Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre arrives in Terrace, B.C., during a campaign stop on Sunday, April 6, 2025. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Aaron Whitfield

By The Canadian Press

Campaign trail

Day 3 of advance polls finds Liberals in Ottawa, NDP, Conservatives in B.C.

Apr 20, 2025 | 1:32 PM

Canadians continued to head to advance polls Sunday as federal leaders campaigned in the battleground province of British Columbia and in the capital.

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre kicked the day off at a grocery store in Surrey, B.C., with another announcement on inflation.

Arguing that a reduction in government spending would ease pricing pressures, Poilievre said a Conservative government would cut Ottawa’s annual budget for consultants by $10 billion.

“Inflation is what happens when governments spend money they don’t have, so they just print the cash. More money bidding on a fixed supply of goods equals higher prices for everything,” he said.

Statistics Canada reported Tuesday that the annual rate of inflation cooled slightly to 2.3 per cent nationally in March, while food prices increased 3.2 per cent year over year.

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Poilievre also railed against the Liberals’ campaign platform, unveiled Saturday, which proposes $129 billion in new spending over the next four years on top of existing commitments.

Liberal Leader Mark Carney pitched his platform as an investment in making Canada more self-reliant in response to the trade war with the United States.

On Sunday, Poilievre accused Carney of “printing money” during his time as governor of the Bank of England and blamed him for that country’s recent bout of high inflation.

Carney led the Bank of England from 2013 to 2020 and was responsible for little of that country’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Inflation surged in Canada and the United Kingdom in the pandemic recovery period and peaked in both countries in 2022.

Poilievre did not answer directly Sunday when asked whether he would maintain the national freeze on purchasing or transferring handguns, introduced by the Liberal government in 2022.

He argued handguns on Canadian streets are largely brought in from the United States and said he would crack down on firearm traffickers to address handgun violence.

Owning a registered handgun purchased before the freeze remains legal in Canada, while such guns can be transferred legally only among certain exempted businesses and individuals.

After concluding his announcement and taking four questions from media outlets chosen by his campaign, Poilievre appeared to ignore reporters shouting additional questions — including one about when the Conservatives would release their fully costed election platform.

The NDP unveiled its costed campaign pledges Saturday, while the Conservatives have said their platform is coming soon.

NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh was also in British Columbia on Sunday, talking about cost-of-living concerns at the home of a young family in Victoria. He repeated his campaign pledges to cap price for food essentials and to legislate protections against price gouging at the grocery store.

B.C. has become a key battleground in the general election as polls show Liberal and Conservative candidates making inroads in some ridings represented by NDP members of Parliament.

Singh was asked Sunday if he was advocating strategic voting to shore up the party’s support against possible Conservative gains in the region.

“I’m calling for people to vote according to what they care about most. And if they want to stop a Conservative here on Vancouver Island, the best way to do that is to vote for a New Democrat,” he said.

Singh also said Canadians concerned about cuts under a Liberal government should “send a New Democrat to Ottawa” to fight for them.

Carney, who is running for a seat in Nepean, outside Ottawa, was set to hold a rally there Sunday afternoon.

Sunday was the second to last day of advance polls, which got off to a record-setting start on Friday.

Elections Canada said nearly two million people turned out to cast a ballot on the first day of advance voting, leading to long lineups at some polling stations.

A spokesperson for the independent agency said polls remained “very busy” on Saturday and workers were making adjustments to reduce lineups.

– with files from Brenna Owen in Surrey, B.C.