Liberal leadership contenders are campaigning hard on policies they say make them the best pick to guide the party’s future.

The four candidates will turn these policy outlines into sales pitches during back-to-back debates this week, with the French-language debate up first on Feb. 24, and the English debate on Feb. 25.

Mark Carney:

• Proposes cancelling the consumer carbon tax and replacing it with a system to make big polluters pay for their emissions, invest in energy efficient buildings, reward people for greener choices, amongst other things. 
• Would introduce a new framework that balances the government’s operating budget in the next three years. 
• Plans to “get Canada back on track,” which includes putting a cap on immigration until it returns to pre-pandemic levels.
• Endorses the use of artificial intelligence across government, and for delivering government services. 
• Says he would cancel the increase to the capital gains tax.

• Pitches long-term measures like building millions of new homes, expanding infrastructure to support new trade corridors, and furthering both conventional and clean energy systems. 
• Pledges to achieve the NATO spending target of two per cent of GDP by 2030. 
• Promotes modular housing as a solution to the housing crisis.
• Supports dollar-for-dollar retaliatory tariffs by Canada in response to U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariffs, and roots for diversifying trade with other partners. 

Chrystia Freeland:

• Pitches cutting the income tax for middle-class earners, removing the GST on new homes for young people, capping interest rates on credit cards at 15 per cent, and creating 100,000 more $10/day child care spaces. 
• Proposes dollar-to-dollar retaliatory tariffs against America, convening a meeting with other countries impacted by Trump’s tariffs to present a co-ordinated response, and banning U.S. firms from federal procurement contracts with some exceptions. 
• Targets 2027 as the year to meet the two-per-cent NATO defence spend by hiring more members in the Canadian Armed Forces and increasing their wages by 50 per cent, among other things. 

• Says she would tie the number of new immigrants coming in to housing availability, cut municipal development charges to lower housing costs, build more affordable housing, and create modular housing factories. 
• Offers to bring back Canadian doctors and nurses from the U.S. by giving them a retention bonus, taking over their student loans, and shortening the process to recognize their foreign credentials to one month. 
• Proposes scrapping the consumer carbon tax, and holding public consultations to chalk out an alternative. 

Karina Gould:

• Suggests she would make the GST break on children’s clothing, diapers, strollers, and car seats permanent, and would cut the GST rate overall to four per cent for one year.
• Promises raising the corporate tax rate by two per cent on profits over $500-million, and increasing the competition bureau’s powers against anti-competitive behaviours. 
• Says she would pause the increase to the consumer carbon tax, and make polluters pay more. 

• In response to Trump’s tariffs, she claims she would deploy a Team Canada “charm offensive”, put up ads targeting Americans about the impact of tariffs, remove internal trade barriers, and diversify trade relations. 
• Plans to tackle the housing crisis that includes expanding support for first-time home buyers, partnering with municipalities to streamline zoning, and giving incentives to attract people to trades. 
• For businesses, offeres extending the government-backed loan guarantees, creating a fund to set up new businesses in AI, Green tech and biotech, among other things. 

Frank Baylis:

• Promises government reforms by imposing term limits on MPs and Senators, giving the House Speaker the power to decide who would speak next instead of the parties, and launching a secondary debate chamber to help pass more legislation.
• Suggests that Canada should recognize the Palestinian State, and invest in rebuilding efforts in Gaza. 
• Announced an “Energy Security Plan” that he claims would establish two new pipeline corridors to transport Natural Gas to markets in Europe and Asia, investing in small modular reactors to generate more nuclear energy, and upgrading interprovincial transmission grids to protect them from extreme weather events. 

• Says he would replace the carbon pricing system with another “polluter pays” model, give incentives for capital investments in energy efficiency by businesses and a higher credit for home renovations, and ramp up green technologies.
• Presented a “health care roadmap” to create new centres for treating non-urgent chronic conditions, expand support for home care, and allow doctors and nurses to use AI tools for report-writing to cut time spent on paperwork, among other things.
• Launched an “economic prosperity agenda” under which he pledges to increase funding for universities, invest in social housing and rail projects, and create a fund out of earnings from oil, gas and critical minerals. This link has more on that. 
• Points to his business background as making him the best choice to go up against American trade negotiations.

The Hill Times

A version of this story first appeared in Politics This Morning, your go-to source for insider news, analysis, and updates on where the key political players are that day. Get more insider coverage directly to your inbox from The Hill Times‘ editor Peter Mazereeuw and reporter Riddhi Kachhela in this subscriber-only daily newsletter. Sign up here.

 

Riddhi Kachhela is a news reporter covering all things politics for The Hill Times' daily subscriber newsletter, Politics This Morning. She studied journalism at Goldsmiths University of London, U.K., and worked as a reporter for local papers in London before moving to Canada. She has also previously dabbled in screenwriting and film production, and is a qualified chartered accountant. See all stories BY RIDDHI KACHHELA