Good Wednesday morning,

In today’s Politics This Morning:

• Pedneault to launch the Green tax plan in Montreal.

• Poilievre expands his housing promise.

• The Bank of Canada explains its last interest rate decision.

Welcome to day four of the election campaign. Here’s what’s happening, and what you need to know.

Where the leaders are

Liberal Leader MARK CARNEY will be in Southwestern Ontario bright and early today, making stops in Windsor, London, and Kitchener. All events are open to pool media coverage.

Conservative Leader PIERRE POILIEVRE is heading to Quebec today.

This morning, the Conservatives are planning to hold a photo op for the “unveiling” of their campaign plane in Hamilton. Then, it’s off to Quebec City, where Poilievre is holding a rally, and Montmagny, a town about an hour’s drive to the east, where he’ll hold a press conference.

Poilievre’s Conservatives have a Quebec problem on their hands—or, to be more precise, a Bloc Québécois problem in Quebec, similar to their NDP problem everywhere else.

 A pair of polls by Leger illustrates the situation. 

In December, the Conservatives were polling with 26 per cent support in Quebec, while the Bloc Québécois led with 39 per cent support, and the Liberals (under prime minister JUSTIN TRUDEAU) trailed with 20 per cent. 

Earlier this week, Conservative support was within the same ballpark—23 per cent—but Bloc support had cratered to 23 per cent, while the Carney Liberals were riding high at 41 per cent. 

That means that the Liberals are on track to pick up more new seats in Quebec than are the Conservatives. As of yesterday, polling aggregator 338 Canada was projecting that the Liberals were on pace to get 40 seats in Quebec (up from 33 in the last Parliament) while the Conservatives were looking at 13 seats (up from nine) and the Bloc was projected to get just 24 seats (down from 33). 

Those polls and projections could well change significantly by the time voters head to the polls. Or not.

Complicating matters somewhat is the fact that, where it doesn’t win, the Bloc tends to be the top competitor to the Liberals and Conservatives in the Quebec ridings where they have success. 

Team Poilievre’s Quebec organizers have to figure out how to chase voters away from the Liberals and (realistically) toward the Bloc in some parts of the province, while chasing them away from the Bloc and toward the Conservative candidate in others. 

The Conservatives would probably have more to gain than to lose from a Bloc resurgence. The BQ was runner up in eight of the nine ridings won by Conservative candidates in the last election, but it was a very distant runner-up in all but one: Chicoutimi-Le Fjord, where Conservative RICHARD MARTEL bested Bloc candidate JULIE BOUCHARD by 3,195 votes.

The ninth riding, by the way, was Beauce, where People’s Party Leader (and former Conservative) MAXIME BERNIER finished a second to Conservative RICHARD LEHOUX by more than 17,000 votes. 

NDP Leader JAGMEET SINGH will start his day in Hamilton, Ont., where he will make an announcement with local NDP candidate MONIQUE TAYLOR at the Sackville Hill Seniors Recreation Centre. He will also meet with seniors to hear their concerns and hold a campaign event. Singh will end the day at another campaign event in London Centre where he will be joined by local NDP candidates at the NDP’s London Centre campaign office.

Green Party co-leader ELIZABETH MAY will be in her riding, Saanich-Gulf Islands, B.C., campaigning and door-knocking with Green Party supporters.

Pedneault launches Green tax plan in Montreal

Green Party co-Leader JONATHAN PEDNEAULT remains in Outremont, the Montreal riding where he is trying to win a seat. He’s planning to hold a press conference at 10:30 a.m. to announce what the Green Party has described as, “the first in a series of bold proposals aimed at reforming Canada’s taxation system.”

In the news

April 2 starts ‘critical’ election period: The time between the day U.S. tariffs hit Canada in force and election day could cause changes in voter opinion that are hard to predict. ABBAS RANA reports.

Opting out: This year will see the highest number of incumbents not running for re-election in the last 25 years. LAURA RYCKEWAERT has the story.

A week as PM: Mark Carney’s single week as a pre-election prime minister could influence the election outcome, according to political strategists who spoke with STUART BENSON. Check out that story here.

Cutting the PS: KATHRYN MAY explores the possibility of cuts to the public service. Read it here.
One way or another: Benson spoke with journalists about the Conservative Party’s decision to bar reporters from their leader’s tour, and how they will coverage Poilievre’s campaign. You can read that story here.

Election promise tracker: new pledges for military, housing tax, Islanders

Mark Carney announced the outlines of a defence platform yesterday. 

