Juno News - December 15, 2019


Trudeau needs to get serious about the economy


Episode Stats

Length

4 minutes

Words per Minute

182.79329

Word Count

818

Sentence Count

51

Misogynist Sentences

1

Hate Speech Sentences

1


Summary

In this episode of the podcast, I talk about the recent tax increase the Trudeau government has passed and why it's a good thing. I also talk about some troubling jobs numbers from the latest jobs report and why we should all be worried about them.


Transcript

00:00:00.000 I'd like to say something nice and positive and approving of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and
00:00:10.880 the Liberal government agenda right now if you will so allow me. They've done one new endeavor
00:00:16.160 that they've that they've passed since the House of Commons has resumed. That is one that we should
00:00:20.900 all support. They have actually raised the basic personal exemption amount on the income tax.
00:00:25.800 It used to be about $13,000. Now it's going to be about $15,000. Meaning all low-income people and
00:00:32.060 middle-class people, they're going to get a bit of a benefit because that's another $2,000 that they
00:00:36.760 are not paying tax on towards the low end. And people who are just scraping by who are only making
00:00:42.160 $15,000 a year and there are some tax filers in that situation, they're getting off the tax rolls. Now
00:00:48.320 it is important for people to pay tax because then you feel you have a stake in your government and
00:00:53.880 in how tax dollars are spent and you feel some purchase in all of that. But I think for people
00:00:57.900 who are really struggling and just scraping by, it's okay to take them off the tax rolls. So let's
00:01:03.120 applaud that. That's a good measure. And I liken it to back in 2015 when Trudeau first got into power.
00:01:08.680 One of the first things they did was they cut the tax rate, one of the middle-class tax rates,
00:01:13.060 from 22% to 20.5%. Great idea. Although there was a caveat the Fraser Institute later found they
00:01:19.880 crunched the numbers and realized that all the other tax increases the Liberals had done had
00:01:24.120 negated the benefits of that and it was actually a higher tax rate for those people at the end of
00:01:30.120 the day. So I hope what's happened this time around isn't going to be the case. So though with concerns
00:01:34.420 about the carbon tax rising, it very well could be. But the Liberals, I hope they're onto something
00:01:41.100 here, focusing on the economy and affordability rather than some of these more social justice,
00:01:47.040 trendy climate alarmism stuff that Justin Trudeau is going on about. You remember back in the first
00:01:52.080 term, all we heard about was feminism non-stop and thought, what were the results? And it actually
00:01:56.920 turned off women voters. They got really frustrated with Trudeau going on about feminism non-stop as if
00:02:02.540 it was some sort of a party trick. So let's hope he stays on affordability, cost of living,
00:02:09.220 and these sorts of issues. I'm not holding my breath, but who knows? Let's be optimistic,
00:02:14.820 cautiously optimistic here in this minority term because there's some really troubling numbers out
00:02:20.880 there. First, we have that stats can number from one month the other month, 71,000 jobs lost when
00:02:28.360 analysts had been expecting job growth. Now it's true, you look at these numbers over the long term,
00:02:34.080 you want to take like a year over year, not a month over month because of different sectoral changes,
00:02:38.180 but still it's not good. Analysts said we're going to see an up. Instead, we saw a massive drop. That
00:02:45.560 is a major problem. But here's the thing, speaking about sectoral, dive down more specifically into
00:02:51.200 particular provinces and you see that Alberta has an unemployment rate for young men of 20%.
00:02:59.840 That is enormous. That is huge. We have not seen numbers like that, specifically on a national
00:03:08.920 level, in decades. I mean, that is a figure. You see it, you go, we have a workforce, we have a
00:03:15.200 country. That is in crisis. So if the liberals think, okay, we're going to do things on affordability,
00:03:21.920 cost of living, general economy, please focus on that because economy still needs to be the top issue
00:03:27.840 regardless of whatever else is happening in the world. But hold on a second. In Alberta, you see this?
00:03:34.060 This is a major problem. This is a five alarm fire. So when we talk about getting Trans Mountain built
00:03:40.740 or the new frontier project that Jason Kenney is calling on Justin Trudeau to approve right when it
00:03:46.020 hits his desk in February, these are things that must be done. These are really existential issues for
00:03:52.420 the lifeblood of much of our country, for our economy here. 20% unemployment rate.
00:03:57.840 For young men in Alberta. So I think it's time the liberals stop saying, oh yeah, we care about
00:04:02.620 Alberta, but we still must transition to a low carbon economy. They always have that but there
00:04:07.080 when they say they care about Alberta. Stop with the caveats. Get off the agenda of phasing out the
00:04:13.460 oil sands, which basically means phasing out jobs in Alberta, and really get serious. Look at these
00:04:18.500 numbers and realize that these are human beings. These are people's lives. And you just certainly can't
00:04:24.620 see these numbers stay up and you need an action plan to bring them down.