Poilievre, Singh focus on affordability, Carney visits his Ottawa riding

By Canadian Press on March 29, 2025.

OTTAWA — The Conservatives and NDP both promised affordability measures on the campaign trail Saturday, with the NDP focused on capping the price of some food items and Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre offering more tax writeoffs to some trades workers.

As the federal election campaign moved into its seventh day, both NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh and Liberal Leader Mark Carney campaigned in Ottawa. Singh visited a food bank in the city’s Ottawa Centre riding, and Carney stopping by his own campaign office in Nepean for the first time.

Carney is seeking a seat in the suburban Ottawa riding, and met with campaign volunteers and supporters.

Singh promised to introduce emergency price caps on basic food items like pasta, frozen vegetables and infant formula. He is also calling for taxes to be hiked on grocery chain profits, and to boost the sector’s competition regulations.

Singh has been heavily critical of corporate grocers for years, accusing them of raking in profits off the backs of Canadians struggling to feed their families.

Poilievre, the first national party leader to campaign in any of the prairie provinces thus far, is in Winnipeg where he will unveil more details of his promise to help trade workers who must travel more than 120 kilometres from their home to work.

He said a Conservative government would expand the writeoff that trade workers can declare for work travel.

Trades workers can currently claim up to $4,000 in travel expenses for work tasks, which Poilievre would expand to include “the full cost of food, transportation and accommodation.”

The Tories also say they want to end tax writeoffs involving luxury corporate jets, saying that those businesses can instead write off the equivalent cost of commercial flights as well as any required charter flights.

Neither the NDP nor Conservatives said how much the measures they’re proposing today would cost the federal government.

Poilievre is to hold a rally in Winnipeg tonight before returning to Toronto to campaign again on Sunday.

The Conservative campaign has worked hard to stay on message about lowering taxes, being tougher on crime and making life more affordable overall, even as U.S. President Donald Trump’s new tariffs overshadowed much of the first week.

Poilievre has attracted large crowds to rallies in the Greater Toronto Area, British Columbia and Quebec, but has been criticized by some conservatives for failing to pivot to focus on the impact of Trump’s tariffs and Canadian sovereignty.

In January most polls showed the Conservatives were on track to win a large majority government, ahead of the Liberals by more than 25 points. But now the Liberals have the lead in most polls, including in seat-rich Ontario and Quebec.

Carney spent a large chunk of the first week directly addressing Canadians concerns about Trump, adjusting his campaign plan and donning his prime minister’s hat to return to Ottawa to meet with his U.S.-Canada cabinet committee following Trump’s new auto tariff announcement on Wednesday.

Carney also spoke with Trump by phone Friday for the first time. He also made announcements in the last week to aid the auto industry and its workers with a $2 billion fund, and to encourage the construction of nation-building projects like new highways and railways with a $5 billion infrastructure program.

On Saturday, Carney stopped by his candidate’s office in Nepean, greeted by a small but enthusiastic group of campaign workers and volunteers.

“Who is ready to stand up,” he started out saying, before teasing someone who had accidentally knocked over a campaign sign.

“Who is ready to put back the Carney signs,” he joked, drawing laughter.

He thanked them for their support to help get him elected as an MP.

He has faced questions about his decision to run in that seat, which became vacant only after the Liberal party ousted MP Chandra Arya as its candidate three days before the election was called.

The Liberal party has not clearly laid out exactly what Arya did that has prevented him from being a candidate, though Carney says it was a decision that was up to the green-light committee that screens candidates.

Last August, several Liberals criticized Arya for making an unsanctioned trip to India to meet with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, even as Canada said it had evidence that agents of Modi’s government were involved in the murder of a Canadian citizen in British Columbia in 2023.

The Liberal party also barred Arya from running for the party leadership in January, citing various rules violations.

Carney has said that he has been a “resident in the Ottawa area for almost 20 years,” with the exception of when he lived overseas in London, U.K., and that he knows Nepean well.

He does not however live in the riding.

Poilievre’s Carleton riding shares a boundary with Nepean.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 29, 2025.

Dylan Robertson and Catherine Morrison, The Canadian Press