We can’t link to it, because the party had not posted it on its website as of yesterday. The short version is, Carney is promising to:

• Buy new submarines and icebreakers, as already planned by the government. (He didn’t say how many or at what cost.)

• Not cancel existing orders for combat and patrol ships for the Navy.

• “Work with all of Canada’s shipyards to ensure that we are maximizing their capabilities and using Canadian steel and aluminum.” (It’s not clear if “work with” means more subsidies, or something else.) Carney also later posted on social media that “if it’s built by Canadian workers on Canadian docks, it should be made with Canadian steel and aluminum.”

• Give a new mandate to the Coast Guard, expanding its role in security and surveillance. 

• Giving a raise (he didn’t say how big) to Canadian Armed Forces members, and improving access to housing, health care, and child care on military bases.

• Create a “defence capital account” to, essentially, make it easier to spend money allocated for defence procurement. 

• Deliver an “unprecedented acceleration of investment in our Armed Forces” (he didn’t say how much)

• “Modernize” Canada’s procurement-related legislation to help the CAF buy equipment faster (he didn’t say how)

• Buy “dual purpose infrastructure” that benefits both the military and the public—hew cited housing, cybersecurity, and satellite technology as examples.

• Create a military drone-building industry

Pierre Poilievre made some promises of his own yesterday. 

He announced that he would remove the federal sales tax on the sale of all homes selling for less than $1.3-million. This was an expansion of an earlier, pre-campaign promise to take the sales tax off of new homes worth less than $1-million.

MIKE MOFFATT, an economist with a focus on housing policy, reacted to the announcement on social media. He said the higher price threshold would “make it possible” for the rebate to apply in the metro Toronto and Vancouver areas, where prices are often above $1-million. He also wrote that it’s “not a great use of public money” to take the tax off of the purchase of homes that are not a primary residence—using the example of someone building a cottage for themselves, tax free.

The Conservatives also pledged to scrap the $50 toll charged for those leaving Prince Edward Island via the Confederation Bridge. 

Bloc Québécois Leader YVES-FRANÇOIS BLANCHET, meanwhile, issued a press release promising to oppose any west-to-east oil pipeline running through Quebec.  

Poilievre offers to pay Carney debate fee

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre took the opportunity yesterday to needle Mark Carney for walking away from a planned French-language leaders’ debate planned by Quebec broadcaster TVA.

The broadcaster had asked each of the major parties to not only participate in the debate, but also to pay $75,000 apiece to cover the costs. Each of the party leaders agreed, including Carney, at first. He later changed his mind, pointing to the fact that the Green Party hadn’t been invited to participate. 

The Montreal Gazette reported that, “a party source said Monday that there was a reluctance to pay for the debate.”

TVA announced that it was cancelling the debate as a result of Carney’s decision.

At a press conference in Vaughan, Ont., Poilievre offered to pay Carney’s share of the cost for the debate so that he could participate. 

“I’ll even pay Mr. Carney’s fee so that he can show up…and if he is afraid to have the debate, how is he going to have the courage to stand up to Donald Trump?” Poilievre said.

Carney has signalled that he will participate in the English and French-language debates that will be held by the Leaders’ Debates Commission in Montreal next month.

Carney is clearly not as adept in French as Poilievre, NDP Leader JAGMEET SINGH, or Bloc Leader YVES-FRANÇOIS BLANCHET, which no doubt factored into his decision.

What else is happening today?

Over the lunch hour, Assembly of First Nations National Chief CINDY WOODHOUSE NEPINAK will speak about speak about the economy at an event organized by the Canadian Club Toronto at the Royal York Hotel in the city’s centre.

At 1:30 p.m., the Bank of Canada will release a summary of the deliberations that led to its decision to cut the key interest rate from three per cent to 2.75 per cent earlier this month.

The summary may shed some light on how some of Canada’s top economists are grappling with the aggression and unpredictability of Donald Trump’s government, not to mention its apparent willingness to damage the U.S. economy as well as those of other countries. You can read it here.  

This evening, Minister RECHIE VALDEZ will hold a fundraiser for the Liberal Party at a Filipino cultural centre in Mississauga, Ont.

Today’s data

Statistics Canada will release new data this morning on “recent trends in migration flows from the United States to Canada.”

This should shed some light on how many left-leaning Americans are making good on threats to abandon their home country and head north, and perhaps on how many migrants are fleeing north to avoid persecution by the Trump government.

You can find that and other data here beginning at 8:30 a.m.

Beyond the Hill: Updates from the provinces and territories

While the federal election currently dominates national news cycles, the provincial and territorial governments too have had their share of political drama to tackle in recent days. 

