NDP Leader Jack Layton will unveil his party's platform on Sunday, a document he has pledged will be fully costed out and will balance the budget in four years without cuts to services.
Campaigning in Saskatchewan on Saturday, Layton was tight-lipped about specifics, but he promised the document, to be released in Toronto, will be carefully budgeted.
"We are going to cost out and indicate absolutely every step that we will be taking to achieve the balanced budgets and make sure the services are there for Canadians," Layton said.
On the campaign trail, Layton has already announced a number of policy commitments, including bringing back the 2008 corporate tax rate of 19.5 per cent to help pay for other measures of the NDP's plan.
He has also promised to cap credit card rates and fees, hire 1,200 doctors and 6,000 nurses, boost seniors' guaranteed income supplement and gradually double the benefit seniors get from the Canada Pension Plan and the Quebec Pension Plan.
And Layton has called for a defence policy that prioritizes ships over fighter jets, and a crime prevention and community safety program that would cost roughly $250 million. Part of this strategy would include hiring 2,500 more police officers and making gang recruiting illegal. The Conservatives, Liberals and Green Party have already released their election platforms.
The Conservative platform included pledges to eliminate the federal deficit by 2014-15 — a year earlier than forecast in the party's most recent budget. The Tories didn't say exactly how they would find the $11 billion in savings needed to balance the books early, but Leader Stephen Harper said they would find efficiencies through a strategic and operating expense review.
Harper said the Conservatives would also bring in legislation to curb crime and would support families and businesses.
The Liberals focused on families in their platform, laying out five priority areas in an $8-billion, two-year strategy. The plan included support for early childhood education, post-secondary students and people caring for elderly parents or sick relatives. It also included changes to the pension system and a green renovation tax credit.
The Green Party said they would return corporate taxes to 2009 levels and charge $60 per tonne of carbon emissions – but they promised a revenue-neutral "green tax shift" that would cut EI and CPP contributions for both workers and employers.
Harper will be in Quebec on Sunday, stopping at Saint-Hyacinthe for a campaign event in the morning and Chicoutimi for a rally in the afternoon. Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff will take the day off the campaign trail.
Green Party Leader Elizabeth May is scheduled to be in Guelph, Ont., before heading to Hamilton for another "rally for democracy" event to protest the decision by a consortium of broadcasters, including the CBC, to exclude her from the leadership debates.
Jack Layton's comprehension and ability to reason are pathetic.
He has borrowed a "tough on crime" gimmick from the conservatives to buy the
votes of police officers and police want-a-bees by suggesting we need 2500 more?
What really makes Jack Layton the most undeserving unsuitable politician is his
long history of promotion of hatred towards men, in particular, fathers.
Jack Layton was the Sargent at arms of the White Ribbon Campaign, that phony
front for a war on men that promotes Male Gender Apartheid.
Jack Layton also is strongly against that former , now dead, private members
bill for a legal presumption of Equal Parenting. Jack's lobby group is primarily
influenced and controlled by the extreme feminists who see men as sperm donors
and support payers.
If you are a Canadian Father, Jack Layton is a nightmare.
www.OttawaMensCentre.com