With less than two weeks to go before the federal election, Liberal Leader Mark Carney has pledged new upskilling and training benefits for workers, while Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre says a Tory government would implement several measures to protect seniors from scams.
Carney said in Saint-Eustache, Que., on April 15 that a Liberal government would give up to $15,000 for workers looking to access new skills training in priority sectors like manufacturing, health care, construction, artificial intelligence, and technology.
“This approach will support Canadians in the middle of their careers who need access to skills training within established areas of critical need for our economy,” Carney said. “We will support those employers in order to support retention and upskilling within their companies.”
Carney said this would build off his previous announcement on April 5 to cover apprenticeship training costs of up to $8,000, give $20 million in funding for colleges to support new training spaces for apprenticeships, and expand the Labour Mobility Tax Deduction so that workers travelling more than 120 kilometres from their home to a job site can deduct more of their expenses.
“One of our country’s many competitive advantages is how well trained and well educated Canadian workers are,” Carney said during the press conference. “In the economy, like in hockey, to win—even with advantages—you have to press those advantages.”
During the press conference, Carney was asked by reporters if his campaign would release a fully costed platform before the advance polls close on April 22, and he said this will happen soon.
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“We will have a full costed platform in great detail, and I very much look forward to the discussions around those and your questions and engaging with Canadians that will come out before the advance polls close,” he said.
Poilievre to Target Scammers
During a press conference held in Montreal the same day, Poilievre announced several measures to protect vulnerable Canadians such as seniors from “increasingly sophisticated frauds.” Poilievre noted that in 2022, the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre received 17,000 reports of scammers targeting seniors, totalling $137 million in losses.
“That’s just the tip of the iceberg, because only five or 10 percent of these cases even get reported,” Poilievre added.
Poilievre said his government would pass a Stop Scamming Seniors Act, which would require banks and telecom companies to use the latest technology to catch scams before they occur. A Tory government would also require automatic flagging and blocking of suspicious activity, mandate a 24-hour hold on high-risk transactions for seniors, and impose public reporting requirements so Canadians know “how many scams are being blocked.”
Poilievre said he would also impose mandatory jail time for fraudsters, with a one-year sentence for $5,000 of fraud, three years for fraud of over $100,000, and five years for fraud over $1 million. “We want to financially cripple the fraudsters to deter their greed,” he said.
The Tory leader would also create a new Criminal Code offence for company executives that let scams go unchecked.
