Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s decision to suspend the carbon tax on oil used for home heating is rightly being seen as a watershed moment. Let’s hope it brings about even more tax cuts across the country, at all levels of government.
The recent carbon tax revision was the first time Trudeau has backed off on his beloved tax, which he’d previously been so hopelessly devoted to that he took the provinces all the way to the Supreme Court to fight for the right to impose the tax on them.
It doesn’t seem to be helping Trudeau politically though. After he announced his retreat on the carbon tax, yet another senior Liberal has stepped forward to say it was time for the PM to go.
Senator Percy Downe has stated that Trudeau needs to step down before the next election and let another prominent Liberal have a shot at the top job. It’s interesting that someone like Downe is sending this message. Before being appointed to the Senate, he was chief of staff to Jean Chretien. He’s both an elder statesman and someone who is familiar with Chretien’s own decision to step down mid-term and let another leader take over.
But politics aside, it’s smart policy that we really need right now. People are hurting. The price of goods has risen so much that regular folks are having trouble getting by. Inflation may be cooling, but that doesn’t mean prices are going down. It just means they’re not continuing to rise at such a rapid pace.
The good news is a second significant tax decrease was just announced, this time in Ontario at the provincial level. The Doug Ford Progressive Conservative government is dropping the 8 percent portion of the HST that goes on rental housing construction. It should knock thousands of dollars off the price of each new unit.
This is being done in the name of tackling the housing crisis, with a view to encouraging new rental housing construction. But it’s also a part of the broader affordability crisis.
The bottom line is that now is the time, when people are struggling to pay the bills, when all taxes, fees, and levies should be up for review. Whatever can be done to make life easier for people, policymakers should do it.
Whether a tax makes housing construction more expensive, raises the cost of home heating, or just makes it more difficult to pay the bills, we should consider how we can bring it down or even eliminate it entirely.
When times are good, politicians can get away with imposing seemingly arbitrary taxes to fund their pet projects and make up for the fact that they’re typically poor managers of the public purse. The good times are sadly behind us now though.
Bad policy can no longer be hidden. Its consequences become clear for all to see.
The tax-and-spend approach works well enough when the economy is booming, inflation is moderate, and people feel like they can get ahead with a bit of hard work. That’s not the case today.
Now, people are posting Instagram videos lamenting that they worked hard all of their lives, took on debt to go to school, managed to get what they thought was a good job, but now can barely pay their bills. They feel like they’re being punished for following the rules.
We need responsible fiscal management and we need politicians who are willing to make difficult choices. That way, we can bring in meaningful tax relief. This won’t just leave more money in the pockets of everyday Canadians, it will also make the country more attractive for investment and entrepreneurship. That way we can grow the economy for the betterment of all.
These two very different tax reductions—on Trudeau’s carbon tax and Ford’s housing tax—amount to acknowledgements that onerous taxes are making life more difficult in Canada and that reducing or eliminating these fees is not just possible but the right thing to do in these difficult times.
Canadians should feel emboldened to put forward their tax cut requests to their politicians, at all levels of government. Now is the time.
