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Tag: Justin Trudeau
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The views, opinions and positions expressed by columnists and contributors are the author’s alone. They do not inherently or expressly reflect the views, opinions and/or positions of our publication.
Three billion dollars. That’s how much Premier Doug Ford’s two-and-a-half years of gas tax cuts will have saved Ontario taxpayers by Christmas.
Ford cut the gas tax by 6.4 cents per litre July 2022.
The move has been meaningful at kitchen tables across the province.
The typical two-car family filling up once a week has saved more than $850 at the pumps since Ford’s gas tax cut was put in place two years ago. And, thanks to the Ford government’s plan to extend the cut through the end of the year, families can expect to save an additional $225.
When the Ford government introduced its gas tax cut in July 2022, the finance ministry said the temporary six-month cut would leave about $645 million in Ontarians’ pockets. With that period now stretched out from six months to two-and-a-half years, Ontario taxpayers are set to enjoy savings of more than $3 billion.
Ford’s gas tax cut may seem like yesterday’s news given that it’s been in place for nearly two years. But the tax cut means Ontarians have had one of the lowest gas tax burdens in Canada, behind only Manitoba and Newfoundland and Labrador.
And the Ford’s gas tax cut has never been more important as the Trudeau government keeps hammering families with higher costs.
Since Ford cut the gas tax in July 2022, the Trudeau government has raised the carbon tax twice, adding roughly six cents per litre to the cost at the pump. Ford’s cut has helped struggling taxpayers blunt the impact of Trudeau’s tax hikes when filling up to get to work, take the kids to school or head to hockey practice.
And that’s part of the plan.
“With the federal government about to increase its costly carbon tax, it’s never been more important to provide relief at the pumps and put hundreds of dollars back into peoples’ pockets,” Ford said earlier this spring.
To Ford’s credit, he has spent his entire political career speaking out about the damage of the costly federal carbon tax.
“Carbon tax schemes are no more than government cash grabs that do nothing for the environment, while hitting people in the wallet in order to fund big government programs,” Ford said days after becoming premier.
Ontario taxpayers are also in the minority in terms of saving at the gas pump. Only Manitobans and Newfoundlanders and Labradorians also currently enjoy provincial gas tax relief.
More than 400,000 Ontarians are now working two jobs just to make ends meet. Fifty per cent of Canadians say they’re $200 away from not being able to pay their bills. Ottawa has been tone deaf by imposing carbon tax hikes and Ford is fighting to defend Ontario taxpayers from the Trudeau government’s reckless tax-and-spend antics.
Over the past 24 months, taxpayers filling up two cars once a week have saved nearly $850 thanks to Ford’s gas tax cut. That’s real money that pays for a month’s worth of groceries for a family of four.
There’s more Ford can do to lower costs for taxpayers. He should look at putting his $9 billion a year of corporate welfare on the chopping block to deliver even more relief for Ontario families through lower income taxes or a sales tax cut.
But the bottom line is that Ford deserves credit for implementing his bold gas tax cut for two whole years.
It’s good that Ford intends to keep up his fight for affordability by extending the gas tax cut until December. And before that temporary gas tax cut expires, taxpayers will once again be calling on Ford to deliver yet another extension.
Jay Goldberg is the Ontario Director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation
The views, opinions and positions expressed by columnists and contributors are the author’s alone. They do not inherently or expressly reflect the views, opinions and/or positions of our publication.
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The views, opinions and positions expressed by columnists and contributors are the author’s alone. They do not inherently or expressly reflect the views, opinions and/or positions of our publication.
Political parties, whether in government or opposition, introduce policy proposals on a fairly steady basis. Some ideas will be praised, while others will be criticized. That’s to be expected in the day-to-day world of politics.
One of the keys to success is for parties and leaders to take both of these reactions to heart and see if there are ways to improve or build upon the proposed policy measure. Anything that’s good can always be made better. If it’s rejected outright, then it’s up to party leaders and senior leadership to either figure out what needs to be improved, or if the best course of action is to scrap the policy and head back to the drawing board.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has never grasped the fine art of these two skills that every politician needs to learn. This isn’t to say his Liberal government hasn’t occasionally changed certain policy directions. The problem is their mediocre and ineffective leader seems to believe most of his ideas are great right off the bat, and the avalanche of bad ideas he’s proposed since taking office in 2015 don’t need to be tinkered with.
In fact, Trudeau’s natural reaction when a policy has been criticized is to double down rather than accept the deficiencies and fix them.
Here’s a recent example.
