Issue

After breaking their promise to eliminate the deficit and adding $70 billion to the debt, the Liberals now plan to add another $94 billion to it in the next four years. They have abandoned all pretense of eliminating the deficit. The Conservatives, NPD and Greens also plan to have deficits for at least the next five years.

None of the other parties believes in fiscal prudence anymore. In order to buy votes, they all made spending promises totalling tens of billions of dollars and proposed targeted tax measures that will only complicate Canada’s tax system and make it less fair.

This is irresponsible. If a recession hits, the federal government will be in a precarious fiscal situation and could lose control of its finances. Moreover, no broad-based reduction in the tax burden will ever be possible with a government that keeps growing and paying for new programs with borrowed money.

Facts

-Andrew Scheer abandoned his previous commitment to eliminate the deficit in two years, and now claims he needs five years to eliminate a $20-billion deficit. But between 1995 and 1997, the Liberal government of Jean Chrétien went from a $43-billion deficit (in today’s dollars) to a $4-billion surplus in just two years. It can be done.

-In 2018-2019, government revenues were $8 billion higher than anticipated. However, instead of reducing its deficit by almost half, the Trudeau government decided to spend all the money. A government that controls spending while its revenues are growing will have the fiscal room to eliminate the deficit and cut taxes if it makes this a priority.

-Our tax system is overly complicated. Canadians spend $7 billion each year to comply with our tax laws, or about $500 per household on average.

Our plan

Debts and deficits are nothing more than deferred taxes on our children and grandchildren. Instead of buying votes with borrowed money, a responsible government should cut spending, balance the budget as quickly as possible, and then lower taxes in a prudent manner to put money back into Canadians’ pockets.

A People’s Party government will:

• Get rid of the deficit in two years through spending cuts and fiscal prudence. Spending cuts will include: corporate welfare ($5B-$10B), foreign development aid ($5B), CBC ($1B), equalization payments, and funding for programs which are provincial or municipal responsibilities.
• Stop using our tax system for political ends and make it simpler and fairer. In particular, it will eliminate targeted tax measures that are inefficient and serve no compelling public policy purpose.
• Cut personal income taxes after the deficit has been eliminated, over the course of several budgets, as the fiscal room is found to allow it. The objective will be to lower taxes for all Canadians by raising the basic personal exemption to $15,000 (from $12,069 in 2019) and reducing the number of tax brackets from five to two, with incomes from $15,001 to $100,000 taxed at 15%, and income over $100,000 taxed at 25%.
• Over the course of one mandate, gradually abolish the personal capital gains tax by decreasing the inclusion rate from the current 50% down to 0%.

Economy: Encouraging Investment and Productivity Growth

Issue

There are only two ways to create more wealth and prosperity: we can either work more or work more efficiently through increased productivity. Investments in R&D, innovation, more efficient production processes, machinery and equipment are critical to improvements in productivity and living standards.

Improved productivity leads to better, higher-paying jobs. And in a context where there are manpower shortages in many sectors, investment is a way to increase production without necessarily having to employ more workers.

Unfortunately, Canada’s business climate is less and less welcoming to investors. Since 2015, business investment has gone down not only in the oil and gas sector, but in many other sectors as well. Canada is also attracting less foreign direct investment.

More government intervention in the economy is not the answer to our economic challenges. Every time the government takes an additional dollar in taxes, or borrows it, this is a dollar that individuals or businesspeople will not be able to spend or invest.

Facts

-A 2018 study by the School of Public Policy at the University of Calgary found $14 billion worth of direct and indirect federal business subsidies. Some of these measures may be worth keeping, but most create unfair market distortions by favouring some companies or sectors at the expense of others.

-According to the latest OECD figures, Canada’s combined federal-provincial corporate income tax rate is the 12^th highest amongst the 36 OECD countries. A more competitive tax rate would ensure that Canadian businesses become more profitable, pay higher salaries and invest more.

-By reducing the return on investment, a capital gains tax not only lowers overall investment, it also hinders the allocation of capital to its most efficient uses and discourages riskier ventures that are likely to bring more innovation.

Many of our trading partners do not tax capital gains. There was no capital gains tax in Canada until 1972. Abolishing it would encourage every Canadian to save and invest more and would give our entrepreneurs access to a larger pool of capital. The benefits to our economy would vastly exceed the loss of government revenues.

Our plan

Ottawa should stop taking billions of dollars from the private sector and redistributing them through subsidies. It should instead lower taxes for all businesses and encourage saving and investment to make our economy more productive.

A People’s Party of Canada government will:

• Eliminate all corporate subsidies and other inefficient government interventions (bailouts of failing companies, regional development grants, conditional loans and loan guarantees with an implicit subsidy, tax credits, etc.) that unfairly support some companies or business sectors. This will generate savings of between $5 billion and $10 billion a year.
• Gradually reduce over the course of one mandate the corporate income tax rate from its current 15% down to 10%. When completed, this measure will make about $9.5 billion available to businesses, allowing them to increase salaries or invest in productivity improvements.*
• Over the course of one mandate, gradually abolish the personal capital gains tax by decreasing the inclusion rate from the current 50% down to 0%. When completed, this measure will put about $7 billion per year back into the pockets of Canadians.*

*According to the Parliamentary Budget Officer’s Ready Reckoner website.

