Poilievre calls on Carney to keep federal deficit under $42B in coming budget

OTTAWA — Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre is demanding that Prime Minister Mark Carney cut taxes and keep the federal deficit under $42 billion in the coming budget.

It seems clear the latter will not happen: Carney has already signalled the deficit will be higher than the Trudeau government’s last estimates unveiled almost a year ago.

Interim parliamentary budget officer Jason Jacques predicted last month the deficit will rise to nearly $70 billion for this fiscal year.

In a letter to the prime minister, Poilievre said Canada has become “a country of empty bank accounts, empty fridges and empty stomachs.”

He once again encouraged the Liberals to “feel free to steal our ideas — in action, not just talk.”

Poilievre said the Conservatives want to see cuts to income taxes, capital gains taxes, the industrial carbon tax and homebuilding taxes.

He also called for an end to what he calls “the inflation tax” and the federal fuel standard, something the government has touted as one of Canada’s most important emission-reduction policies.

“You have kept almost all of Justin Trudeau’s economic policies,” Poilievre wrote in the letter, dated Monday. “Now you are repeating his promises. You claim that big deficits are investments. That is exactly the alchemy Trudeau promised: that deficits would spark investment and growth.”

Carney has pledged billions of dollars in new defence spending to reach NATO’s target of two per cent of gross domestic product this fiscal year, while promising to “spend less so we can invest more.”

Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne is set to table the federal budget Nov. 4.

The minority Liberal government is three votes shy of being able to pass legislation on its own and will therefore need either the support or abstention of members of other parties on its first budget.

The budget is a confidence matter, meaning the Carney government could fall if it loses the vote, potentially triggering a general election.

The pre-budget manoeuvring sets the tone for several tense weeks in the House of Commons as the vote inches closer.

In the spring, the Conservatives supported the Liberals in speeding the passage of the marquee One Canadian Economy Act, which grants the federal government the power to fast-track approvals for projects it deems to be in the national interest.

Poilievre has said his party will co-operate on ideas it agrees with while proposing solutions of its own.

The Bloc Québécois, which has 22 seats in the House, recently laid out a list of its demands for the government.

It said six of those 18 were “essential” to gaining Bloc support on the budget vote, including payment of $814 million to Quebecers to account for the carbon rebate that was given to people in provinces where the federal carbon price was in place.

Consumers in provinces that paid the federal carbon price received advance rebates every three months to offset the cost. When the Carney government cancelled the consumer levy last spring, it paid out one final rebate for a three-month period when consumers were no longer paying the levy. Quebec and British Columbia had their own carbon pricing systems and were not part of the rebate program.

The Bloc also called for an increase in Old Age Security payments for seniors under age 75, higher health transfer payments to the provinces and creation of a new infrastructure transfer, an interest-free loan program for first-time homebuyers and money for social housing.

Interim NDP leader Don Davies met Carney early this month to discuss the budget. When he spoke with reporters after that meeting, Davies was short on specifics about what his seven-member caucus wants to see in the spending plan.

He said he told the prime minister that New Democrats will not support an austerity budget — though that is a word Carney himself has used to describe it — and they want increased spending on health care, affordable non-market housing and projects that create unionized jobs.

Davies also told reporters he doesn’t think Canadians want an election right now.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 20, 2025.

Sarah Ritchie, The Canadian Press