Election 2025: Campaign Roundup - Day 2

Welcome to Day 2 of Canada Minute’s 2025 Campaign Roundup!

With the 2025 Canadian federal election now finally underway, we'll be bringing you daily updates on all the policy proclamations, platform promises, and political point-scoring from the campaign trail.

Campaign Roundup - Day 2:

• Elections Canada estimates the upcoming federal election will cost approximately $570 million, slightly less than in 2021. The agency plans to hire 250,000 workers, expand campus polling stations, and triple the number of polling sites in Indigenous communities. Pandemic-era voting measures like mail-in drop boxes will not be available.
  
  
• Dates have been set for the federal leaders' debates, with a French-language debate on April 16th at 8:00 pm and an English-language debate on April 17th at 7:00 pm. Both debates will be broadcast live from Montreal and streamed online. To participate, leaders must meet two of three criteria: having an elected MP, polling at 4% support, or having candidates in at least 90% of federal ridings. The final list of invited leaders will be announced on April 1st.
  
  
• Another French-language debate, planned on Quebec’s TVA network, was set to feature the four main federal political parties, but has been cancelled after Liberal Leader Mark Carney declined to participate. TVA had required each party to pay $75,000 to help cover production costs. The debate, which has drawn an average of 1.3 million viewers in past campaigns, was a popular feature of previous elections.
  
  
• Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre has pledged a 2.25 percentage point cut to the lowest income tax bracket, reducing it from 15% to 12.75% and saving the average Canadian about $900 per year. He plans to fund the $14 billion annual cost by cutting government bureaucracy, consultants, and foreign aid, while introducing a dollar-for-dollar savings law for new spending.
  
  
• NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh has pledged to use federal Crown land to build over 100,000 rent-controlled homes in the next decade and invest $1 billion over five years to acquire more public land for housing. Singh criticized the lack of progress on a shovel-ready site in Montreal, where no homes have been built since 2021.
  
  
• Maxime Bernier, leader of the People's Party of Canada, launched his campaign in Beauce, the riding he once represented as MP. He described his party as a "real alternative" to federal establishment parties, which he argues are all too similar. Bernier criticized both the Liberals and Conservatives for focusing on electoral campaigns against President Trump rather than addressing Canada's future.
  
  
• Liberal Leader Mark Carney visited Gander, Newfoundland. He reflected on the lost friendship between Canada and the US, citing 9/11 when Gander opened its doors to thousands of stranded American passengers. Carney criticized US President Donald Trump’s actions, which have strained the relationship between the two nations, and emphasized that Canadians are now focused on protecting their own interests and sovereignty.