With the federal election on Monday, April 28, 2025, you might be wondering who to vote for.
There are a few major reasons why Jagmeet Singh wants you to vote NDP.
Singh and the New Democrats are campaigning on key issues like affordability, climate action, tariffs, and more.
Here’s what you need to know about the NDP’s promises if you’re trying to decide who to vote for. For the Liberals, Conservatives, Bloc Québécois, PPC and Greens, check out MTL Blog’s election hub.
Affordable housing
The NDP promises to make housing more affordable in Canada through the construction of more homes, national rent control, and more.
Singh’s plan will help build three million homes by 2030 by speeding up construction, protecting existing rentals, and training construction workers.
Those three million homes include non-market (like emergency shelters and social housing) and affordable housing.
Also, the NDP wants to introduce a $16 billion national housing strategy — made up of the Canadian Homes Transfer and the Communities First Fund — to give cities and provinces tools to build homes faster, protect affordable rentals, and lower costs for families.
The NDP plans to implement national rent control to stop corporate landlords who profit off people’s homes with “unfair and unreasonable” rent increases.
Singh wants to ban fixed-term leases, renovictions, demovictions, and other landlord practices that push people out of their homes to drive up rent.
Also, the NDP promises to introduce a Renter’s Bill of Rights. It would ensure federal housing incentives only go to provinces and municipalities that take action to implement rent control and bring down housing costs.
Better health care
The NDP promises to improve health care in Canada by hiring more nurses, improving working conditions, ending the use of private agencies, and more.
Singh’s plan includes requiring provinces to meet nurse-to-patient ratios, guarantee fair wages, and improve working conditions.
Also, New Democrats want to recruit qualified nurses from the U.S. and incentivize provinces to fast-track accreditation for internationally educated nurses.
There will be a new Canadian Health Care Workers Tax Credit that provides $5,000 to nurses and personal support workers.
Also, the NDP plans to ensure every Canadian has a family doctor by 2030.
That will be done by providing funding to provinces that deliver guaranteed access to a family doctor and primary care, hiring qualified, internationally trained doctors already living in Canada, and providing housing for family doctors and primary care teams in the north.
The NDP also plans to expand primary care through a team-based approach.
Fighting climate change
The NDP promises to take climate action that protects Canadians by lowering energy bills, creating jobs, and more.
Singh’s plan includes eliminating public subsidies and tax breaks for oil and gas companies and putting that money into a major home retrofit program. The program will:
- retrofit over three million homes with energy-saving upgrades to cut energy bills by up to $4,500 a year
- including free retrofits for more than two million low-income households and grants or low-interest loans for one million households
- support Canadian-made solutions like heat pumps and construction materials to boost local manufacturing.
- create union jobs in installation, auditing, and retrofitting through partnerships with colleges and union training centres
Also, the NDP wants to end the consumer carbon tax for good but keep the industrial carbon price and the emissions cap in place.
There will be a new Border Carbon Adjustment to ensure international polluters don’t undercut Canadian workers, and clean industries like Canadian steel and cement remain competitive.
Affordable grocery prices
The NDP promises to cap grocery prices and make food more affordable in Canada.
That includes emergency price caps on basic food items like pasta, frozen vegetables, and infant formula to keep the costs of food down and “tariff-proof” Canada’s food security.
Singh also wants to enforce a mandatory Grocery Code of Conduct to regulate pricing practices and prevent wage cuts.
New Democrats plan to:
- empower the Competition Bureau to act as a grocery price watchdog and crack down on price-fixing
- tax the profits of major grocery retailers like Loblaws, Walmart, Costco, and Empire Foods
- reform Nutrition North so the subsidy goes directly to Northerners instead of corporate chains
Tax cuts for the middle class
The NDP promises to cut taxes for working and middle-class families.
Singh wants to “put more money in the pockets of the people who need it most,” including working and middle-class Canadians, seniors, and people with disabilities.
There’s a plan to cut taxes for workers and families by raising the basic personal amount to $19,500, which would help people earning $19,500 to $177,882 save $505 a year.
Also, the NDP wants to permanently remove the GST from essentials like grocery store meals, diapers and strollers, along with monthly bills including cell, internet and heating bills. That will save $448 per year for a family of four.
New Democrats plan to:
- reverse the capital gains tax cut
- double the Canada Disability Benefit to help low-income people with disabilities
- raise the Guaranteed Income Supplement to lift all seniors out of poverty
Taking on Trump’s tariffs
The NDP promises to protect Canadian workers from Donald Trump’s trade war.
Singh wants to protect workers, safeguard jobs, protect health care, and ensure Canadian families aren’t greatly impacted by attacks from Trump and build a stronger, fairer economy.
That includes improvements to Employment Insurance, like:
- raising the maximum insurable earnings and increasing the benefit rate above 55% to ensure workers can count on livable benefits that cover the bills
- reducing the threshold for qualifying to a universal 360-hour standard and extending benefits to contractors and self-employed workers
- expanding EI work-sharing programs to help businesses avoid layoffs
- eliminating the one-week waiting period for EI benefits and extending coverage duration to 50 weeks
New Democrats also want to safeguard jobs through strategic investments, stand up for Canadian workers against corporate green, protect public services from privatization, and defend Canada’s sovereignty with a “no trade” clause.
That plan includes ensuring families don’t bear the cost of tariffs by:
- using every dollar collected from retaliatory tariffs to support impacted workers in industries like auto manufacturing, steel, and aluminum
- removing GST from essentials like home heating and Canadian-made vehicles to save families hundreds of dollars annually while boosting domestic industries
- capping grocery prices on essential items and cracking down on price gouging by corporations
Singh wants to introduce Canada Victory Bonds, secure, tax-free savings bonds to help in rebuilding the economy and “resisting Trump’s attacks.”
The NDP also has a “Build Canadian, Buy Canadian” plan as a response to tariffs.
Looking for more election information? Here’s why federal party leaders want you to vote Liberal, Conservative, Bloc Québécois, PPC and Green.
This article was originally published on Narcity.
