Juno News - Poilievre announces 15% income tax cut

00:00:00.000 A new tax cut proposed by Conservative leader Pierre Polyev promises to save modest income

00:00:10.300 Canadian families up to $1,800 a year. The NDP have opted to tour Canada with a campaign bus

00:00:17.260 instead of a chartered plane, as is the custom for federal parties hoping to reach Canadians

00:00:21.980 across the country's vast territory. Conservative candidate for Bowmanville,

00:00:26.200 Oshawa North, Jameel Javani, launched his campaign office opening asking voters to save Canada from

00:00:32.540 a, quote, lost decade of liberal governance. Hello Canada, it's Tuesday, March 25th and this

00:00:38.660 is the True North Daily Brief. I'm Cosmin Georgia. And I'm Jeff Knight. We've got you covered with

00:00:43.780 all the news you need to know. Let's discuss the top stories of the day and the True North

00:00:48.280 exclusives you won't hear anywhere else. Conservative leader Pierre Polyev promised a 15%

00:00:58.100 income tax cut for Canadians that could see two income families keep $1,800 of their income every

00:01:05.380 year. The announcement came on the first day of Polyev's federal campaign. If implemented,

00:01:11.000 the tax cut would see Canadians in the lowest income bracket earning $57,000 a year,

00:01:16.900 have their tax rate drop by 15% to 12.75%. When compared to Liberal leader Mark Carney's recent

00:01:25.780 announcement, it amounts to double the potential savings. The Conservatives predicted the decrease

00:01:31.560 would save the average Canadian worker earning $57,000, around $900, and as much as $1,800 per year

00:01:40.180 in savings for two income families, a change which Polyev said will be felt most by, quote,

00:01:46.680 modest income Canadians. Polyev said in a statement released on Monday, quote,

00:01:51.820 it's time to let Canadians keep more of what they earn. Canadians will head to the polls on April 28th,

00:01:58.160 after Carney called a snap election, giving parties only 37 days to campaign. Following this announcement,

00:02:04.900 Carney pledged that a Liberal government would drop the overall income tax rate by one percentage point.

00:02:10.340 However, the Conservatives say Polyev's 15% tax cut would amount to more when broken down,

00:02:16.880 with Carney's cut estimated to save a two-income family only $825 annually, less than half of the Conservatives' proposal.

00:02:25.400 The opposition leader said it will be part of the broader Conservative bring-it-home tax cut

00:02:30.040 and would be applied to, quote, work, investment, energy, and home building.

00:02:34.160 His announcement was applauded by the Canadian Taxpayers Federation. The advocacy group said it was

00:02:39.680 the, quote, best option for the government to ease the cost of living. Jeff, when you add it all

00:02:45.560 together, how much are Canadians paying in taxes on average, and what portion of their incomes are

00:02:52.700 going towards taxes in Canada? Cosmin, Pierre Polyev's tax cut plan, it's a breath of fresh air for

00:02:58.200 hard-working Canadians who are getting absolutely squeezed by these tax burdens. If you want to look at the

00:03:02.840 numbers, in 2023, the average Canadian family bringing in $109,235 shelled out a whopping $46,988 of

00:03:13.040 those dollars in total taxes to federal, provincial, and local governments. That's 43% of their income,

00:03:19.020 just gone. Compare that to what they spent on the essentials, food, shelter, clothing, that came to

00:03:25.260 $38,930, or 35.6% of their income. It's absurd that families are forking over more to bureaucrats

00:03:32.820 than they're spending to keep a roof over their heads and food on the table. Canadians do deserve 0.66

00:03:36.900 to keep more of their hard-earned money, and Polyev's plan is a solid step towards fixing this mess.

00:03:43.820 To match their declining poll momentum, the federal NDP and leader Jagmeet Singh will be hitting the

00:03:49.360 campaign trail by bus, instead of using a chartered jet like they have done in past elections. The New

00:03:54.580 Democrats revealed their campaign plan in a recent post on social media. The NDP said, quote,

00:03:59.960 Our campaign bus will be making its way across the country, connecting with everyday people on the

00:04:04.620 issues that matter most—healthcare, housing, and affordability. They said this via an ex-post on

00:04:09.720 Saturday. The party did not explain its decision to charter a bus rather than a plane. However,

00:04:14.760 the NDP has had financial struggles in the past, including incurring heavy debts during elections.

00:04:20.480 Jennifer Howard, the New Democrats' national campaign director, told the CBC on Friday the

00:04:24.960 party, quote, is going into this election in the best financial shape since Singh became leader.

00:04:29.900 But the NDP's most recent financial statements would suggest otherwise. Since Singh took over

00:04:34.960 the party in 2018, the balance sheet of the NDP has been on a steep and concerning decline.

00:04:40.740 In its latest audited financial statement, Jagmeet Singh's NDP reported having only $289,808 in free cash.

00:04:49.360 To put this into context, between RRSPs, TFSAs, and non-registered accounts, the average 65-year-old

00:04:57.240 individual has a savings of around $319,000. In the 2019 election, the party was required to put up

00:05:04.200 assets as collateral, such as the Jack Layton building in Ottawa, to maintain liquidity and

00:05:08.940 simply stay afloat. As of its most recent annual financial statement, the NDP still hadn't fully

00:05:15.040 repaid a loan it took out to fund its 2021 election, which involved the chartering of a plane.

00:05:20.260 The financially precarious position of the party hasn't prevented their leader from spending lavishly

00:05:25.020 at the taxpayer's expense personally, however. As reported by the National Post, Singh expensed more

00:05:30.720 than $500,000 over nine months to run his constituency office in Burnaby, versus Conservative leader

00:05:37.200 Pierre Polyev, who only charged $143,201. Cosmin, it could take hours, if not days, to reach other parts

00:05:45.120 of the country where the NDP of votes. How have people responded to Singh's decision to use the bus?

