Tom Mulcair says NDP promises affordable, despite oil price plunge

Tom Mulcair says expensive NDP campaign promises are still affordable, despite a precipitous plunge in the price of oil that has blown a huge hole in federal revenues.

• NDP pitches daycare, Old Age Security changes to squeezed middle class
• Tom Mulcair shuffles senior staff ahead of election

The NDP leader is not, however, saying precisely where a Mulcair-led government would get the billions necessary to pay for his promised national daycare program or his vow to restore the annual six per cent increase in health care transfer payments to the provinces.

He says the NDP platform will be fully costed in time for the coming federal election, currently scheduled for October.

For now, Mulcair says only that an NDP government would reverse corporate tax cuts to some unspecified higher rate a move some economists say would not actually generate much revenue and would impede economic growth.

Mulcair also says he would scrap the Conservative government's recently introduced income splitting plan, saving more than $2 billion for the federal treasury.

In the past, some newly elected governments have been forced to renege on campaign promises after finding the books to be in worse shape than expected, but Mulcair says that's a hypothetical situation he's not concerned about.