Trudeau hardens stance on tax changes
KELOWNA — Whatever he heard from his caucus colleagues about controversial tax changes during a Liberal retreat in Kelowna, it wasn’t enough to shake Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s faith in pressing forward with the reforms.
If anything, Trudeau’s position that making rich people pay more tax seems only to have hardened during the two-day Liberal gathering.
And he focused his message that only the country’s very wealthiest individuals will see their tax bill rise if the proposed changes become law.
“We are just making sure that the wealthiest Canadians pay their fair share of taxes,” Trudeau said during a press conference after the conclusion of the retreat.
The government proposes to eliminate tax avoidance strategies that, Trudeau said, work mainly to benefit a relatively small number of very wealthy Canadians.
“The fact is, many of the tools that we’re talking about removing only kick in, only become really useful, once someone has maxed out both their Tax Free Savings account and their RRSP,” Trudeau said.
“As soon as you start talking about the small percentage of people who have maxed out both their RRSPs and their TFSAs, you’re talking about the wealthiest Canadians,” Trudeau said.
“Everybody knows that the middle class pays too much in taxes, and the wealthiest don’t pay enough,” he said. “This is about levelling the playing field and making sure that those who’ve been most successful are paying their fair share.”
Trudeau said the government is listening to critics of the tax proposals, but he reiterated an election promise from 2015 to raise taxes on the country’s wealthiest one per cent while lowering them for others.
On other matters, Trudeau was asked if he was concerned that many so-called ‘Dreamers’ in the U.S., people who’ve been hopeful of acquiring American citizenship, might now come to Canada with their path to legal residency possibly being blocked by the Trump administration.
Trudeau said Canada was a country that had long benefited from immigration and was one which welcomed refugees. But he added the country had a “strong and rigorous” system to control the arrival of newcomers.
“People who come to our country will be subject to the rules and principles of our immigration system,” Trudeau said.
About 7,000 asylum seekers, most originally from Haiti, crossed illegally into Quebec between early July and mid-August. Many of them have been housed in Montreal’s Olympic Stadium.
Ottawa has sent immigration officials to Florida to try “dispel some of the myths” among the Haitian community about how easy it is to enter Canada and claim refugee status, Trudeau said.
“They’re talking about processes they would be subject to if they choose to come to Canada,” Trudeau said. “And we’re going to do the same thing on the (U.S.) West Coast.”