When the Liberals unveiled the April 16 federal budget, it included a tax hike in capital gains. In Section 8.1 of Budget 2024, they announced their intention “to increase the inclusion rate on capital gains realized annually above $250,000 by individuals and on all capital gains realized by corporations and trusts from one-half to two-thirds.” They attempted to brush away any and all concerns. “Only 0.13 per cent of Canadians with an average income of $1.4 million are expected to pay more personal income tax on their capital gains in any given year,” the same section noted. Several items that would have affected ordinary Canadians remained exempt, including the sale of principal residences.
Why had Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland targeted capital gains? Her predecessor, Bill Morneau, had rejected previous calls to look into this matter. “This was very clearly something that, while I was there, we resisted. We resisted it for a very specific reason – we were concerned about the growth of the country,” he said at a post-budget Q&A session with the accounting firm KPMG, and it’s “clearly a negative to our long-term goal, which is growth in the economy, productive growth and investments.” Putting Morneau’s wealth and financial status aside, he made the right decision.
Freeland took a very different tact. “We are making Canada’s tax system more fair by ensuring that the very wealthiest pay their fair share,” she told the media. Instead of doing things that could potentially help the Canadian economy, such as reducing the size of government and introducing broad-based tax relief, the Finance Minister decided to use the age-old political tactic of soaking the rich under the guise of tax fairness.
She’s wrong, of course. Adjusting the tax levy from 50 percent to 66.7 percent on profits for capital gains over $250,000 for individuals, trusts and corporations doesn’t just hurt roughly 0.13 percent of the population. It hurts the other 99.87 percent, too.
Higher taxes and lower take-home pay increases the role of the state, reduces economic liberty and personal freedom. They also minimize the impact of free markets and private enterprise, and cripple economic growth and stability. In the case of capital gains, which refers to the sale of an asset (ie. house, building, stock shares) that has increased in value since the initial purchase, Ottawa reduced an individual’s annual investment earnings. Targeting capital gains was therefore a clear sign the Liberals have little to no respect for individuals and companies that are profitable and contribute to Canada’s overall economic engine.
The Trudeau government was immediately condemned by the business community. Major industry associations like the Canadian Chamber of Commerce spoke out against the capital gains tax hike. The Canadian Medical Association said the proposed changes “will have adverse effects on physician recruitment and retention across the country.” The Mining Association of Canada suggested the tax hike will “significantly reduce” the value of the Mineral Exploration Tax Credit for investors and companies.
Moreover, a Nanos Research survey for Bloomberg News conducted between April 28 to May 1 revealed that 45% of respondents felt the tax changes “will lead to decreased investments and innovation, which will weaken the economy.” This was the majority viewpoint, as 38 percent supported the proposal and the remaining 17 percent were unsure. It’s also worth noting 46 percent of Canadians ages 18 to 34 opposed the tax increase, while those aged 35 to 54 were at 48 percent.
Most Prime Ministers and their senior advisers, irrespective of political stripe, would look closely at these numbers and comments. They would realize that significant adjustments to the capital gains tax hike would be required, and would start the process immediately.
What did Trudeau do? You guessed it: he doubled down on this unpopular proposal. The PM actually released a short video on May 13 to justify his position. It was as ignorant and ill-informed as his government’s decision to target capital gains in the first place.
There are many reasons why the Liberals are getting clobbered in the polls. Trudeau’s inability to understand what Canadians want from their government, and to change proposed policies that a majority of Canadians dislike or believe will hurt the economy and their communities, are two of them.
Michael Taube, a longtime newspaper columnist and political commentator, was a speechwriter for former Canadian prime minister Stephen Harper.
The views, opinions and positions expressed by columnists and contributors are the author’s alone. They do not inherently or expressly reflect the views, opinions and/or positions of our publication.
Canada’s Speaker of the House, Greg Fergus, has been a huge embarrassment since he was first elected to this role last October. His most recent brouhaha serves as a clear indication that he should be removed as House Speaker immediately – and should have never been House Speaker to begin with.
On Tuesday, Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre was criticizing Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his Liberal government’s controversial drug policy in Parliament. He noted that 22 British Columbians had died of drug overdoses since the NDP had asked the Liberals to “reverse course on his – and formerly their – radical policy.”
Poilievre would go on to ask the following question, “When will we put an end to this whacko policy by this whacko Prime Minister?”
Fergus, who had already tossed out Conservative MP Rachel Thomas that day after she refused to apologize for describing his handling of question period as “disgraceful,” wasn’t going to give Poilievre a pass on his comment. He called the situation “unacceptable” and asked the Conservative leader to “withdraw that term, which is not considered parliamentary.”
