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Carney charged that Poilievre, whose Conservatives will be the last major party to release their policy platform on Tuesday, are secretly planning massive program cuts. And Poilievre, returning fire at a news conference in Scarborough, alleged the Carney-led Liberals will merely continue the current government’s streak of wasteful spending and inflation.

In a campaign dominated by disquiet over U.S. President Donald Trump’s trade war and annexation threats, the debate shows how concerns about the cost of living and how to bolster the economy persist as a twin priority to protecting Canadian sovereignty.

While the Liberals and Conservatives brawl over their plans to accomplish that goal, neither party has promised to balance the federal budget, and both promise billions of dollars in tax cuts and new spending will boost economic growth if they take power after the April 28 election.

They also avoided mentioning the New Democrats, who have languished in public opinion polls that suggest a two-party battle for government between the Liberals and Conservatives.

New polling results from Abacus Data, released to the Star, show that the economic narrative is critical for voters, with cost of living concerns and the need for a change in government policy and direction increasingly cited as the main issues. The Trump threat has shrunk as a top concern.

Overall, the Liberals continue to hold a lead in voting intentions, said Abacus president David Coletto. 

Defending his party’s policy platform, which the Liberals unveiled on Saturday, Carney said new spending is needed to confront the “worst crisis of our lifetimes” — the upheaval of Canada’s relationship with the U.S. as Trump tears up the world trade order.

Carney, a former governor of both the Bank of Canada and the Bank of England who holds an Oxford doctorate in economics, insisted his platform would control spending while committing an extra $129 billion in expenses and tax cuts over the next four years to bolster the military, double housing construction and reduce income taxes, among other things.

He argued the program will spur economic growth and help Canada through the current turbulence in the world, which he said exceeds the “fiscal crisis” that prompted prime minister Jean Chrétien and then-finance minister Paul Martin to slash federal expenditures to balance budgets in the 1990s.

“We are in a crisis, the worst crisis of our lifetimes, including the fiscal crisis that Mr. Chrétien and Mr. Martin faced, because we are in a fundamental reordering of our relationship with the United States and the global economy,” Carney told reporters in Charlottetown on Monday.

“We need to build, we need to invest, we need to use scarce dollars … on the federal balance sheet, to catalyze that investment, and we’re prepared to do that,” he said.

At the same time, Carney slammed Poilievre and the Conservatives, accusing them of “hiding” their fiscal plan, which the Liberals claim will require roughly $140 billion in spending cuts over four years, because of Poilievre’s promise to reduce government expenses to match any new spending under a future Conservative government.

“Cutting to all Canadians at any time, let alone in a crisis, is not the way to get you out of a crisis,” Carney said.

Poilievre rejected the Liberal claims, stating Monday that the Liberal number about his promised cuts is “wrong” and based on faulty “Liberal math.” He has also suggested he would at least partially preserve federal programs for dental care and pharmacare coverage, as Liberals allege he would eliminate them — along with national child care — to fulfil his promise to match new spending with “dollar-for-dollar” cuts.

“Whenever Liberals present you with numbers, you should be afraid and very afraid, because their numbers are always wrong,” Poilievre said.

He enumerated where a Conservative government would find money, including by saving $10 billion through cuts to government policy consultants, as well as “wasteful” programs like the provision of non-toxic drugs to prevent overdose deaths, and plans to purchase “assault-style” guns banned by the Liberal government.

Poilievre, who has espoused a desire for maximum personal freedom and small government over his 21 years as a Conservative MP, also said he would save money by cutting the size of the federal bureaucracy and foreign aid.

He said his plan, which includes the reversal of Liberal climate and environmental policies like the cap on oil and gas emissions and a national carbon price on industrial greenhouse gas pollution, would result in $70 billion in additional tax revenue over five years.

“By generating more economic growth, cutting back on Liberal waste and mismanagement than we will deliver real change so Canadians can afford food and homes and live on safe streets,” Poilievre said.

Abacus Data’s latest survey of 2,000 adult Canadians between April 18 and April 21 sugges\ted that voters are honing in on economic concerns.

For nearly half, or 49 per cent, of committed voters, reducing the cost of living has become the top issue, while the threat of Trump to Canada is the most important factor for about a third, or 32 per cent.

At the same time, the number of people who say their vote would be decided based on a desire for “change” in government “policy and direction” has also gone up.

A shift occurred before the leaders’ debates were held last week, said Coletto, and came after the U.S. president unveiled, then paused and largely “stopped talking about” his punishing so-called “reciprocal” tariffs against more than 180 countries and territories in the beginning of the month.

“We saw the ‘desire for change’ number rise. We saw people’s willingness to put the cost of living as a top two issue go up,” said Coletto.

Coletto added that for the Liberals “it is in their interest to still make this election about Trump because they’re just crushing the Conservatives ... among that third of people who still put it as their top two issue — the Liberals are well ahead.”

Asked which party is best able to handle a range of issues, Abacus’s polling shows 45 per cent of decided voters say the Carney-led Liberals are best to handle the impact of Trump’s decisions on Canada, versus 33 per cent who say the Conservatives would be best, meaning a 12-point advantage for the Liberals. The NDP was chosen by just five per cent.

On managing the federal deficit and debt, 38 per cent say the Conservatives would be best, while 37 per cent say the Liberals are their choice, which is almost a statistical tie. Just seven per cent chose the NDP.

On who would be best to “grow the economy,” 41 per cent choose the Liberals, 36 per cent the Conservatives, and just six per cent choose the NDP.

However when it comes to the more individualized question of who is best to reduce their cost of living, 36 per cent of respondents chose the Conservatives, as opposed to 29 per cent who chose the Liberals, and 14 per cent who chose the NDP.

Abacus conducted an online survey which is not considered a random poll but is deemed to have a comparable margin of error of plus or minus 2.3 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.

Later, Carney’s campaign rolled through rural Nova Scotia, where the Liberal leader played ball hockey on a farm in the Conservative-held riding of Cumberland—Colchester. Throughout his visit to the property, owned by the family of an ex-Liberal provincial politician, protesters shouted from the other side of a wooden fence. Several of them held up placards, including one that denounced the World Economic Forum, prompting Carney to joke in a speech to the supporters on the farm that he was listening for “orders” from the annual summit of political and economic leaders.

During the hockey game, Carney — clad in a Team Canada jersey — casually poked with his stick and laughed as he trotted between kids in local team colours and hockey helmets. At one point, he laughed and remarked how the game was getting intense.

All the while, gravel-voiced men hollered at him from across the fence.