It’s funny, but Trudeau hates rich people.
LIBERALS’ CAMPAIGN AGAINST ‘RICH TAX CHEATS’ NOT ABOUT FAIRNESS
MORNEAU’S CHANGES WILL DO NOTHING TO ADD ‘BALANCE.’ — KELLY MCPARLAND
Something about rich people sticks in the craw of Justin Trudeau. It’s weird. He’s rich himself. Always has been. He was born rich and grew up with a trust fund. His most profitable venture was delivering speeches at high prices based on his fame as the son of his father. He’s the third generation to profit from the labours of his grandfather Charlie. His dad, Pierre, enjoyed inherited wealth, which allowed him to spend his life amusing himself before running for Parliament.
Trudeau’s finance minister, Bill Morneau, is even richer. Like Trudeau, he inherited wealth in the form of the family firm, which he headed until being recruited by Trudeau. He married into even greater wealth; his wife, Nancy, is a member of the New Brunswick McCain family, one of the country’s richest. Until he was elected, Morneau seemed quite content to live in the style of other rich people, but once under the wing of the Liberal leader he quickly adapted to the notion that wealthy people are carbuncles feeding off the labours of the struggling middle class.
Morneau is now trying to push through a tax change that he and the prime minister maintain is all about fairness. It would alter provisions for certain categories of entrepreneurs who are able to reduce their tax outlay by i ncorporating themselves. There’s no need to repeat the details, which have been extensively reported. Though Morneau did his best to minimize the fuss by unveiling the changes in mid- July, opposition has mushroomed nonetheless and Morneau and his boss are now running into some heavy water. Morneau has been forced to reassure colleagues rattled by a deluge of complaints. The issue was expected to be a major topic at a Liberal retreat last week.
Morneau insists he’s just trying to produce a “level playing field” and waylay a few “tax cheats.” Rich people, it appears, have been using “fancy accounting schemes” to minimize the amount they need to pay. Trudeau says he will “make no apologies” for his commitment to “fairness.”
The trouble with the government position is that it doesn’t bear scrutiny. It may be that some people are exploiting tax laws in a way that wasn’t intended, but if it’s legal they’re hardly “cheats.” And if it’s illegal they should be charged. If there are loopholes in the current law, Ottawa should fill them. Instead, far from balancing any fields, Trudeau and his minister seem more interested in stoking a divisive campaign built on envy and resentment.
For one thing, the “rich” they’re targeting aren’t very rich. The Toronto Star notes self- righteously that 60 per cent of the small- business tax break benefit is enjoyed by those who earn more than $ 150,000 per year. That income is certainly healthy, but hardly Rockefellerian. In Ontario it’s the sort of money earned by cops on overtime, hydro workers, Toronto Star pundits, CBC personalities, teachers with two incomes and members of Parliament. I’m willing to bet Margaret Atwood — last seen campaigning to keep condos out of her luxury downtown neighbourhood — breaches that income barrier. I’m betting she doesn’t sit at the breakfast table, pencil in hand, doing her own taxes. Does that make her a “tax cheat” using “fancy accounting schemes” that utilize perfectly legitimate tax laws passed by Canada’s government?
Morneau’s targeting people who took on risk to build a small business and don’t have pensions or other benefits to back them up if it fails, a host of average Joes and Janes who live in ordinary neighbourhoods and were probably unaware their modest efforts offended important people in Ottawa.
It’s not a “small but noisy” group, as the Star claimed last week from its ivory tower on Toronto’s waterfront, but hundreds of thousands of Canadians who make a living by getting up early and working hard with few guarantees.
The Liberal suggestion that the “rich” don’t contribute enough is simply untrue. Trudeau and Canada’s premiers have already raised taxes on top earners several times. In many provinces they pay a top rate above 50 per cent. The very reason so many people have opted to incorporate is that their personal taxes have been raised so high, proof again that “soaking the rich” rarely produces the expected results. Add on local taxes, gas taxes and other means by which governments siphon off incomes, and the figures escalate further. Since when is it greedy and self- serving to contribute 60 per cent or more of your income to others?
Morneau’s changes will do nothing to add “balance” to public finances.
The anticipated revenue is about $ 250 million; the government has already increased borrowing by tens of billions. The entire annual take would barely make a dent in the interest charges f rom Liberal borrowing. Morneau regularly insists the growing debt is no big deal, that Liberal financial wizardry can easily accommodate it, yet a missing $250 million apparently keeps him up nights. The “imbalance” in Canada’s tax sys- tem comes not from wealthy cheats, but from the cornucopia of boutique tax breaks introduced by Liberal and Conservative governments alike to win votes from favoured constituencies, and the lavish subsidy programs used to prop up powerful interest groups. Morneau could easily go after these, but it might prove harder to smear teachers claiming credits for classroom supplies — a benefit introduced by Morneau — or to slam dairy farmers who carry considerable clout in Quebec and could cost the Liberals some seats.
I lack the qualifications to judge what motivates Trudeau’s need to be perceived as a warrior for the middle class, or his apparent disdain for those who have worked harder or been more fortunate than others. Certainly he doesn’t mind spending time with the very rich: his Christmas jaunt to the vacation home of the Aga Khan, one of the world’s richest and most privileged men, demonstrated that. It would stretch credulity to believe wealthy families like Trudeau’s and Morneau’s have never employed professionals to calculate their taxes. That would hardly make them “tax cheats,” an epithet they seem to enjoy applying to doctors, engineers and others they deem less virtuous than themselves. It simply means they lack the time or skill to navigate the labyrinthine system put in place by Ottawa to increase its revenues at the expense of working people.
Morneau’s campaign isn’t really about balance, fairness or the need to force fat cats to do their share. It’s about the Liberals being afraid to carry out a real, effective restructuring of an outdated and bloated tax regime, and opting instead for some easy posturing by way of yet another empty attack on the heinous “rich.” Once again, the real rich will feel no pain, while ordinary people pay the price.
STOKING A DIVISIVE CAMPAIGN BUILT ON ENVY, RESENTMENT.