Trudeau does right thing, but for wrong reason

Even when Prime Minister Justin Trudeau does the right thing, he has to be dragged kicking and screaming into doing it.

Take his hasty resurrection Monday of his previously broken election promise to cut the small-business tax rate from 11 to nine per cent by 2019.

The fact Trudeau now intends to keep this promise that he made to voters in 2015 is a good thing.

What’s alarming is that Trudeau didn’t reverse course because it was the right thing to do.

He did it because he and Finance Minister Bill Morneau botched their initial presentation of their smallbusiness corporate tax reform plan so badly, the Liberals are worried it’s eating into their popularity, as suggested by several recent polls.

So Trudeau did the right thing, for the wrong reason.

Not because he understands that it was wrong of him to promise a smallbusiness tax cut in the 2015 election and then renege on it, post-election.

Rather, Trudeau’s doing it out of political expediency. This due to Trudeau’s and Morneau’s class-warfare rhetoric, which suggested many small-business owners are tax-evading fat cats.

Trudeau and Morneau now insist their purpose is a targeted plan not to hurt small businesses, but to prevent rich people from taking unfair advantage of (legal) loopholes in small-business corporate tax rules to avoid paying their “fair share” of taxes compared to the middle class.

Trudeau said his government will introduce measures this week to make the Liberal reforms more palatable to small businesses.

For example, ensuring that closing the “income sprinkling” loophole — where family members who don’t contribute to a small business are nonetheless assigned a portion of its revenues as salary to decrease the tax hit — does not punish businesses where family members actually work.

Similarly, the Liberals say they won’t financially punish small-business owners for investing money back into their businesses, or make it financially disadvantageous to pass on a business like a family farm.

Still, Trudeau initially refused to let Morneau answer questions from the media gathered in Stouffville.

Reporters wanted to ask Morneau about reports his personal financial holdings, unlike Trudeau’s, aren’t in a blind trust and that Morneau hadn’t disclosed a private corporation that owns Morneau’s villa in France.

Trudeau (and eventually Morneau) said Morneau had been open with Federal Ethics Commissioner Mary Dawson, followed all her recommendations, and will set up a blind trust if she says he needs one.

Trudeau initially insisted on answering those questions, telling reporters they were getting an opportunity to question the prime minister. Except reporters had specific questions for Morneau.

Trudeau should know it’s his job to answer media questions, not a special treat he bestows on them.