Conservative MP Pierre Poilievre pulls over during a door-knocking bonanza in rural Metcalfe, Ont., to discuss voters’ priorities, and there’s no doubt in his mind where to focus.

When asked what the voters are talking to him about at the door step, the Carleton MP answers quickly. “Cost of living,” he says — the same answer he gave earlier this summer, and in the spring too, even at the height of Liberals’ SNC-Lavalin controversy.

He and his party are not the only ones talking relentlessly about the strain the average household is feeling.

The battle for the votes of the middle class is at the core of every party’s campaign, and there’s an astonishing agreement among the Conservatives, the Liberals and the NDP alike that middle-class voters are uncomfortably pinched and the federal government needs to do something about it.

Phrase it how you want — cost of living, affordability, the ability to get ahead, making ends meet. Every party is pulling out the synonyms to describe what they hear is the biggest economic problem facing Canadians, especially those in what the Liberals call the middle class (or “everyday people” as the NDP would say; or “hardworking families” as the Conservatives prefer).

Nomenclature and semantics aside, the three mainstream parties seem to agree that after four years of the Liberals adjusting the foundations of the federal income security system to favour the middle class, what’s needed now is a more targeted tinkering so that Ottawa can zero in on the vulnerabilities of the average voter.

The consensus goes further than a focus on the middle-class household being able to pay the bills, put aside a bit for savings and have enough left over for some fun. The parties all say that the most prominent cause of this cash crunch is the cost of housing.

Even as some of the heat seeps out of the real estate markets in Vancouver and Toronto, suburbanites and small-town dwellers are telling their politicians that they, too, see the rippling effects of those expensive, urban homes, spilling well beyond the city limits into far-flung communities.

“We’re meeting Torontonians on the doorsteps all over my suburban riding,” Poilievre says, and they’re driving up costs everywhere.

About 40 per cent of people say cost of living is their number one concern these days, says pollster David Coletto who heads up Abacus Data and is in the midst of digging deeper into why making ends meet ranks so high in Canadians’ minds.

“When we put cost of living in the mix, it’s the one that more people put as their top issue,” Coletto says.

Logically, politicians of every brand are stumbling over themselves to show they care.

The political harmony ends there though. They may agree on some of the ailments of the middle class as well as some of the underlying causes; but they certainly don’t agree on the remedy.

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For the Conservatives, much of the cure lurks in the tax system.

The best way for Ottawa to help Canadians afford their homes and get ahead is for the federal government to put more money in their pockets, says Poilievre.

That means getting rid of the carbon tax as the first thing a Conservative government would do, because not only would the cost of fuel and gas fall right away, the trickle-down effect onto other goods would be eliminated too, Poilievre argues, adding that the Liberal rebate on carbon tax doesn’t address that inflationary trickle.

He and party leader Andrew Scheer also point to promised tax breaks on home heating, incentives for home renovations, and rebates for tax paid on parental leave — all measures that are meant to help the middle class better afford the essentials.

As for housing in particular, Scheer has floated the idea of reviewing the mortgage “stress test” imposed by the Liberals that requires homebuyers to qualify for a higher interest rate than the one they’re actually getting. And in an editorial board meeting with the Toronto Star last week, Scheer said he was considering regional variations to the stress test.

He also floated the idea of redirecting infrastructure funding towards building more homes and better public transit, while working with provincial and municipal governments to get rid of red tape that inhibits residential construction.

And the Conservatives have their eye more specifically on the difficulties first-time home buyers are having in getting into the real estate market, said Poilievre, suggesting the party would have more to say on that front.

Government-funded prescriptions could also be part of the affordability solution, Scheer said, but not on a universal basis. Many people can already afford the drugs they need, and Ottawa should only be involved in filling in the gaps.

As for income inequality, the Conservative response to the rich is to crack down on tax cheats and cancel corporate welfare — although the details of what qualifies are still under wraps.

Cutting corporate subsidies has a dual purpose, because chopping some programs would have the added benefit of saving the government money — something Conservatives need to do in order to reach their goal of balancing the budget within five years.

Regardless, deficit reduction should also be considered a cost-of-living measure, Poilievre argues.

“The cost of government is driving up the cost of living.”

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That’s not how the Liberals see it.

