This composite image made from five file photos shows, from left to right, Liberal Leader Mark Carney on March 21, 2025; Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre on March 4, 2025; NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh on Jan. 22, 2025; Bloc Québécois Leader Yves-Francois Blanchet on March 5, 2025 and co-Leader of the Green Party Jonathan Pedneault on March 5, 2025. LA PRESSE CANADIENNE/Sean Kilpatrick, Adrian Wyld, Justin Tang The Canadian Press

(Updated) Party leaders focus policy pitches on rent control, addictions treatment

Courtesy Barrie360.com and Canadian Press

By Catherine Morrison, April 6, 2025.

The NDP promised Sunday to protect tenants through a program of national rent control, while the Conservatives focused their campaign trail message on addictions treatment.

NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh said in Halifax in the morning that his party would tie federal housing funding for provinces and municipalities to tenant protection policies like rent control.

The NDP says housing and rent prices in Canada have doubled since 2015 and the average asking rent hit $2,109 per month in January.

The party says it also wants to ban fixed-term leases, “renovictions” and other practices it says are aimed at pushing people out of their homes and driving up rents. The NDP says it would also prohibit the use of artificial intelligence to co-ordinate rent increases.

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre, campaigning in British Columbia, said at a press conference in New Westminster on Sunday that he has a plan to tackle drug addiction in Canada.

Poilievre announced a Conservative plan to fund recovery treatment for 50,000 people facing addiction.

In a video posted to social media Sunday morning, Poilievre said a Conservative government would provide “results-based funding” to treatment centres based on the number of people they help to get sober.

He said higher levels of funding would be provided for the “most difficult” cases, such as those facing long-term homelessness or multiple overdoses. 

Poilievre said funds would be paid out gradually and that third-party validators would confirm the results. To get new treatment programs off the ground, he said upfront dollars would go to recovery centres who could attest to prior successes of getting people off drugs.

The Conservatives say they would set aside $250 million a year for four years to tackle drug addiction.

Poilievre said the Conservatives would fund the programs by making cuts to the federal government’s existing safer supply programs and suing opioid manufacturers.

“We owe it to our fellow citizens who are still struggling with addiction to offer them a real chance to avoid adding to that terrible number of losses we’ve had already,” Poilievre said Sunday.

Later Sunday, Singh is expected to attend the Elbows Up, Canada! rally in Dartmouth, N.S. Singh is also expected in Montreal Sunday evening to appear on Tout le monde en parle, a popular talk showoften used by federal politicians to reach out to voters in Quebec.

Liberal Leader Mark Carney is set to attend an event in Victoria on Sunday night, where he will deliver remarks and be joined by local candidates.

With three weeks remaining until Canadians choose a new government and prime minister, polls indicate the Liberals are leading the Conservatives in voting intentions.

— With files from Maura Forrest in Halifax.

1) Carney, Singh pledge support for CBC to defend sovereignty, fight misinformation

Courtesy Barrie360.com and Canadian Press

By Jim Bronskill, April 4, 2025

Liberal Leader Mark Carney and the NDP’s Jagmeet Singh expressed support Friday for federal spending to ensure a strong national public broadcaster, a notion Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre dismissed as something Canada simply can’t afford.

On the federal election trail, Carney and Singh each said a healthy CBC/Radio-Canada is crucial to protecting the country’s sovereignty in the face of attacks from U.S. President Donald Trump and the general rise of misinformation.

Poilievre has repeatedly spoken of his desire to “defund” the CBC while preserving its French-language services.

During a campaign visit to Montreal, Carney pledged to boost CBC/Radio-Canada’s funding by an initial $150 million and enshrine its funding structure in law so that Parliament would have to approve any changes, while directing the corporation to develop a new strategic plan.

“We will modernize the mandate of our public broadcaster, we will give it the resources it needs to fulfil its renewed mission and ensure that its future is guided by all Canadians and not subject to the whims of a small group of people led by ideology,” Carney said.

“Our plan will safeguard a reliable Canadian public square in a sea of misinformation and disinformation, so we can stay informed and tell our own stories in our own languages.”

