campaign began.<\/span><\/p>\n

Perhaps the smartest of the lot is Singh who plans to unveil his spending engagements on Saturday\u2014after the debates have concluded, and after early voting has already begun. While it may not be the most forthright position, it sure leaves him carefree on the debate stage.<\/span>
\n<\/span><\/p><\/div>\n