00:05:50.840 It's obviously the economic decision, Jeff. Taking a bus is far cheaper than flying a plane around the country.

00:05:59.180 But you're right, getting to destinations is a lot harder and a lot longer of a trip. And when we're

00:06:06.480 talking about an exceptionally short campaign, only 37 days, I question whether Singh will be able to

00:06:14.160 reach his supporters from the East Coast to the West Coast in British Columbia. And it's funny, there's

00:06:19.740 actually a clip out right now of a CBC journalist who has to spend six hours at a time on a bus with

00:06:27.600 Jagmeet Singh as he travels from campaign destination to campaign destination. And he asks,

00:06:34.760 after this, we're going to be going to Toronto, taking the bus, not flying. How much sense does it

00:06:40.980 make to be on a bus for six hours in a snowstorm when you're this far behind in the polls? It's a

00:06:47.680 really good question from the CBC, nonetheless. But Jagmeet Singh doesn't have a solid answer. He can't

00:06:56.660 say it's because we're broke. We don't have the donations coming in to afford a plane, which would

00:07:03.640 be the most sensible thing, especially, as I mentioned, because of the short campaign period.

00:07:08.760 But he says he's trying to go from East Coast to West Coast to Montreal. But we're talking about days

00:07:15.480 where you're not even reaching important constituencies for the NDP. And the NDP do not

00:07:21.180 have a lot of places where they can hope to get elected. And sometimes these places are very,

00:07:27.320 very spread out. Jagmeet Singh's own constituency is in Burnaby, British Columbia, and he's currently

00:07:33.740 still on the East Coast. So it's going to be quite a matter of time before he even gets to his home

00:07:40.000 constituency to campaign there and potentially participate in local debates. And then I wonder,

00:07:46.300 perhaps he might just take the plane himself to get to the leaders debate that's coming up in a few

00:07:51.760 weeks. With the election officially underway, federal conservatives are opening up campaign

00:07:59.440 offices to prepare for an exceptionally short 37-day election period. On Saturday, conservative

00:08:05.580 incumbent candidate Jamil Javani hosted his campaign office grand opening, rallying supporters and urging

00:08:13.120 them to fight even harder to bring Canada out of a, quote, lost decade of liberal mismanagement.

00:08:19.900 Around 50 people packed a tight room in Javani's new downtown Bowmanville office,

00:08:25.220 with constituents coming and going throughout the event before heading out to knock on doors.

00:08:30.680 Javani addressed his supporters and accused the state-funded legacy media of working, quote,

00:08:35.280 very hard to prop up Mark Carney to give the liberals another four years of, quote, ruling over

00:08:41.760 Canada. Javani said, quote, the liberals and the media are working very hard hoping that the Canadian

00:08:47.400 people can be treated like the movie Men in Black when they click a button and you'll forget what

00:08:53.380 happened over the last decade. Well, this lost liberal decade is something we will not forget and

00:08:58.920 we are going to work very, very hard so that people know what is on the line in this election.

00:09:03.700 Several former MPs and GTA candidates flanked Javani at the event. The Conservatives' Ajax

00:09:09.700 candidate Greg Brady told The Room that conservatives can reach across the aisle to moderates. Brady said

00:09:15.960 the liberals can't be trusted to fix economic policies that have forced many young adults

00:09:20.800 to either share housing with multiple roommates or live with their parents. He framed the election

00:09:26.240 as a choice between an inefficient, bloated government led by the liberals and an efficient,

00:09:31.140 smaller government under Polyev. Former Durham MP Bev Oda speculated that Javani would be appointed as

00:09:38.580 the Foreign Affairs Minister. Javani would already bring his past relationship with U.S. Vice President

00:09:44.200 J.D. Vance to the role of negotiating an end to the trade war. Former Oshawa MP Colin Carey said

00:09:51.320 that Polyev's new team was made up of effective communicators like Javani and Brady who are capable

00:09:57.720 of articulating the struggles Canadians face. I've heard this term lost liberal decade a lot coming

00:10:05.680 from the Conservatives. It seems to be a slogan they're honing in on and employing heavily. Jeff,

00:10:12.180 what are they referencing exactly and what is lost here during this decade?

00:10:17.860 So the phrase the lost liberal decade is a reference to the mess Trudeau and now

00:10:22.980 Carney have dragged Canada through for the last 10 years. This was a decade of failures that have

00:10:27.940 completely tanked our prosperity, plain and simple. Canada's real GDP per capita, the gold standard for

00:10:33.880 measuring how well we're actually doing, dropped 1.3% in 2023 and another 1.4% in 2024, according to

00:10:41.420 Statistics Canada. This is an absolute face plant. Meanwhile, the U.S. economy has been leaving us in

00:10:46.440 the dust. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development even projects that Canada will

00:10:51.620 have the weakest GDP per capita growth among all of its members from 2020 to 2060. It's just pathetic. 0.91

00:10:59.200 Over 10 years of liberal rule, real GDP per capita crawled at a measly 0.3% annually, compared to 0.5% 0.92

00:11:07.520 under Harper. That's the liberal legacy, stagnation, decline, and a generation of Canadians who are 0.99

00:11:12.680 stuck with less opportunity. That's it for today, folks. Thanks for tuning in. You can stay on top

00:11:20.360 of new episodes every weekday by subscribing to The Daily Brief on iTunes and Spotify. Also,

00:11:26.060 while you're at it, make sure to hit us with a five-star rating and please leave a review.

Juno News - March 25, 2025

Poilievre announces 15% income tax cut

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