Braid: Liberal arrogance blinds them to Canada-wide hunger for tax cuts

It can get tiresome, watching Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre pop up in Parliament to cry, “Axe the Tax,” and, “We need a carbon tax election.”

But he’s smart to keep pounding the same stake into Liberal hearts. High taxes really are a huge issue countrywide, and every politician facing election knows it. The mystery is why the Liberals don’t.

Signs of taxation toxicity abound in three provincial election campaigns now underway — in British Columbia, New Brunswick and Saskatchewan.

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New Brunswick PC Premier Blaine Higgs offers one key promise before voting day, Oct. 21.

He would lower the Harmonized Sales Tax by two points, to 13 per cent.

Those benighted folks pay a punishing 15 per cent on top of nearly everything they buy — five per cent federal GST, plus 10 per cent provincial tax.

The same extortionate 15 per cent rate applies in all four Atlantic provinces. But only the leader who might lose an election promises to do something about it.

The Higgs tax cut would apparently cost the treasury $1.6 billion a year. That would be a direct benefit to taxpayers, unlike most of the opposition Liberal promises for more spending on better services.

Poilievre told the Commons on Thursday that federal taxes are depriving New Brunswick of funding for hospitals and schools. He demanded — of course — a carbon tax election.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau gave the rote response: The Conservatives don’t care about climate change, and the carbon tax works.

This is possibly the weakest tax argument a prime minister has offered since Brian Mulroney first proposed the GST.

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In B.C., NDP Premier David Eby made the most striking tax promise of all even before he called the election now set for Oct. 19.

He promised to ditch the province’s consumer carbon tax, but only if Ottawa agrees to not impose the federal tax in its place.

This was startling. That provincial tax, imposed in 2008, was the first of its kind in North America.

But for many, it has become oppressive and often ridiculous. A B.C. colleague tells me that his carbon tax on natural gas can be twice the price of the gas itself.

There’s not the slightest chance that Ottawa would give B.C. a blanket tax exemption. They’d have to do the same for Alberta and Ontario, for starters.

Eby hasn’t answered the crucial question; will he keep this promise if Poilievre wins the federal election and abolishes the federal tax?

That pledge was just wind and everyone knew it. Its only value is to show how angry B.C. voters are about taxation levels.

With the campaign underway, Eby now comes up with a real-world promise. He would cut provincial income tax by $1,000 for an average family, starting next year.

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith won a provincial election last year on just such a promise. She would not have beaten the NDP without this pledge to lower provincial income tax by $1,500 a year for a family of four.

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Her campaign gave the impression that the tax break would come in the next budget. But Smith reneged. The budget deferred the full break until 2027.

That made people very angry. Smith faced serious pressure from her own party. She now promises to keep the promise soon.

The message was obvious. In these times, a tax promise is the most dangerous one to break.

The Saskatchewan drive to an election Oct. 28 begins with duelling tax offers from both the ruling Saskatchewan Party and the NDP.

We already knew how Premier Scott Moe feels about the federal carbon tax. He’s the only one who refused to remit tax on home heating fuels to Ottawa, after Trudeau bowed to pressure from his Atlantic MPs and exempted home heating oil.

Moe also promises income tax cuts that would save families about $1,000 a year for four years.

NDP Leader Carla Beck responds with a plan to suspend provincial gasoline tax collection for six months, and remove provincial sales tax from children’s clothes and ready-to-eat foods.

The promises are all over the place, but politicians who fail to make them are doomed.

Liberal arrogance blinds them to reality.

Don Braid’s column appears regularly in the Herald

X: @DonBraid

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