Aboriginal Issues: A New Relationship Based on Mutual Respect

Issue

The aboriginal population of Canada is extremely diversified. It accounts for about 5% of Canada’s population and comprises First Nations, Inuit and Metis. There are more than 600 First Nations communities dispersed across the country. More than half of First Nations Canadians don’t live on reserves.

Aboriginal issues are also very complex. Some communities are prosperous, others much poorer than the Canadian average. Many suffer from acute social problems, including crime, domestic violence, substance abuse and suicide. Many don’t have the basic services that we take for granted such as access to clean water. There are other major issues to address regarding treaty negotiations, housing, property rights on reserves, etc.

It is not possible to address more than a few of these issues in the context of this election platform. Here is what a People’s Party government would prioritize on the basis of its four key principles.

Respect

Many injustices were committed in the past by the Canadian government towards aboriginals. We cannot rewrite the past, but only seek the best way to live together harmoniously in the future. This relationship must be based on mutual respect and a balanced approach taking into account the needs of the aboriginal population and the interests of the Canadian population as a whole.

• A People’s Party government will explore options to replace the paternalistic Indian Act, which keeps aboriginals in a state of dependency and allows the federal government to control most aspects of their lives, with a new legal framework that guarantees equal rights and responsibilities to aboriginal people as Canadians, and promotes the self-reliance of communities.
• A People’s Party government will respect our Constitution and treaties. It will reaffirm the federal government’s power to approve natural resources and infrastructure projects, after adequate consultations with affected aboriginal groups, and in partnership with them to ensure they can benefit from these economic opportunities.

Freedom

The lack of real private property on reserves is in part responsible for the poor state of housing and the social ills that derive from it, and is one of the greatest impediments to economic development.

• A People’s Party government will explore further avenues to promote the establishment of individual property rights on reserves so as to empower its residents, and give them increased control over their lives.

Fairness

Fairness demands that all Canadians benefit from roughly equivalent services wherever they live. It’s unacceptable that some aboriginal communities live in conditions that resemble those of third world countries. But the current model to solve these problems is based on top-down bureaucratic solutions imposed by Ottawa on dependent communities with no voice in the process.

• A People’s Party government will insure that aboriginal communities take more ownership of the services they receive in partnership with Ottawa and other levels of government.

Responsibility

Although Ottawa spends about $21 billion a year on aboriginal programs, there is little evidence that living conditions have been improving in aboriginal communities. The federal government and aboriginal administrations have a responsibility to ensure that taxpayers’ money is well spent.

A People’s Party government will review federal spending to ensure that programs are better targeted to benefit the aboriginal population, in particular the communities that have the greatest needs.

Issue

The Canadian Armed Forces has a proud history and is one of the most capable and respected military forces in the world.

Unfortunately, successive Liberal and Conservative governments have largely chosen to forget this proud history. They have starved our military forces of funds, equipment and support, and broken their trust with those who made an exceptional personal commitment to put life and limb at risk in the interests of the nation.

The backbone of any military is the character of the men and women who serve. The fastest way to demoralize and undermine a country’s military is to fail to look after injured soldiers when they return home or to provide for the families of those who did not make it back. 

Facts

Until 2006, veterans injured or disabled during military service received a tax-free lifetime disability pension under the Pension Act, as determined by a veteran’s disability assessment, including support and survivor benefits for spouses and dependent children.

On April 1, 2006, the New Veterans Charter replaced those pensions with a one-time lump sum disability payout that is wholly inadequate, leaving many injured and disabled veterans in dire financial straits. It created two classes of veterans.

The Trudeau government campaigned on the re-establishment of a lifelong disability pension, a “Pension For Life”, which actually amounts to a hodgepodge of existing benefits recycled and repackaged as something new. The Parliamentary Budget Officer has calculated that the Pension for Life provides the average veteran lifetime payments less than one third of what would have been provided under the Pension Act. Moreover, it has become increasingly difficult for veterans to navigate all the programs and obtain the benefits they are entitled to.

When a veteran who had lost a leg asked Justin Trudeau at a Town Hall why his government was still fighting veterans groups attempting to get the support they were promised, Trudeau said: “Because they’re asking for more than we are able to give right now.”

Our plan

The government of Canada has an obligation to honour the nation’s sacred commitment to our military men and women and make sure our veterans receive the support they deserve.

A People’s Party government will:

• Recognize and respect the unique sacrifices of those who serve and have served in Canada’s Armed Forces.
• Enshrine in legislation the country’s obligations to our veterans in a Military Covenant between the government and those who serve in the Armed Forces.
• Reinstate the fair disability pension as previously provided for by the Pension Act. The pension will apply retroactively to 2006 and lump sum payments received since then will be treated as advance payments.
• Instigate a line-by-line review of the New Veterans Charter (including the Enhanced New Veterans Charter Act of 2011), to determine which policies and programs should be retained, simplify the system and make it easier to navigate.
• Reemphasize the legislative guarantee of the “Benefit of doubt” standard under the Pension Act.

