The Conservative party of Canada has replaced Andrew Scheer with Erin O’Toole. The leadership race was an opportunity for potential prime ministers to distinguish themselves from the others and put forward innovative ideas. Unfortunately, that opportunity was squandered by all four of the candidates. The leadership race itself was lackluster and O’Toole has offered very little in his platform to be excited about. .Incentives matter. A conservative tax plan should contain financial incentives that alleviate the tax burden on Canadians, which is itself an incentive to vote for the CPC. O’Toole contradicts himself in the first line of his economic platform which reads: “A growing economy is not only the key to prosperity and a higher standard of living but also the only way to keep paying for the social programs on which we all depend.” It is the assertion that we must depend on state management of these social programs that is hindering Canada’s prosperity and lowering our standard of living. .The idea of spending cuts sends off alarm bells within the CPC. Center-right MP’s in heavily contested ridings would rather not talk about it at all. The play is to advocate for small, manageable tax cuts to appease conservative voters, but with Canada’s federal budget sheet in such disarray any cut to taxes without a cut to spending just adds to the debt. Canada’s federal debt is now pushing $1 trillion. .O’Toole says he will abolish Trudeau’s small business tax, which is a good move politically. There are over 1 million small business owners in Canada who – in the wake of Covid-19 – could obviously use any tax relief they can get but when that relief is weighed against a growing federal debt problem. The question must be asked; is it a smart move? And it’s not just government debt that’s a problem. Canadian households owe $2.3 trillion in personal debt, making Canadians among the most heavily leveraged population on the planet..O’Toole has branded himself as the “True Blue” conservative with his plan to help small business owners, by which he intends to “Expand the emergency business account program to extend loans and operating grants to small and medium sized businesses.” Adding more debt to Canadians that are already over leveraged and overtaxed. .Erin promises to end corporate welfare while advocating for grants to small businesses, which is a form of corporate welfare. It’s a bad idea to bail out small businesses for the same reasons that bailing out billion-dollar corporations is a bad idea. It is not the role of government to prop up a failing business. A conservative government should ensure that Canadians have equal access to a free and open marketplace. If the free market has already decided that a loan for a small business owner is not a good investment, than why would Erin O’Toole think it is? Because good economics – of which we see very little in O’Toole’s platform – does not make for good politics and O’Toole has given the party a nice, new, easy to digest, centrist platform wrapped in a true-blue bow..There was no champion of genuinely small government in the CPC leadership race. Conservatives have already ceded too much ground to talk about meaningful spending cuts. Once you agree to the necessity of Canadian social program sacred cows, the only discussion is to what degree should the government impoverish Canadians to keep them and how..Incentives matter. Cheap, easy-access to government subsidized credit and lower taxes for small business owners might be enough for O’Toole to gain some ground against the Trudeau Liberals, but it’s not enough. A Conservative Leader should incentivize savings, not debt. Under a conservative government, taxes should be lower and that should be done by cutting government spending and allowing the market to function..O’Toole is as good a choice as any out of the four, but don’t expect a miraculous economic recovery. Without significant change to Canadian fiscal policy, problems with debt and taxes will still get worse..Darcy Gerow is a columnist for the Western Standard