Poilievre responded to Fergus in the following fashion. “Mister Speaker, I replace whacko with extremist.” Fergus refused to accept this replacement, and asked him again to withdraw the comment. Poilievre said, “I’ll replace it with radical. That’s his policy.” Fergus refused again, and asked him to withdraw rather than replace the term. Poilievre responded one more time, “Mister Speaker, I replaced the word whacko with extremist.”
Fergus then asked him “one last time, to please withdraw that comment and simply withdraw that comment.” Poilievre responded as follows, “I simply withdraw and replace with the aforementioned adjective.” The House Speaker ejected Poilievre from the House of Commons, who was followed out the door by the entire Conservative caucus.
This tete-a-tete was obviously unfortunate. Nevertheless, most political observers, if they were being honest with themselves, would have accepted this as a heat-of-the-moment exchange. Much in the same way Trudeau had been previously warned by Fergus for stating that Poilievre was “showing us exactly what shameful, spineless leadership looks like” and accused him of shaking hands with “white nationalists.” And Fergus’s previous warning to Poilievre for stating that Trudeau was “the guy who spent the first half of his adult life as a practising racist.”
These exchanges were worse than the Fergus-Poilievre exchange. Unless your definition of what type of language and terminology is parliamentary is, well, extremist and radical in nature.
No matter what you think of Poilievre’s original description of Trudeau, he clearly offered to replace the offending word with two different ones. The words “extremist” and “radical” have been used in a certain context during previous House of Commons debates and proceedings. Hence, Poilievre’s concession would have been acceptable to most of our past House Speakers.
Other than a Liberal partisan like Fergus, that is.
Then again, should we really be surprised by this? Fergus has made numerous mistakes and foolish decisions as a Liberal MP and House Speaker. He doesn’t seem to have learned any lessons from these controversies, either.
During a Jan. 25, 2021 appearance on CTV’s Power Play, Fergus, who was a backbench Liberal MP at the time, said more COVID-19 vaccine approvals were needed to meet a Sept. 2021 target. He confidently mentioned two vaccines on air, AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson. Neither of them had been approved in Canada at that point. CTV spoke with then-Liberal Procurement Minister Anita Anand, who confirmed Ottawa’s position hadn’t been adjusted. Fergus was forced to apologize.
Fergus was then found guilty of an ethics violation in Feb. 2023. He broke the Conflict of Interest Act as Trudeau’s parliamentary secretary by writing a letter of support to the CRTC for a television channel that had applied for mandatory carriage. Parliamentary rules restrict ministers and parliamentary secretaries from writing letters of support. Only MPs can do this. Fergus apologized again.
Fergus screwed up once more in Dec. 2023 when he appeared in a video tribute for outgoing interim Ontario Liberal leader John Fraser. He was dressed in his traditional Speaker’s robe, which is against the spirit and rules of impartiality his parliamentary role is supposed to represent. As Andrew Scheer, a former Conservative leader and House Speaker, said, “This conduct is simply unacceptable. It defies all long-standing traditions and expectations attached to the high office of Speaker.” Fergus apologized yet again.
Apologies seem to be the only thing that Fergus has been able to figure out (sort of) during his largely unimpressive career as a federal politician.
It’s highly unlikely Fergus will apologize for his recent exchange with Poilievre. He should apologize to his fellow parliamentarians for assuming the role of House Speaker, however. He’s barely equipped to handle the duties of being a backbench MP and parliamentary secretary, let alone being the presiding officer of Canada’s House of Commons.
It would be best for everyone if Fergus stepped down as House Speaker. At the very least, he should be removed from this role. Alas, the chances of any of this happening before his next apology are pretty slim.
Michael Taube, a long-time newspaper columnist and political commentator, was a speechwriter for former Canadian prime minister Stephen Harper.
The views, opinions and positions expressed by columnists and contributors are the author’s alone. They do not inherently or expressly reflect the views, opinions and/or positions of our publication.
This content is restricted to subscribers
The views, opinions and positions expressed by columnists and contributors are the author’s alone. They do not inherently or expressly reflect the views, opinions and/or positions of our publication.
This content is restricted to subscribers
The views, opinions and positions expressed by columnists and contributors are the author’s alone. They do not inherently or expressly reflect the views, opinions and/or positions of our publication.
This content is restricted to subscribers
The views, opinions and positions expressed by columnists and contributors are the author’s alone. They do not inherently or expressly reflect the views, opinions and/or positions of our publication.
This content is restricted to subscribers
The views, opinions and positions expressed by columnists and contributors are the author’s alone. They do not inherently or expressly reflect the views, opinions and/or positions of our publication.
