Canada election: Leaders focus campaigns on housing, tax loopholes and each other

Federal party leaders, most of them out west, were generally focused on their party platforms today as stock markets rumbled in the background.

The Liberals and NDP both reiterated their housing promises. Carney also downplayed comments he made about Alberta Premier Danielle Smith at a rally this weekend.

Singh said he'd close loopholes that allow people to flip homes on the real estate market and criticized the sale of part of Rogers to American company Blackstone.

Pierre Poilievre said he wants to crack down on tax havens and talked about the crowd sizes at his rallies.

Green Party co-Leader Elizabeth May said her party would cover costs for all prescription meds.

For more on federal party promises, you can dig in on that here.

The markets started off better today than the last few days’ chaos, but there were still more swings and, ultimately, more minuses.

Investors' hopes in deals with Trump had waned by the end of the day. The S&P 500 started off today with a four per cent gain but ended with a 1.6 per cent loss. The TSX capped it off at -1.5 per cent. The Dow was down 0.8 per cent and the Nasdaq lost 2.5 per cent. Gold was up about 0.9 per cent.

Here are some links if you're looking for more on that topic:

• Trump's 104 per cent tariffs on China will take effect at midnight, after quashing earlier market gains.
• Trump wants to upend the entire global order. Can he stomach the price tag?
• Trump called his tariffs economic 'medicine' after trillions were wiped out from U.S. stock market.

Hello, I'm your afternoon live page writer.

The federal government has announced that its counter-tariffs in response to the U.S. levy on the Canadian auto industry will come into force tomorrow, just after midnight.

The government says these retaliatory tariffs are designed to have a much greater impact on American goods than Canadian ones.

This is how they work:

• A 25 per cent duty will be imposed on fully-assembled vehicles imported into Canada from the U.S. that are non-compliant with the Canada-U.S.-Mexico Agreement on trade (CUSMA).
• About 90 per cent of cars coming into Canada from the U.S. are compliant.
• A car is CUSMA-compliant if at least 75 per cent of its contents are made in North America, among other criteria.
• For compliant vehicles, Canada's counter-tariffs only apply to the parts that are American-made.
• If a car is 40 per cent American-made, 40 per cent of it will be subject to a 25 per cent levy.
• If a car is not CUSMA-compliant, Canada’s 25 per cent tariff applies to the whole car.

Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne says he will set up a "remission framework" for auto producers to incentivize production and attempt to maintain jobs. He said details will be announced for that at a later date.

Carney was asked by a reporter about why only a little more than one-third of the Liberal Party’s candidates are women.

“Numbers are numbers,” Carney said, in French. “I’m committed to having a balanced cabinet during the government’s term.”

He said there are currently 23 cabinet ministers and 11 of them are women.

Speaking about U.S. tariff threats escalating, Carney said that in advance of Trump’s tariff announcement last week, he and Trump agreed that negotiations could take place “literally, potentially starting the day after the election.”

“I think we have to be realistic that during an election period, that we ensure that we have the ability to respond to counter-tariffs, but that is different than negotiating any element of a new agreement during what is a caretaker period of the government,” Carney said.

During a recent rally, the Liberal leader joked it would be a “bad idea” to put Alberta Premier Danielle Smith on U.S. network Fox News to advocate against tariffs.

For context, the Liberal campaign recently seized on Smith’s comments to a far-right U.S. outlet, when she said Poilievre is “in sync” with Trump’s administration and suggested there are similarities between Poilievre and Trump.

Smith responded, saying she’s noticed that “progressive men” like Carney and former prime minister Justin Trudeau claim they’re in favour of strong women “until they meet a Conservative woman.”

Carney tried to downplay the remarks today. “It was a lighthearted comment. I have a lot of respect for the premier,” he said, adding that he and Smith worked together last month on the first ministers’ agreement to develop a national trade strategy.

He added that a Liberal government would support opportunities for Alberta.

“My government will spare no effort to ensure that the people of Alberta, the people of Canada realize those opportunities,” he said.

Carney promoted his party’s housing strategy again today, after first announcing it last week.

He said that if re-elected, the Liberal government would put in place its Build Canada Homes initiative to invest $25 billion in building affordable homes at scale while prioritizing the use of Canadian lumber.

We’ve heard the announcement before, but it’s pertinent in B.C., where many are priced out of the housing market.

The Liberals say they would cut municipal development charges in half for multi-unit residential housing for a period of five years to lower homebuilding costs as well as reintroduce tax incentives.

They say they would invest $1 billion to make homes more sustainable and climate resilient.

Last week, the NDP also proposed retrofitting homes with green technology.

Hi, I’m Cat Tunney, following the Liberal campaign this week. Leader Mark Carney is now speaking from Delta, B.C.

The backdrop today is Intelligent City, a Vancouver company that produces mass timber housing, using robotics. Carney took a spin on the video-console-like tool.

It’s part of Carney’s pitch to use innovation to scale up housing.

I’m a senior reporter with the Parliamentary bureau covering the NDP campaign this week. The NDP’s campaign bus is in the shop in Vancouver for repairs. Journalists boarded a plain white replacement bus this morning to head to Singh’s announcement.

The orange campaign bus wrapped in Singh’s face and “in it for you” slogan appeared to overheat yesterday. The bus shut down twice briefly at the side of the road, and the bus driver was overheard saying there were cooling issues.

Singh is calling on the federal government to “initiate an immediate review” of a sale between Rogers Communications and U.S. investment management firm Blackstone.

Last week, Rogers announced Blackstone will “acquire a non-controlling interest in a new Canadian subsidiary of Rogers that will own a minor part of Rogers wireless network” — a $7-billion equity investment.

Blackstone CEO Stephen Schwarzman, “an American billionaire, owner of Blackstone, has finalized a deal to buy up Canadian telecommunications infrastructure,” Singh said.

“This is fundamentally wrong,” Singh said. “We have to defend our Canadian infrastructure, especially telecommunications. Keep it Canadian. Keep it ours,” he said.