Live updates: Poilievre details promise to cut taxes for seniors at stop in Quebec

Poilievre natation take down taxes for seniors on daytime 4 of run

Day 4: Breaking down Carney's $2B plan to bolster the auto sector

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Poilievre is now speaking at the podium after a delay. He always begins in French, so our livestream will go to him when he switches to English.

He’s in Côte-du-Sud-Rivière-du-Loup-Kataskomiq-Témiscouata, the first Conservative-held riding he’s visited since the campaign kicked off (barring the launch of his local campaign office).

The other locations he’s visited up to this point in the campaign were in Liberal-held ridings.

Members here are line dancing to Shania Twain and talking about the election.

Almost all of the seniors here agree this is the most consequential election of their lives. When asked why, they say it’s because of the trade war, threats to Canada’s sovereignty and the affordability crisis they say many seniors are feeling.

Everyone here, they tell me, knows someone who is reliant on food banks, struggling to make ends meet or working as a store greeter to get by well into retirement.

Most of the seniors here say they are paying close attention to the party platforms and what is being pledged — especially around increases to Old Age Security and the Guaranteed Income Supplement — and that every little bit helps.

One retiree told me she isn’t as focused on “seniors’ issues” as she is on what this election means for the future of her children and grandchildren and this country’s survival.

This one serves more than 13,000 people a month. Executive director Kitty Raman-Costa says the need for food banks is tied to the cost of housing, which is top of mind for many voters in this federal election.

She says many clients spend most or all of their income on rent, with little or nothing left over to buy food or other necessities.

"We need options for community members for rent geared to income. Truly affordable housing is one of the most important things for us," said Raman-Costa.

I met a woman named Rosemarie Legault, a dedicated volunteer and also a client. She shares a one-bedroom apartment with her partner and teenage daughter.

“Our daughter has the bedroom. We sleep in the living room. It’s very hard. We have to stretch every dollar. Housing is very much needed in the area,” she told me.

Renting a two-bedroom apartment is out of reach for Legault — they can’t afford it. I met another young man in the neighbourhood named Ethan Pon who can’t afford any rent at all.

"I still live with my parents," he said, explaining that he's on the hunt for a good-paying job. "It's hard to get a job here."

The Conservative leader is in Montmagny, Que., where he’s set to make an official announcement on his tax plan for seniors. He was originally scheduled to speak at noon ET but will now speak at 12:30 p.m.

I’m a senior producer overseeing the digital team at the Parliamentary bureau in Ottawa.

Do you think you have a good sense of how housing prices have changed in the last decade or so under Justin Trudeau? What about the 10 years before that under Stephen Harper?

It lets you draw lines in charts to guess how you think things have changed. You can then immediately see how your guess stacks up against the data.

You can break down the results for both purchases and rentals of different kinds of homes, along with interest rates.

It’s not just housing prices. You can dive into the numbers in all kinds of areas, including employment, immigration and food and gas prices.

You can give it a try here.

You can’t say Yves-François Blanchet doesn’t have a sense of humour.

The Bloc Québécois leader took a shot at Carney this morning by holding an appearance at Montreal’s MELS Studio, where private network TVA’s French-language debate would have been held, if Carney hadn’t declined to participate.

Blanchet also chastised the Liberal leader for mistakenly saying yesterday that the 1989 École Polytechnic massacre happened at Concordia University and misnaming Polytechnic survivor and Liberal candidate Nathalie Provost.

Blanchet is seizing on the Liberal leader’s Quebec-related blunders, according to my colleague Raffy Boudjikanian, who is covering the Bloc Quebecois on the campaign trail.

“These are all points that [Blanchet] wants to keep alive in this campaign, because he wants to use them to show himself to be the great defender of Quebec culture and heritage and history,” said Boudjikanian.

Green Party unveils tax reform for people earning less than $100,000

Green Party of Canada co-leader Jonathan Pedneault, speaking in Montreal, announced a tax plan that would allow people to earn up to $40,000 before paying any federal tax on their income, a measure they say would be made revenue-neutral by increasing corporate taxes.

“The Greens are proposing significant tax cuts on people making $100,000 or less by increasing, significantly, the basic personal amount,” said Green Party co-leader Jonathan Pedneault in Montreal.

Pedneault said the plan would raise the basic personal amount, which is not taxed, from $15,700 to $40,000.

The party is also proposing returning corporate tax rates to the levels they were at before Stephen Harper was prime minister.

“We know right now that corporations are ekeing billions and billions of dollars in profits,” said Pedneault.

“Meanwhile, wages have stayed pretty stagnant throughout the years because of the various schemes that have been encouraged by Conservative and Liberal governments alike.”

The Conservative Party released a plan this morning to cut taxes for working seniors.

The plan would allow people in this group to earn up to $34,000 tax free and keep their savings in RRSPs until age 73 (up from the current limit of age 71). The plan would also keep the retirement age at 65, which the party says would protect payment programs such as Old Age Security, the Guaranteed Income Supplement and the Canada Pension Plan.

Poilievre is set to make an official announcement about the plan at noon ET in Montmagny, Que.

Singh’s approach so far during his campaign events has been to feature everyday Canadians who are struggling with the cost of living.

Today, he spoke with a mom named Michelle who’s having trouble paying her bills. Earlier this week, he spoke to a Toronto renter who says she was renovicted (forced to move out so the landlord could do renovations) by Brookfield, the management firm of which Carney was chair of the board before running to be the Liberal leader.

Singh was asked about Radio-Canada reporter Daniel Leblanc’s story about two green funds co-chaired by Carney while at Brookfield. Leblanc reported that the company attracted investors by registering the funds in Bermuda, a tax haven.

“He deliberately chose to register those funds in another country to avoid paying tax,” said Singh, adding Carney’s record shows he entered Canadian political life to defend the interests of the ultra-rich.

Singh also reiterated his claim that while Carney was chair of the board at Brookfield Asset Management, the company took advantage of the housing crisis by finding affordable buildings, buying them and jacking up the rent.

Carney’s appearance in front of the Ambassador Bridge in Windsor, Ont., today is a direct echo of Ford’s first stop in his recent provincial election campaign. Each year, around $140 billion of goods cross the bridge between Canada and the U.S.

With the bridge as a backdrop, Carney stood in front a group of union members, with a sign on his podium saying “Protecting Workers.” He said Trump’s trade war threatens to hurt “hundreds of thousands of Canadians who just want to earn a good paycheque.”

Ford appeared at the very same bridge on Jan. 29, in front of a group of unionized workers, with a sign on his podium saying “Protect Ontario.” He said that Trump’s tariff threats put “hundreds of thousands of Ontario jobs” at risk.

Clearly imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. I explore in more depth here how the federal parties can learn from Ford's formula for election success in Ontario.

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