They argue that the money they’ve spent in government to help the middle class has been an overwhelming success, and that it should continue — with some additions, tweaks and enhancements to deal with evolving challenges and vulnerable groups.

Young people and indebted students breaking into the job market, widowers with little income security, first-time homebuyers, people struggling to pay for medicine, new parents — these are all subgroups in the middle class who could expect some help from the Liberal platform, says Employment and Social Development Minister Jean-Yves Duclos.

In an interview from his Quebec City riding, Duclos argued that heavy investment in the middle class is not only good social and economic policy but is also an effective antidote for the angry populism that has seized so many other countries.

But he stressed that the main building blocks are already in place. The Liberals’ national housing strategy is only part way through a 10-year plan that started in 2017. Key measures such as a $4-billion benefit going directly to people in housing need won’t kick in until 2020.

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A first-time homebuyers incentive announced in the last budget, which sees the federal government subsidize mortgage payments, just came into effect this month.

Besides direct help for homeowners, an 11-year $7.5-billion plan to expand child care by 40,000 places is still being rolled out by the provinces — although Duclos hints strongly that it will get a top-up in the party’s election platform.

“We will go beyond that,” he said.

And while the Liberals took a Conservative income-support program aimed at the working poor and enhanced it to form the Canada Workers’ Benefit, Duclos recognizes that there is a growing group of precariously-employed workers who find their skills becoming obsolete, and who could use some help with skills development. The last budget created a training benefit that takes aim at that problem. And Liberal insiders point to both those benefits as “the start of something” which could grow through election promises.

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The NDP argues that none of this is nearly enough. They say the federal government needs to go big on affordability — and hike the taxes of the rich to help pay for it.

They want to build 500,000 more units of affordable housing, increase student grants, set up universal prescription drug coverage for all, and invest $1 billion in child care next year alone. They want to enhance employment insurance and expand its reach. They want to increase training programs. They want to cap cellphone bills.

And on the wage side of the affordability equation, they want to put in place a federal minimum wage of $15 an hour — something Justin Trudeau said last week he was also eyeing.

The NDP is the only party to release a platform so far, so many of the commitments are already publicly available. But they are not fully costed or put in fiscal context.

Rather, the party says it will raise money for its spending by imposing a training tax on companies, reversing cuts to corporate tax, and increasing the income tax rate on the those making over $210,000. And they’d create a wealth tax — a 1 per cent levy on wealth over $20 million. The new taxes, the NDP says, would have the extra benefit of reducing income inequality.

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There’s a cynical maxim that comes up sometimes in Toronto these days when friends haven’t seen each other in a while and find themselves quickly talking about the price of homes: in your 20s, you talk about sex; in your 40s, it’s all about real estate.

Shelter consumes more of our spending money than anything else, regardless of whether we’re rich or poor or somewhere in the middle. But it’s more onerous the poorer you are.

In its most recent survey of household spending Statistics Canada found that on average, Canadians spent 29.2 per cent of their income on shelter. For the bottom 20 per cent of income earners, it was 34.8 per cent, and for the richest 20 per cent, it was 27.4 per cent.

By province, Ontario and British Columbia find shelter to weigh the heaviest — no surprise given the recent real estate bubbles in Vancouver and Toronto.

But there’s a political conundrum in dealing with affordability and cost-of-living issues by looking at policy solutions through the prism of the housing market. The majority of Canadians are homeowners; and as soon as politicians talk about making those homes more affordable, they are also talking about taking a run at the value of the equity homeowners have built up over time.

If a government boosts the supply of affordable homes, prices for existing homes would be depressed. If a government boosts demand by subsidizing buyers, prices would respond by climbing. There are winners and losers in either scenario.

Plus, real estate prices are often subject to unstoppable market whims. Housing in many markets looked like it was becoming more affordable last spring. But when mortgage rates started edging down this summer, prices and sales resumed their upward paths once more. Government programs can’t always counter market movements.

The trick, says Scotiabank’s chief economist Jean-Francois Perrault, is for government to find ways to make other events in life more affordable, freeing up space in household budgets to cover off your home.

For some, that speaks to cutting taxes. For others, that speaks to spending on training, child care, prescription drugs and income support. For every party, it means offering an array of goodies aimed at affordability — and hoping that some of it will alleviate voters’ anxiety and win their votes.

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