COLUMN: On Parliament Hill – Canada’s middle class is paying more taxes than ever before

“We lowered taxes for the middle class and those working hard to join it.”

Remember that one?

For the longest time we heard it every day from the Liberals. However, since COVID-19 that talking point has largely vanished.

It did make a brief reappearance in Trudeau’s (sort of) resignation speech as he began the unenviable task of trying to spin nine years of disastrous governance, scandal, and failure into some sort of legacy.

Trudeau’s assertion that the Liberal Government has lowered taxes for the middle class would be almost laughable—if it weren’t so disheartening for hardworking families who continue to struggle to make ends meet.

COVID-19 saw the single biggest transfer of wealth in history, from the middle class to the billionaire class. The rich and connected used those connections to get even richer (Canadian billionaires saw their wealth jump 51 percent in 2021 alone, with a new billionaire created every 30 hours) while the middle class got poorer and poorer.

Even folks with good paying jobs now struggle to make ends meet. Carpenters who build homes can’t afford to live in one. Nurses who live in their cars or are forced to use foodbanks. We hear stories like this all the time from across the country.

The Liberals did reduce the second lowest tax bracket from 22 percent to 20.5 percent. However, using this argument to claim they lowered taxes carefully omits the fact they also eliminated the Family Tax Cut, the Children’s Fitness Tax Credit, the Children’s Arts Tax Credit, and income splitting for couples. They also slapped additional taxes onto Canadians including the Carbon Tax, Digital Services Tax, and others. They also increased the mandatory contributions to CPP.

The Liberal Government also took on crippling levels of debt and engaged in money printing sparking massive inflation (a hidden tax—on everything) and the current cost-of-living crisis.

A recent Fraser Institute study, and another by the Montreal Economic Institute reveal what most Canadians could have already told them from their lived experience: Middle class Canadians are paying more in taxes than ever before.

While there is no official definition, the middle class typically refers to those whose earnings put them in the 40th to 60th percentile of household income. An income range of approximately $53,000 to $137,000.

While at one time—not that long ago—anywhere is this range would guarantee a relatively decent standard of living, with the cost of housing soaring to a Canadian average of more than $700,000 (add another half-a-million if you live in Toronto or Vancouver), and the dramatic cost increase in groceries and fuel, those (particularly on the lower end of this scale) can no longer make ends meet.

Canadians now spend more on taxes than on food, clothing, and housing combined.

After nine years of Liberal rule, Canadians now work half the year—January to June—just to pay the crippling taxes Justin Trudeau has placed on them. Taxes implemented by Chrystia Freeland and supported by special economic advisor to the PM, Mark Carney.

Sixty-one percent of Canadian families and 81 percent of middle-class households are paying higher taxes than they did in 2015.

To add insult to injury, what have Canadians seen in return for giving half their income to fund government?

Do we drive on better roads? Enjoy the highest quality in government services? Or healthcare? Do we live in safe communities?

The answer to all those questions and many more is a resounding no.

A recent MEI/IPSOS poll showed 72 percent of Canadians overall and 77 percent of young Canadians think taxes are too high. That what government provides comes at far too high a price.

An excellent piece in the Hamilton Spectator concludes as follows:

“While our standard of living has stagnated over the last decade, we have watched from the sidelines as more than 100,000 new federal bureaucrats were hired — many of whom enjoy better benefits and will have a generous pension waiting for them when they retire. In the meantime, the public is on the hook for a national debt now exceeding $1 trillion, and little to show for it in terms of tangible improvements to hospitals, public safety or other essential services. We are paying a premium for bureaucracy and political promises that, for many families, never seem to translate into concrete benefits. Moral pontification surrounding taxes loses all legitimacy when you consider that as the tax burden has grown, poverty, homelessness and depths of despair have all gone up. It behooves those who want to forcibly take your hard-earned money to continually make the case for it — not the other way around. But in Canada, we have accepted working half the year to pay someone else’s salary and get virtually nothing in return.”

Only Canada’s Conservatives can fix the tax tyranny that Trudeau and Carney have imposed.

Only Conservatives will reduce your tax burden.

We will cut taxes, including axing the Trudeau-Freeland-Carney Carbon Tax.

We will bring down inflation by actually dealing with the budget, debt, and deficits.

We will cut waste, reduce bureaucracy, and streamline services so Canadians get better bang for their tax dollar.

We will bring home the promise of Canada, of a powerful paycheque that earns affordable food, gas, and homes in safe neighborhoods.