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“What’s even more troubling is that he’s run up the bill without committing a single dime to health care or education,” Andrew Thomson, an NDP candidate in Toronto and former Saskatchewan finance minister, said in Ottawa.

“How much more debt will he force on Canadians? How much bigger will the deficits get? Which of the programs Canadians rely on is he going to cut?”

Thomson said his party went to the trouble of doing its own costing of Liberal promises because the Grits have yet to do so.

Echoing the Conservative attack line on Trudeau, Thomson said it shows the Liberal leader is inexperienced.

The NDP released their fiscal plan Wednesday promising four surpluses by increasing corporate tax rates, going after subsidies to oil companies and eliminating tax breaks on stock options.

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But they too have faced criticism over the ambiguity of their spending commitments, including $2.9 billion to “help where it’s needed most,” according to their fiscal plan.

Conservative Jason Kenney, the defence minister, also held a news conference Thursday in Toronto to discuss what he characterized as Trudeau’s “fiscal irresponsibility.”

Kenney asserted Trudeau would leave the country with a $24.7 billion gap in the first year, growing to $34.5 billion when the Liberal promises are fully implemented.

But for the second consecutive day, Kenney was asked why it was he — and not Finance Minister Joe Oliver — who was speaking about finances and the economy on behalf of the Tory party.

Kenney said he is a national spokesman for the Conservatives and that Oliver is working hard to be re-elected in his Toronto constituency of Eglinton-Lawrence, the same riding where Thomson is running for the NDP.

Trudeau, meanwhile, was up with the dawn Thursday morning for a solo paddle on Calgary’s Bow River. His aides insisted he was unfazed by all the fuss being made about him.

“Perfect day,” Trudeau quipped during the photo-op, staged to capture him gliding towards the sunrise.