If the Conservatives form government in this election, members of Parliament can expect to be in the House of Commons all summer long as the Tories pass three laws meant to crack down on crime, boost resource production and tackle affordability, Pierre Poilievre said Friday.
“I have some good news and bad news: The good news is Canadians can elect a government that will bring change. The bad news for the politicians is your summer vacation is cancelled,” Poilievre said at a news conference in Saskatoon.
He also pledged that if he becomes prime minister he will waste no time in calling U.S. President Donald Trump.
“We will obviously call President Trump and tell him that the tariffs are destructive and they should be lifted, on Day 1, and a new deal negotiated,” he said.
“But what we will not do is put Canadian taxes, effectively Canadian tariffs, on Canadian industry. That is the exact kind of economic Liberal insanity that got us into this mess over the last 10 years.”
Poilievre attacked Liberal Leader Mark Carney’s plan to keep the industrial carbon price in place, saying his party will end the industrial price.
The Conservative leader said his government will pass three laws in the first 100 days called the affordability for a change act, the safe streets for a change act, and the bring home our jobs for a change act.
Poilievre laid out the main planks of his platform in those three categories on Friday.
The affordability law will “deliver urgent relief to Canadians,” he said. That will $54 billion worth of cuts to “bureaucracy, consultants, foreign aid and other waste” as well as an income-tax cut, Poilievre said.
The Conservatives refer to this as a 15 per cent cut to income tax. What they have proposed is a reduction in the tax rate on the lowest income bracket from 15 per cent to 12.25 per cent -- a drop of 2.25 points -- that their platform said will be phased in over four years. It won’t take full effect until 2028-29.
Earlier in the campaign, when they first announced the income tax cut, Poilievre’s team said it would be fully implemented by 2027-28 and would cost $7 billion in each of the first two years and $14 billion after that. The party’s platform now says it will cost just over $1 billion in the first year, rising to just shy of $14 billion by the fourth year.
“We’ll pass a massive omnibus crime bill that will be the single biggest crackdown on crime in Canadian history,” he said, outlining the tough-on-crime policies he has spoken about throughout the campaign.
When asked whether the change would require more resources for the correctional system, Poilievre said “there are vacancies in a lot of our prisons right now because the soft Liberal laws allow the most rampant offenders to go free.”
Data obtained by The Canadian Press in March 2024 through freedom-of-information laws showed that the majority of provincial correctional facilities in Ontario were well over capacity in 2023.
Maplehurst Correction Complex in Milton, Ont., had an average of 1,188 inmates, putting it at 134 per cent capacity. It’s designed to hold 887 people. Unions representing correctional officers in the provincial system cited issues with inmates double- or triple-bunking in cells.
Poilievre said he isn’t worried about capacity in prisons because of what he called a “revolving door” of people who reoffend, and said his policies will keep those people behind bars.
“We basically have to reserve a room for them now because we know they’re going to be back within a few days,” he said. “It’s like the Hotel California. They check out, but they never really leave.”
The third plank of his 100-day plan includes legislation to repeal Bill C-69, which Poilievre called the “no development law,” and changes to the capital gains tax that would cut the tax on amounts reinvested in Canadian companies.
The Conservative leader’s tour was in Saskatoon on Thursday and Friday as the election campaign enters its final weekend. The party held every riding in Saskatchewan in the last Parliament but polls suggest there are tight races in Saskatoon and Regina this time.
Poilievre was joined by candidates from across Saskatchewan, including former Conservative leader Andrew Scheer, in his first appearance in the province during the campaign at a Thursday rally at a warehouse near Saskatoon’s airport. He was interrupted twice by protesters, including a pair of young men who waved an American flag before being escorted out of the room.
Poilievre also made a stop in Alberta on Friday, where a large crowd crammed into an airplane hangar in northeast Calgary.
The hangar doors were open where the Conservative party jet was parked. Supporters waited impatiently for him to leave the plane.
Poilievre said it was great to be “in my hometown of Calgary,” his first stop in the city during the campaign.
He gave a 35-minute speech where he highlighted the party’s campaign promises, and said it’s essential his party emerge victorious on Monday.
“It’s going to get a lot worse if, God forbid, the Liberals get a fourth term,” he said.
“The only way we’re going to get change is if you vote. Have you all voted yet? We need the biggest voter turnout in Canadian history to deliver the change that Canadians need.”
Poilievre finished off Friday with a rally in front of an estimated 5,000 people in Nanoose Bay, B.C., a seaside community north of Nanaimo on Vancouver Island, where Conservatives are targeting several ridings with New Democratic incumbents, including the riding of Courtenay-Alberni held by incumbent Gord Johns.
Local Conservative candidates joined Poilievre at the rally held inside a multi-purpose arena, where supporters had lined up for hours before hearing Poilievre’s earlier promises to develop Canada’s natural resources by repealing past Liberal policies and pre-approve natural resource projects following environmental review.
“We need boots, not suits,” he said.
Pointing to public safety issues in nearby Nanaimo, Poilievre received some of his biggest applause when he promised to crack down on criminals, reverse existing drug policies, and invest in treatment and recovery.
Poilievre also drew big cheers when he promised to invest in the Canadian military and end so-called “cancel culture.”
Written by Sarah Ritchie in Ottawa, Jack Farrell in Saskatoon, Bill Graveland in Calgary and Wolfgang Depner in Nanoose Bay, B.C.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 25, 2025
