Ford favours the rich, Wynne says
PC leader says plan to cut corporate taxes will create ‘great paying jobs’
Liberal Premier Kathleen Wynne is charging that Progressive Conservative Leader Doug Ford wants to cut corporate taxes because it would benefit wealthy people like himself.
One day after playing the Trump card against Ford, Wynne upped the ante by claiming the Tories’ plan to cut corporate income taxes from 11.5 per cent to 10.5 per cent is to help the rich.
“Doug Ford is a wealthy man. He has always been a wealthy man, so he thinks like a wealthy man,” she told reporters Thursday at Kensington Gardens, a long-term care facility in the Annex.
“The reality is that lowering that corporate tax rate will help the big guy.”
Against the backdrop of a June 7 election that polls suggest Ford could win, Wynne noted a Tory government would “claw back that $15-anhour minimum wage that we have already committed to” for next Jan. 1.
“That means that people who earn minimum wage will be worse off by about $1,100 under the scheme that he’s put forward,” she said, referring to Ford’s promise to freeze the hourly minimum wage at $14, but eliminate provincial income taxes for the lowest earners.
Ford is a multimillionaire who inherited his family’s successful label business from his late fa- ther, Doug Ford, Sr., a former Tory MPP. Under his tenure, Deco Labels and Tags expanded its operations into the United States. NDP Leader Andrea Horwath has promised to increase the corporate tax rate to 13 per cent if elected, but Wynne said it should remain at 11.5 per cent.
“We are already competitive. We have among the lowest corporate taxes in the country. That’s why we’re keeping it where it is.” Her comments came the day after she compared Ford to U.S. President Donald Trump, calling the Tory leader a “bully” who “lies” on the campaign trail.
The rookie PC chief dismissed her strategy as “desperate.”
Ford said Thursday in Etobicoke that businesses need the tax cut in order to “create greatpaying jobs.”
At a Dixon Rd. hotel, he acknowledged his family company would benefit from his promised corporate tax cut, but estimated the benefit will be “probably very little.”
“My company will be in a blind trust. I will have nothing to do with my company,” said Ford.
“If anything, I’m losing money doing this job, but it’s worth it. I’m giving up a massive amount to serve the people of Ontario.”