Pierre Poilievre’s Conservatives are promising $34-billion in new spending and $75-billion in tax cuts over the next four years.

They would help fund these expenditures with $56-billion in spending reductions over the same period, the Conservatives say. More than 40 per cent of these savings, the party says, would come from one measure: cutting the use of government consultants. They say that would save $23-billion over four years.

The party’s 2025 election platform, released Tuesday, also shows the Conservatives are betting that economic growth from their policies will generate significant tax revenue for the government.

They estimate by 2028-29 this would be more than $21-billion annually. These predictions come despite the fact that Canada is in the midst of a damaging trade war with the United States.

“This is my plan for change,” Mr. Poilievre said Tuesday, as rows of supporters lined up behind him at an event space in Vaughan, Ont.

Spending cuts include ending funding for English-language Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, while preserving funding for the French-language Radio-Canada. They would also cut foreign aid, starting at $1.3-billion in cuts in the 2025-26 fiscal year and rising to $2.8-billion in cuts by 2028-29.

Mr. Poilievre pledged to be a prudent steward of government finances, in contrast to what he said was a reckless Liberal government.

“Whenever I spend money, I will think of it as my mother’s money – a retired teacher,” he said.

“If she would not be happy with it coming out of her retirement funds, then I should not be happy spending it.”

Conservative platform aims to sharply reduce government spending on AI

The Conservatives have not committed to balancing the budget in the next four years. By the fourth year, or the 2028-2029 fiscal, the projected deficit according to their platform would be $14.1-billion.

The Conservatives are also promising to “never hike taxes” while in power unless a referendum allows.

They are promising a “Taxpayer Protection Act to ban new or higher federal taxes without asking taxpayers first in a referendum.” Such legislation could be overturned, however, by a future government.

On defence spending, Mr. Poilievre is promising to hike military expenditures to the equivalent of 2 per cent of GDP by 2030. It’s the same timeline being pledged by Liberal Leader Mark Carney. Also, like the Liberals, the Conservatives are promising a new system for more efficient military procurement.

Where the Liberals have promised a standalone agency, the Conservatives are pledging a secretariat within the Privy Council Office, the part of government that supports the Prime Minister’s Office.

Mr. Poilievre would build three northern Canadian bases including in Iqaluit, Churchill and Inuvik. He would commit to completing a 600-kilometre, all-season road from Yellowknife to Grays Bay, an ocean port on the Arctic coast that is adjacent to the Northwest Passage. This project is already in development. Like the Liberals, the Conservatives are also promising more heavy-duty icebreakers and new submarines.

On immigration, the Conservatives are not committing to a specific intake number but say they would “keep the rate of population growth below the rate of housing growth, job growth, and health care accessibility to ensure sustainable immigration levels that are fair for Canadians and newcomers alike.”

Liberal Leader Mark Carney dismissed the Conservative platform, saying it focuses on spending cuts rather than a clear plan to address U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariffs.

He also said the Conservative platform relies on “phantom” numbers that irresponsibly assume the plan will generate billions in new tax revenue through stronger growth even as Canada is in the midst of an economic crisis.

Mr. Carney said that if the Liberals had used a similar approach and booked revenue from the expected impact of the platform’s investments and tax cuts, the party’s platform could have shown a balanced budget within five years.

“I can show you a fiscal surplus, and in fact, I can make a pretty good argument that the strategy that’s driving enormous private investment - directly private investment - is going to help deliver that growth. But unlike Pierre Poilievre, I’ve actually managed economies before. I’ve actually managed budgets before. I’ve managed central banks before. So you don’t make those assumptions,” said Mr. Carney, during a campaign stop in Trois-Rivières, Que. “But it’s realistic to expect that if we are given the mandate and we execute on this plan, which we will, if it’s my government, that we can see that surplus by the end of this period. We just don’t rely on it.”

Mr. Carney also criticized the Conservative plan for not committing to follow through on the planned roll out of social programs like dental care, pharmacare and child care.

“The approach is: if you already have it, you can keep it, but no one else can have it. So we have two types of Canadians. I thought a Canadian was a Canadian was a Canadian,” he said.

Many of the policies in the platform were previously announced by Mr. Poilievre, though the specific costings are new.

On Monday in Scarborough, Ont., he had promised that his housing policies would generate 2.3 million new homes for Canadians and the platform says that would generate $12.8-billion over four years.

Beyond the fiscal measures, the party is also promising to lower education requirements for federal civil servants. The platform says the Conservatives would “eliminate university degree requirements for most federal public service roles to hire for skill, not credentials.”

The Conservatives are pledging to shrink the federal civil service through attrition rather than layoffs “with only two in three departing employees being replaced.”

The Conservative platform is silent on what precise changes it would make to gun laws when it says “our plan protects the rights of lawful gun owners while cracking down on the violent offenders and illegal guns that cause almost all the gun crime in Canada.”

It pledges to create “enhanced weapons prohibition orders” to subject repeat violent offenders, including domestic violence, to random searches with judicial oversight. They vow to clear the licensing backlog for firearm licenses “so that hunters and sport shooters can enjoy their lawful pastimes sooner.” They say they would add plain language to the Firearms Act “so that law-abiding Canadians and police can more easily understand and enforce the law.”

The Conservatives vow to “protect licensed sport shooters and hunters because law-abiding Canadians are not the problem.”

Bloc Québécois Leader Yves-François Blanchet compared the Conservative platform to the American cost-cutting exercise led by Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency.

“They want to cut so much that I thought at first, Elon Musk, please get away,” Mr. Blanchet told reporters during a campaign stop Tuesday in Quebec City.

Mr. Blanchet said both the Conservative and Liberal plans talk about growing Canada’s oil and gas sector, but fail to acknowledge the negative impact that would have in the fight against climate change.