QP: Demanding to rescind tax increases for things that aren’t taxes

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The first day back, and the prime minister was off at the United Nations General Assembly in New York, while his deputy was in Toronto for the the funeral of former Cabinet minister Bill Graham, leaving the rest of his front bench to deal with Pierre Poilievre’s leadership debut. When he began, Poilievre started in French, complaining that EI and CPP premiums increased, as did the carbon price, and demanded that these “tax increases” be rescinded for “senior and workers.” Randy Boissonnault was chosen to respond, congratulating Poilievre on his victory, before he said that Canadians were about to see two competing visions—the Liberals who care about people and the the Conservatives who tell them that they’re on their own, and raised their affordability package that was just tabled. Poilievre took exception to this, and said the Liberals didn’t care because the share of average Canadians’ paycheques that go to housing going from 32 percent to 50 percent. Boissonnault repeated his points about their affordability measures. Poilievre switched to English to remix both of his previous questions into one, and Karina Gould stood up to assure him they had measures going to families who need them. Poilievre trotted out his talking points about people who can’t leave their parents’ basements, and Ahmed Hussen praised their housing measures, which Poilievre and his party voted against. Poilievre listed the supposed tax increases the government made (which were not actually taxes), and Boissonnault got back up to repeat his lines about the “two competing visions” in English.

Alain Therrien led for the Bloc, and he raised the spectre of gun violence in Montreal, demanding federal action. Marco Mendicino have his boilerplate response of his thoughts being with the victims, and said that they have a plan with legislation and more resources for security at the border. Therrien was not mollified and demanded more action, and Mendicino hoped for support for their gun control bill, as it has more resources for police to deal with organised crime.

Jagmeet Singh stood up to pat himself on the back for “forcing” the help more people deal with inflation (as though this government wouldn’t have done most if not all of those measures on their own, with the possible exception of the stopgap measure for dental care to meet the deadline) and rhetorically wondered what took them so long. Boissonnault recited his praise for the government’s affordability measures. Singh switched to French to decry the greed of grocery CEOs and demanded the government force them to “pay their fair share,” to which Boissonnault assured him they were making them pay, and listed the increase to corporate taxes and their “dividends” from the pandemic (which I’m sure is just for banks and insurance companies).

https://twitter.com/mattgurney/status/1572292824028319746

Round two, and Melissa Lantsman decried “tax increases” (Duguid: We are fighting climate change and people are getting more back than they spend), and Scott Aitchison repeated the demands to cut CPP and EI increases (Duguid: Same answer), Pierre Paul-Hus worried that the wholly ineffective tax credit on children’s sports—which only benefited wealthy parents—was being eliminated (Gould: Look at how we cut child care costs; Boissonnault: We tabled two affordability bills today), and Tim Uppal worried about food price inflation, but didn’t mention it was being driven largely by climate change (Boissonnault: Your leader’s advice to was to invest in Bitcoin, while we have a real plan).

Louise Chabot worried that the temporary EI measures are expiring (Qualtrough: We are moving forward with policies on addressing the labour shortage and affordability, and workers currently on EI won’t be affected; We are extending the seasonal benefits and working forward on modernising the system before the end of the year), and she complained this was taking too long (Qualtrough: I’m going to take the opportunity to say we’re moving ahead with EI sickness benefits changes).

Clifford Small demanded the “planned tax hikes” be cancelled for his province’s workers, but apparently not any other province’s workers (Duguid: Our climate incentive returns more money to most families; Dabrusin: We announced a programme for Atlantic Canadians to support to cheaper and greener heating options), Rick Perkins demanded the same thing for Nova Scotia (Dabrusin: Same answer; Duguid: Perhaps you’ll believe the Environment Commissioner or the PBO who proved our plans ensures eight out of ten families are better off).

Matthew Green returned to the coming EI changes (Qualtrough: While the COVID measures wind down, we are working to modernise system, while sickness benefits will start in December, while we have recovered 113 percent of jobs lost from the pandemic), and Leah Gazan worried people who got pandemic benefits will face Child Care benefit clawbacks (Gould: We raised the benefit this summer, indexed to inflation).

Round three saw yet more demands to end so-called “tax increases” (Boissonnault: We have been helping Canadians and our affordability measures will not increase inflation; What was vaporised were the savings of those who followed your leader’s advice to invest in Bitcoin; Qualtrough: EI premiums are twenty percent lower under our government than they were when you guys were in power), plus questions on music artists losing income in part because of a calculation error on SOCAN’s part (Rodriguez: All artists should be treated in a just and equitable way), exporting LNG (Dabrusin: The Germans came looking for hydrogen, and we will supply them), a “national health-based strategy” to fight opioid deaths (Duclos: We are investing in mental health and more measures are on the way), and worries that the Canadian consulate in Spain didn’t help a missing Canadian (Oliphant: We are concerned for his well-being, and we are on the case).

Overall, it was not the explosive fireworks that all of the journalists who turned up to watch today were expecting, and they were also trying to deduce the logic of who was asking the questions, given that they were basically all asking the same thing, and there were a few different considerations, from who was being showcased, to the regional dimension from Atlantic MPs who will likely soon be under the federal carbon price scheme as their provinces have not provided adequate plans to meet the rising targets. All of this being said, the basis of today’s questions were the notion that at a time of rising inflation, the government should’t be raising taxes, except every example they cited were not taxes. EI is, as the name suggests, an insurance programme, that people can draw on if they lose their jobs. CPP is deferred income. Carbon prices are not taxes (as the Supreme Court of Canada affirmed) and the rebate incentives mean that most people are getting more money back than they spend, which is the market mechanism to incentivize people to reduce their emissions in order to maximise their rebates. That’s the whole point. And while there were a couple of corrections on the notions, nobody actually said that none of these things aren’t taxes, and the only taxes going up are on boats, private planes, and luxury cars, which they could have pinned Poilievre with, and yet they didn’t. And to add to that, actual tax increases fight inflation, while tax cuts fuel it, and higher tax revenue would help eliminate deficits, 

So what did the Liberals attempt? Some weaksauce “There are two competing visions” talking points, which sounds hokey on its face, and is just more of this government’s happy-clappy nonsense. There is so much more substance they could offer on the drivers of inflation and affordability measures. They could have called out the absolute deluge of misinformation and disinformation on inflation, deficits, the supposed taxes, any of it, but nope. Once again, lies are met with a stream of pabulum, and this government will apparently never learn.

Sartorially speaking, snaps go out to Peter Fragiskatos for a dark grey three-piece suit with a crisp white shirt, and a purple tie and pocket square, and to Jenna Sudds for a pink top under a navy jacket. Style citations go out to Patty Hajdu for a black top with bight florals and wizard sleeves over dark navy slacks, and to Darren Fisher for his hateful brown corduroy jacket over a grey shirt and a navy tie. Dishonourable mention goes out to Anju Dhillon for a bright yellow jacket over a black top and slacks.

One thought on “QP: Demanding to rescind tax increases for things that aren’t taxes”

  1. The Cons continue to throw curves in QP and the Liberals swing and miss. This chunk punk Polly is an easy loser but the Libs just don’t have the chops. This had better change and fast. Shall we hold our breaths?

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