Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre on Thursday morning vowed to slash the Trudeau Liberals’ capital gains tax hike if elected as the next Prime Minister of Canada.
Former Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland in last year’s budget increased the capital gains tax inclusion rate from 50% to 66.67% for corporations, trusts and people earning $250,000 or more in capital gains. The hike went into effect June 25.
The CD Howe Institute recently published a report estimating the hike would result in a nearly 90 billion hit on the economy and more than 400,000 people would lose their jobs.
The Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) last week confirmed the higher capital gains rate will continue to be applied despite Parliament’s prorogation.
“This Liberal jobs tax was a bad idea before President Trump’s tariff threat, it is outright insanity now,” wrote Poilievre on social media.
The Tories in a statement vowed to “cancel Trudeau’s job-killing tax hike on health care, homes, farms, and small business,” whereas the Liberals have a record of “hiking taxes on homebuilding during a housing shortage, hiking taxes on doctors during a doctor shortage.”
The party is polling about 20 points ahead of the Liberals in recent polling. The Liberals, meanwhile scramble to select a new leader before Parliament returns March 24.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is “hiking taxes again on farmers during a food cost crisis (and) “he’s hiking taxes on small business while Canadians’ paychecks are shrinking,” wrote the Tories.
The statement adds the tax “will also drive billions of dollars of machines, technology, business and paychecks out of our country” and hurt Canadians who have saved for retirement.
“And whereas nine years after Trudeau promised to help the middle-class, their families cannot afford homes or food for the first time since the Great Depression, nine out of ten middle-class Canadians are paying higher income tax, and by Trudeau’s own admission, the gap between the rich and everyone else has only grown since he’s been in power,” reads the statement.
The Opposition party called on the federal government to “cancel their job-killing tax hike” and “instead bring forward a real plan to cut taxes on work, hiring, and manufacturing, and bring home production and paychecks.”
