The Liberals unveiled a two-year, $8-billion "family pack" election platform Sunday that would see government spending shifted to Canadian households.

The party said they would pay for their plan by hiking corporate tax rate back to 2010 levels, ending tax breaks for oilsands development and placing a cap on stock option deductions -- moves that would generate more than $9 billion over two years, the Liberals say.

The 94-page document, which contains iniatives already promised in this campaign, features five key promises:

  • an Early Childhood Learning and Care Fund to create more day care spaces for families
  • a $1-billion Learning Passport to give students up to $1,500 a year for post-secondary education
  • a $1-billion Family Care Plan that would allow Canadians to take up to six months off from work to look after a sick family member, instead of the six weeks off currently allowed 
  • a permanent Green Renovation Tax Credit that would allow Canadians to claim up to $13,500 to cover the cost of energy-efficient retrofits to their homes
  • an expanded Canada Pension Plan benefits to allow people to voluntarily save an additional five to 10 per cent of their income in a CPP-backed fund.

"These are the priorities of Canadians. So today we've announcing the ‘family pack' -- five policies that will address these specific priorities of Canadian families," Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff told a town-hall-style audience in Ottawa Sunday morning.

"We're offering these policies to Canadians and we're saying we can deliver these practical benefits to Canadian families without raising your taxes," he said as he held the document in his hand and encouraged Canadians to download it off the Liberal website.

Ignatieff said his party would fund the initiatives by keeping corporate taxes at 18 per cent, eliminating waste, and "doing something about that F-35 fighter jet thing which has gone out of control."

"If we do all of that, we can deliver the family pack without raising your taxes, let me make that clear," he said.

Ignatieff also said a Liberal government would balance Canada's books within four years, slightly ahead of the projections the Conservatives laid out in their federal budget two weeks ago.

The detailed Liberal platform comes unusually early in the 36-day election campaign. With the platform document clad in a bright red cover, many are saying it's reminiscent of the 1993 Liberal Red Book platform.

Economists are divided about whether the policy proposals are affordable, CTV's Parliamentary Bureau Chief Robert Fife reported, with left-leaning economists supporting it and their conservative counterparts panning it.

Conservative candidate John Baird, who has already dismissed the Liberal platform as too expensive, reiterated Sunday that the document lacks a concrete plan for eliminating the deficit.

"I think it's confirmed a number of things. One, is there's no real credible plan to create jobs and economic growth. Two, there's no credible plan to balance the budget," Baird told CTV's Question Period Sunday.

"And what's becoming increasingly clear is [Ignatieff] has just got billions of dollars in new spending. There's more than $8 billion a year in new spending in this. This is all permanent spending. I just don't know how he's going to pay for it. The only thing that's clear is that he's going to have to raise taxes, and Canadian families just have no more money to give."

Martin Cauchon, the Liberal candidate in Outremont and former justice minister, responded that the Tories have the wrong priorities.

"Their game plan is well known; it was in the budget. They want to give tax cuts to the large corporations. We're talking about $5 to $6 billion. The question is, now that we're out of a crisis, what are the choices that we should make as a society? Give tax cuts to the large corporations?" he asked.

"So what we're saying: help the families, prepare the manpower of tomorrow."