• Liberal plan to spend an additional $10.1 billion in 2016-17 is the most expensive of the three main parties

• By 2019-20, NDP would overtake Liberals with $16 billion in additional annual spending 

• Liberals have 9 un-costed promises, CPC 6 and NDP 1

OTTAWA, ON: The Canadian Taxpayers Federation (CTF) today released its final federal election spending tracker, tabulating the cost of all promises made by the three main political parties during the course of the 2015 federal election campaign and following the platform release of all three main parties.

“After two months of announcements and promises, Canadians now have the hard numbers,” said CTF Federal Director Aaron Wudrick.

For fiscal 2016-17, the cost of promises made by the Liberals is $10.1 billion, followed by the NDP at $5.7 billion and the Conservatives at $256 million. By fiscal 2019-20, the NDP promises to spend an additional $16 billion per year, followed by the Liberals at $10.8 billion and the Conservatives at $923 million.

“Recall that our $612 billion federal debt currently costs taxpayers $26 billion per year in interest payments alone,” added Wudrick. “Unfortunately, none of the parties have proposed to pay down debt, and one is promising more debt. We remain hopeful that whichever party forms government after October 19th will take concrete steps to address this elephant in the room.”

Not all promises by the parties have been costed. The Liberals have not costed nine promises. The Conservatives have six un-costed promises and the NDP has one promise that is un-costed.

Please click here for a breakdown of the costs of each party’s proposals. A graphic showing the cost of each party’s platforms is available here.