The Conservatives have announced few new initiatives since the election campaign started.  The reason is that most oof their platform was already included in the April 21budget. Most importantly, this included the enhanced UCCB and income splitting for families with children 18 years of age and younger. There was also a committment to infrastructure spending beginning in the outer years.

Stephen Harper announced two new initiatives in the first two days of the 2015 election campaign.

 The two initiatives – changes to the Apprenticeship Job Creation Tax Credit and a permanent Home Renovation Tax Credit - were aimed at the business sector and expected to spur economic growth. The Home Renovation Tax Credit will only come into effect in the middle of the next mandate (assuming the Conservatives are re-elected) and only if the fiscal situation can afford it (which seems highly unlikely). 

Since then the Conservatives have made a number of small policy announcements the two most expensive being the increase in the Canadian armed forces reserves ($54 million annually) and another special tax benefit, this time to help members of service clubs ($30 million annually). the conservatives have announced thr creation of a trade promotion office in Ontario. The cost of this would not be very large.

 Panel 1 of the attached table shows that the total cost of all their initiatives would indeed be very small. As noted above this does not mean the cost of their platform is small.

Panel 2 shows that the Conservatives, not surprisingly, have proposed no new revenue measures.Panel three shows the net impact on any future budget.

Like the NDP the Conservatives are committed to a balanced budget and indeed introduced balanced budget legislation in the last budget. Like the NDP they also would have to confront a worsened economic and fiscal outlook after the election. Whether they would confront it in a realistic manner remains to be seen.