Issue

A nation must be based on a sense of belonging, of participating in a common national project, and sharing the same values. It’s only when these sentiments are widely shared that we can develop the trust and common understanding necessary for our society and institutions to function.

In the past, immigrants who came to Canada gradually integrated into our society. They did of course keep some aspects of the culture of their country of origin. They became Canadian, but with a distinct flavour. This is a type of multiculturalism that enriches our society.

However, over the past decades, the government of Canada has pursued a policy of official multiculturalism that encourages immigrants to keep the values and culture they left behind instead of integrating into Canadian society and adopting Canadian values and culture.

With his cult of diversity, Justin Trudeau has pushed this ideology even further into a form of extreme multiculturalism. He described Canada as the first post-national state, with no core identity.

In a free society, immigrants have the right to cherish and maintain their cultural heritage. However, that doesn’t mean we have any obligation to help them preserve it, with government programs and taxpayers’ money. The vast majority of Canadians rightly expect them to learn about our history and culture, master one of our official languages, and adopt widely shared Canadian values.

Facts

Canada is and has always been a diverse country. We have First Nations and Inuit, two official languages, a multiethnic population, and very different regional cultures. The culture of Cape Breton is very different from that of the Eastern Townships in Quebec, or that of southern Alberta, or Nunavut. All these cultures are intrinsically Canadian. They developed in Canada. They don’t exist anywhere else in the world. They deserve to be nurtured and to survive.

Our distinct values are those of a contemporary Western civilization. They include: democracy; individual rights and freedoms, including freedom of religious belief and freedom to criticize religion; equality between men and women; the equal treatment of all citizens regardless of ethnicity, religion, or sexual orientation; the rule of law; separation of state and religion; tolerance and pluralism; and loyalty to the wider society instead of to one’s clan or tribe.

Our Plan

Official multiculturalism is based on the idea that there is no unified Canadian society and no distinct Canadian identity to integrate into, and that we are just a collection of ethnic and religious tribes living side by side. But if we want to keep our country united, and ensure social cohesion, we must focus on what unites us as Canadians, not what divides us.

A People’s Party government will:

• Repeal the Multiculturalism Act and eliminate all funding to promote multiculturalism. Emphasize instead the integration of immigrants into Canadian society.
• Substantially lower the total number of immigrants and refugees Canada accept every year, from 350,000 to between 100,000 and 150,000 (see Immigration policy).
• Ensure that every candidate for immigration undergoes a face-to-face interview and answers a series of specific questions to assess the extent to which they align with Canadian values and societal norms (see Immigration policy).

Issue

The primary aim of Canada’s immigration policy should be to economically benefit Canadians and Canada as a whole. It should not be used to forcibly change the cultural character and social fabric of our country. And it should not put excessive financial burdens on the shoulders of Canadians in the pursuit of humanitarian goals.

Despite Canada already accepting more immigrants that almost any other country, both the Liberals and Conservatives support an unsustainable increase in the annual immigration intake, and are using mass immigration as a political tool to buy votes among immigrant communities.

Facts

Right now, only 26% of all the immigrants and refugees who come to Canada every year are directly chosen because they have the right qualifications and work experience to fulfill our economic needs. The rest are dependents (spouses and children), come through the family reunification program or as refugees, do not work, or do not have the skills that we need even if they find work.

Immigrants generally have lower wages than non-immigrants. They pay on average about half as much in income taxes as other Canadians but absorb nearly the same value of government services. A study puts the cost to taxpayers in 2014 at roughly $5,300 per immigrant living in Canada, for a total annual cost of somewhere between $27 billion and $35 billion.

Demographic studies have shown that newcomers are a bit younger on average than Canadians, but not enough to have a noticeable impact on the rate of aging. The Liberal government has made matters worse by increasing the number of parents and grand-parents accepted under the family reunification program.

Mass immigration also inflates housing prices. More than 41% of all immigrants to Canada settle in and around Toronto and Vancouver, which have some of the least affordable housing among big cities in the world.

Our Plan

Our immigration policy can benefit Canadians only if we welcome the right kind of immigrants. It should prioritize Canada’s economic interests and be calibrated in a way that does not jeopardize Canadian values and the maintenance of our national identity.

A People’s Party government will:

• Substantially lower the total number of immigrants and refugees Canada accept every year, from 350,000 to between 100,000 and 150,000, depending on economic and other circumstances.
• Reform the immigration point system and the related programs to accept a larger proportion of economic immigrants with the right skills.
• Accept fewer resettled refugees (see Refugees policy) and limit the number of immigrants accepted under the family reunification program, including abolishing the program for parents and grand-parents.
• Limit the number of temporary foreign workers and make sure that they fulfil temporary positions and do not compete unfairly with Canadian workers.
• Change the law to make birth tourism illegal.
• Ensure that every candidate for immigration undergoes a face-to-face interview and answers a series of specific questions to assess the extent to which they align with Canadian values and societal norms (see Canadian Identity policy).
• Increase resources for CSIS, the RCMP and Canadian Immigration and Citizenship to do interviews and thorough background checks on all classes of immigrants.