Here’s a round up of some of the major regional stories from recent days:

Quebec: The province’s finance minister, ERIC GIRARD, released his budget for 2025-26 yesterday. It estimated the deficit for 2025-26 to be $13.6-billion (2.2 per cent of GDP) after depositing revenues in Quebec’s Generations Fund. The net debt as of March 31 2025, was reported to be 38.7 per cent of the GDP, and was expected to increase until 2027-28 due to some public infrastructure projects. The detailed budget document is available here. 

New Brunswick:  After an audit was launched into high energy bills faced by residents in the winter, Premier SUSAN HOLT said her government is considering what to do next with New Brunswick Power. The steps could include introducing a rate freeze, giving more rebates, or even the taking over of N.B. Power’s debts by the province. CBC News has more on it here.

British Columbia: The province’s safe supply and drugs decriminalization policy resulted in a higher  number of opioid overdose hospitalizations, as per a recent study by researchers. The Canadian Press has reported the story.

Alberta:  Premier DANIELLE SMITH is not cancelling her plans to attend a fundraiser hosted by far-right U.S. influencer BEN SHAPIRO in Florida this week. Days ago, Smith received flak after an audio clip of her interview on right-wing media outlet Breitbart suggested that she tried to convince Trump’s administration to pause tariffs for the time being so Pierre Poileivre can win the federal election.  

Manitoba: Premier WAB KINEW apologized after a CBC News story revealed that he may have breached the province’s conflict-of-interest rules when he took a plane chartered by the Winnipeg Blue Bombers in 2023 and 2024 without disclosing it to the ethics commissioner. Kinew went to the ethics commissioner on Monday to make the disclosures. 

In case you missed it

Poilievre in the soup after CSIS alleged that India boosted support for his leadership bid in 2022

A story by The Globe and Mail yesterday claimed that the Canadian Security Intelligence Service believed Indian agents and their proxies interfered in the Conservative Party’s leadership race in 2022 to support Pierre Poilievre. 

The news put a bit of a dampener on the party’s campaign, which was already coping with the results of some more recent polls showing a surge in the Liberals’ election fortunes. 

CSIS, however, did not have evidence that Poilievre or his inner circle of party members were aware of the alleged attempts by India to meddle in the contest. 

The source told the publication that CSIS could not disclose this information to Poilievre, as he did not have a security clearance. 

The notion of India’s potential support for the Tory leader has alarmed a Sikh organization in Canada. The Indian government was accused by the Canadian government of facilitating the murder of a Sikh activist in B.C. in 2023. 

A spokesperson for World Sikh Organization of Canada, BALPREET SINGH BOPARAI, told Politics This Morning yesterday that they are “very concerned” by the report and disappointed that Poilievre has not sought a security clearance. 

“There is a general sense in the [Sikh] community that the Conservative Party of Canada has tread lightly when it came to holding and being accountable for foreign interference and transnational oppression,” he said. 

The issue of foreign interference and oppression is a key election priority for the Sikhs, he said.

Sean Fraser makes a come back

After announcing that he is not running in the federal election so he can spend some time with his family, the former housing minister has decided to jump back into the game. He will run for the right to represent his riding of Central Nova in Nova Scotia again, competing against Conservative candidate BRYCEN JENKINS— a tradesman and real estate agent—and the NDP’s JESIAH MACDONALD, who is a janitor and public speaker. 

Canada did not feature in U.S. threat assessment for fentanyl crisis

The United States’ director of national intelligence, TULSI GABBARD, released an annual report on security threats to the U.S. yesterday. The report included a section on the drug trade, and Canada—which the Trump government has painted as a fentanyl exporter—wasn’t mentioned a single time. You can read it for yourself here.

Boilermakers’ union endorses Poilievre 

The International Brotherhood of Boilermakers issued a statement on March 24 in support of Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre, calling him the “man best equipped to support all of us.” The letter can be found at this link.

Janice Hamilton wins this week’s book, Just Around the Corner 

JANICE HAMILTON is this week’s book winner and wins a copy of Just Around the Corner, by former Liberal MP YVONNE RUMBOLT-JONES, and published by Breakwater Books. 

Hamilton’s name was drawn after she correctly answered that Jones was first elected in the House in a byelection on May 13, 2013. 

Thanks very much to everyone else who took part and who also answered correctly: GRIFFYN G. CHEZENKO, NATHAN NASH, NORMAN WAISEMAN, LORIN MACDONALD, NICHOLAS LEBEL, and TANYA HORNUNG. Keep an eye out for next week’s book contest. Cheers.

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