Singh, who was also campaigning in Montreal, said it’s important to “invest significantly” in a reliable public broadcaster given the threats from misinformation and disinformation that endanger democracy, as well as Trump’s assaults on Canadian sovereignty.

“CBC, as a public broadcaster, has been a fundamental part of celebrating Canadian culture, celebrating Quebec culture,” Singh said.

Asked about the issue Friday in Trois-Rivières, Que., Poilievre said his approach to the public broadcaster “won’t have an impact on Radio-Canada.”

He then took aim at Carney.

“We can’t go on spending money we don’t have on things we don’t need, or our people are going to end up with even more brutal inflation,” Poilievre said. “I will be cutting waste, bureaucracy, consultants, foreign aid and other unnecessary expenses to reduce taxes, debt and inflation. That’s the choice in this election.”

Carney said Canada’s identity and institutions face foreign interference, and instead of defending them, Poilievre is following Trump’s lead and “taking aim at our institutions like CBC/Radio-Canada.”

He rejected Poilievre’s plan to preserve only the broadcaster’s French-language operations.

“You can’t split this, baby. His attack on CBC is an attack directly on Radio-Canada, and it is an attack on our Canadian identity.”

In Trois-Rivières, Poilievre promised to toughen the penalties for intimate partner violence if his party forms government after the April 28 election.

He pledged to create a new criminal offence of assaulting an intimate partner, and to pass a law to require the strictest possible bail conditions for anyone accused of intimate partner violence.

Singh promised Friday that as prime minister he would close loopholes that allow corporations to put money in offshore accounts, and he took direct aim at Carney’s work for Brookfield Asset Management.

Radio-Canada recently reported that the Liberal leader co-headed a pair of green investment funds worth a combined $25 billion that were headquartered in Bermuda — a country widely viewed as a global tax haven.

An NDP government would make companies provide a “genuine business reason” for having offshore accounts, Singh said.

The party would also end tax agreements with countries like Bermuda, review the tax code to find and close loopholes on corporate taxes and have public, country-by-country financial reporting.

The NDP says Canada loses out on $39 billion annually in unpaid corporate taxes.

Singh said Brookfield avoided $5.3 billion in Canadian taxes between 2021 and 2024, money he says could have gone into funding things like health care and public transit in Canada.

Carney has said the investment funds are structured to avoid paying tax multiple times before ending up in the hands of the beneficiaries, which include Canadian pensioners. “It doesn’t avoid tax,” he told reporters last week.

David Eby, British Columbia’s New Democrat premier, is throwing his support behind Singh.

Eby appeared in a video posted on media alongside Singh, asking voters in B.C. to “re-elect NDP MPs to make sure they’re out there advocating for Canadians every day.”

Eby says in the video that the federal New Democrats warrant the support of voters after helping to deliver better dental care and pharmacare, which gives Canadians access to affordable medications.

— With files from Catherine Morrison, David Baxter, Kyle Duggan and Sarah Ritchie in Ottawa, Alessia Passafiume and Maura Forrest in Montreal and Pierre St-Arnaud in Trois-Rivières, Que.

3) Poilievre promises to ban bail, parole and house arrest for repeat serious offenders

Courtesy Barrie360.com and  Canadian Press

By Anja Karadeglija, April 9, 2025

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre insisted Wednesday that his promised three-strikes law wouldn’t run afoul of the Constitution, after several justice experts said some of his crime policies are likely to get struck down by the courts.

Poilievre was campaigning in Sault Ste. Marie, Ont. where he repeated his promise that a government led by him would make those convicted three times of “serious” offences ineligible for bail, probation, parole or house arrest. Those offenders also would be sentenced to a minimum prison term of 10 years and could get a life sentence.

They could not “be released until they have proven that they are no longer a danger to society,” he said.

“Under my watch, the only way for repeat offenders to obtain their freedom will be through spotless behaviour and clean drug tests during a lengthy minimum prison sentence with earned release, dependent on making real progress in improving their lives, such as learning a trade or upgrading their education.”

