Prime Minister Stephen Harper unveiled his party's election platform Friday, promising a Conservative government would eliminate the deficit by 2014-2015, a year earlier than planned, by reducing the cost of government.
Harper was in Mississauga, Ont., part of the hotly contested Greater Toronto Area, for a town hall-style meeting.
"Today we are releasing our platform. It's called 'Here for Canada' and it is the way forward for Canada," Harper said.
Harper said there were no plans to cut major programs and said the billions in cost savings required to balance the books would come from slashing government's operating cost -- something he said "everyone" agrees needs to be reined in.
He stopped short of explaining why he hadn't worked to rein in such spending in his first five years as prime minister.
Finance Minister Jim Flaherty later admitted some programs would be cut, but did not give specifics.
The five-point, $6.6-billion platform unveiled Friday outlined the Conservatives' vision for the next four years, focusing on job creation through tax reduction.
Harper said the Tory platform stands in stark contrast to Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff's plan to raise taxes.
"Conservatives understand you cannot tax your way to prosperity, you cannot create jobs by raising taxes," Harper said.
The platform includes the party's $2.2-billion promise to compensate Quebec for harmonizing its sales tax, and a $2.5-billion income-splitting plan.
It also features a bundle of crime bills that would be passed in the first 100 days of Parliament if the Conservatives received a majority mandate, new policies for seniors and the details of government Arctic investments. The platform rehashes other Conservative priorities -- job creation, support for families and deficit reduction -- outlined in the federal budget plan tabled the week before the election call.
It also includes the Conservative Party plan to cut per-vote subsidies to political parties over a three-year period -- a move seen as a direct attack on the opposition parties, which are seen as having less robust fundraising arms than the governing party.
The five main priorities of the campaign platform are jobs creation, supporting families, eliminating the deficit, getting tough on crime, and investing in the North.
Smith said the platform's lack of bells and whistles was likely meant as to contrast to the Liberal plan, which the Conservatives say contains unnecessary spending.
"They're trying to contrast that with a Liberal plan they say is a throw-back to the Trudeau days of the 1970s -- high spending, high interest rates," Smith said.
On Friday, Flaherty defended the government's announcement it will return to Parliament with the same budget it introduced jus before the election call.
"Parliament hasn't voted on it," he told CTV's Power Play. "The government fell on a procedural matter."
After introducing the Tory election handbook, Harper joined Bollywood star Akshay Kumar for an event in Brampton. Then, later in the day the Tory leader headed to the Kitchener-Waterloo region to lend his support to a pair of candidates hoping to widen their slim margins of victory from the last trip to the polls in 2008.
Ignatieff, meanwhile, continued his campaign swing in Hamilton, Ont., where he addressed health care policies in an appearance at a cancer centre Friday morning.
Ignatieff said a Liberal government would focus on two key areas of health-care reform: ensuring high-quality home care, and reducing the cost of prescription drugs.
The Liberal leader earlier sent an "open letter" to Canadians also included a pledge to extend the current schedule of 6 per cent funding increases beyond the terms of the current deal with provinces that's set to expire in 2014.
Later, Ignatieff headed back to the GTA for a pair of stops in Toronto and Markham.
New Democrat Leader Jack Layton, meanwhile, started his day in the British Columbia riding vacated by outgoing Liberal MP Keith Martin before heading to his own town hall meeting in the riding of Kamloops-Thompson-Cariboo.
Bloc Quebecois Leader Gilles Duceppe was in the Lac-St-Jean region north of Quebec City on Friday, where he's hoping to boost BQ candidates trying to unseat Tories in the ridings of Roberval-Lac-Saint-Jean and Jonquiere-Alma.
The day after unveiling her party's platform, Green Party Leader Elizabeth May took the train from Toronto to Montreal where she convened a press conference to discuss health care. Later in the afternoon, May attended a downtown "Rally for Democracy."