Earlier in the campaign, Poilievre promised a law that would ensure life sentences for people convicted of five or more counts of human trafficking, importing or exporting 10 or more illegal firearms, or trafficking fentanyl. He also said repeat offenders would be ineligible for bail.

Some experts have said those measures are unconstitutional and would very likely be struck down by the courts — which is what happened with crime measures passed by the former Conservative government under prime minister Stephen Harper.

Asked Wednesday whether he would invoke the notwithstanding clause to pass his proposed laws, Poilievre argued his proposals are constitutional.

In 2022, a Liberal government bill ended mandatory minimum sentences for all drug convictions and for some firearms and tobacco-related offences. The changes reversed “tough on crime” measures passed under Harper.

That bill came after Canadian courts pushed back against mandatory minimum sentences. In a 2016 decision, the Supreme Court of Canada struck down a number of mandatory minimum penalties in the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act.

The Liberal and NDP leaders are taking their campaigns to Saskatchewan Wednesday as the federal election race nears the halfway mark.

NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh is making an announcement and speaking at the First Nations Summit in Vancouver before heading to Saskatoon for a campaign event.

There are 14 federal ridings in Saskatchewan, which has been a sea of blue in recent federal elections.

Liberal Leader Mark Carney is expected to make an announcement and meet with young supporters and volunteers in Calgary before heading to Saskatoon, where he will deliver remarks.

The full list of federal election candidates in ridings across the country was made available by Elections Canada on Wednesday. Ahead of Monday’s nomination deadline, both the Liberals and Conservatives dropped several candidates over contentious comments.

4) Conservative incumbent John Brassard eyes return in Barrie South–Innisfil

Courtesy Barrie 360

By Newsroom, April 10, 2025

As the federal election campaign gains steam in Barrie South–Innisfil, Conservative candidate and incumbent MP John Brassard is making his pitch to voters with a message focused on economic recovery, energy independence, public safety, and affordability. A seasoned political voice in the region, Brassard is once again going door to door — and he says what he’s hearing isn’t lining up with national polling trends. “It’s a real head-scratcher,” Brassard said in a recent interview. “What we’re hearing at the door is not reflective of what the polls are saying.”

With Prime Minister Justin Trudeau stepping down and a new Liberal leader in place, some early polling has shown a narrowing race. But Brassard remains confident that Canadians — especially in communities like Barrie South–Innisfil — haven’t forgotten what he calls “a decade of economic malaise.”

Brassard criticizes the Liberals for what he describes as radical policies that have weakened Canada’s energy sector and economic standing. He pointed to housing affordability, carbon taxes, and record food bank usage as pressing concerns.

“Young people can’t afford housing or rent, and housing prices have doubled,” Brassard said. “Two million Canadians are using food banks every month — that’s not normal in a country like Canada.”

Brassard also defended Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre’s shift from opposition critic to prime ministerial contender. He praised recent policy announcements, including a plan to create 50,000 addiction treatment spaces across the country. “We have a fentanyl crisis in this country that has killed more people than were killed in the Second World War,” Brassard said. “Everything we’re doing is to address these issues in a positive way.”

On crime, Brassard endorsed the party’s tougher stance, calling for stricter bail conditions and enhanced sentences for violent and organized crime.

“Violent crime has increased threefold since 2015. People want safer communities — and they’re telling me that at the door,” he said.

Brassard also attempted to dispel fears around the Conservative stance on pharmacare, dental care, and pensions — key issues for many voters in the riding. “Pierre has been very, very clear: those who are receiving benefits will maintain those benefits,” Brassard said. “There’s a lot of fear-mongering going on, but we’re not touching CPP, OAS, or GIS.”

Brassard emphasized recent proposals to increase tax-free income thresholds for seniors, allowing them to earn more without penalties.

Barrie–Innisfil has historically leaned Conservative, but with a new national Liberal leader and evolving voter priorities, the race is far from predictable. Brassard says he’s ready to bring local voices to Ottawa once again — and help implement a “Canada-first” agenda. “The official opposition has done its job holding the government accountable,” he said. “Now, we’re ready to lead — and deliver real solutions to the issues facing Canadians every day.”