What differentiates the parties? A LOT.
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Summary
Franco Teresano joins Candice to discuss the key differences between the two major parties in the upcoming election, and why they are so different from each other. Candice is joined by the author of the new book, Axing the Tax: The Rise and Fall of Canada's Carbon Tax, and the head of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, Franco Teresanos.
Transcript
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Mark Carney has three passports, Canada, United Kingdom, Ireland, a globalist with options.
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He hasn't seen Canada in a decade, calls himself a European, not a Canadian.
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Told U.S. Congress last year, he's a Brit, he's back to lord over you.
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I'm Candace Malcolm and this is The Candace Malcolm Show.
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We have a great episode for you today and I'm very pleased to be joined by one of my favourite guests from the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.
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I'm talking about Franco Teresano and he is here to help us make sense of the different political parties' platforms.
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We don't always talk about policy and so I'm hoping that Franco can help us shine light on what differentiates the two parties.
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Hey Candace, my pleasure. Thanks for having me on.
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Yeah, and you are the author of a new book called Axing the Tax, The Rise and Fall of Canada's Carbon Tax.
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I'm going to ask you about that book in a few minutes.
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But first, I'm wondering if you could help us understand what are the key policy platforms introduced?
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Let's start with the Conservatives. So can you walk us through what you think are the most important policies that they've introduced so far?
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Well, you know, let me just say, like, being with the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, I'm definitely happy to see all the tax cuts that are coming into play here during the election.
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And, you know, Mr. Polyev and his Conservatives, he's offering some much needed tax relief.
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And I think some tax changes that could really supercharge Canada's economy.
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But let's start with the income tax cuts, right?
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So Mr. Polyev is proposing to cut the lowest income tax rate by 15%, okay?
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So that would save your two-income family up to about $1,800 a year, right?
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I know a lot of media talking heads want to talk about everything else.
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But look, the cost of living crisis is still here.
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And keeping $1,800 in a family's budget every single year is big-time savings, right?
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And look, like, the best way the government can help Canadians deal with all aspects of life in terms of affordability,
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it just let us keep more of our own money, right?
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And Polyev's income tax cut would do just that.
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But, Candace, let's talk about actually growing our economy here for a second.
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And this is a really interesting policy promise from Polyev.
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So if you sell an asset and then you reinvest that money back into Canada,
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well, you're not going to be paying capital gains taxes on that when you make that reinvestment.
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So I think that is a huge policy announcement to actually grow our economy to encourage more reinvestment back here in Canada.
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And, you know, Jack Mintz, a very reputable economist,
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he says that could, like, put $90 billion into Canada's economy over the medium term,
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lead to more than 200,000 new job opportunities for Canadians.
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My husband and I were talking about this the other day.
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And what a sort of exciting opportunity to reinvest in Canada and how much money that would encourage.
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You know, we're talking about, like, big companies wanting to reinvest in the country,
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big investors rather than taking their money, investing into the United States like we saw Mark Carney do with Brookfield,
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It's interesting, Franco, because over the last few years under the Liberals,
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they've sort of sold us on two major taxes, right?
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First, the carbon tax, what they told us was going to help us lower emissions and lead the way into a greener future.
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And then the second one, more recently, was the capital gains increase.
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And we were told by Justin Trudeau and the Liberals that it was time that the wealthy paid their fair share
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and that it was only going to impact, what, like 2% of Canadians or something like that.
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And interestingly, I don't think the Liberals are standing by either of those two taxes at this point.
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So tell us what's happening over on the Liberal side.
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Well, the capital gains tax is more clear, right?
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So, like, after massive pushback from doctors, tech entrepreneurs,
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and, of course, your friends here at the Canadian Taxpayers Federation,
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the Liberal government backed down on their own capital gains tax.
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And, Candace, remember what was actually happening here.
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Because you'll remember back in, what, January, Trudeau prorogued the House, right?
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Well, at that point, they were still going ahead with this capital gains tax increase,
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even though the necessary legislation wasn't even brought into the House.
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And yet you still had these unelected bureaucrats at the CRA
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trying to take billions of dollars from Canadians
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through this undemocratic and illegal capital gains tax hike.
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And that's why the Canadian Taxpayers Federation took the government to court.
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A week after our court challenge, the government backed down.
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he says he's not going to go forward with this capital gains tax increase.
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So, you know, I guess that's some pretty good news.
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Canadians pushing the government back on their own tax increase.
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Now, Candace, the carbon tax, though, is a little bit trickier.
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So what Carney did, you all remember him signing that order in council in front of the media.
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Well, all he did is he brought the consumer carbon tax rate down to zero.
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But Candace, there's two things to keep an eye on.
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Number one, the carbon tax law is still on the books.
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OK, so after the election, after those politicians are done singing for their supper,
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they could come back into the House of Commons and crank that carbon tax back up.
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The second thing, though, Candace, we can get into this in a little more details,
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He wants to impose huge hidden carbon taxes on Canadian businesses.
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And he hopes you won't notice when that makes your life more expensive.
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Well, I mean, I guess on the one hand, it's good that the liberals are finally seeing the light,
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that part of the reason that our economy is in such rough shape is because of the damaging policies
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And you mentioned that they sell it as, oh, we're just going to make the rich pay their fair share.
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But when you tax capital gains, what you're really doing is punishing people who innovate,
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people who take risks, create businesses, try to add value to something.
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And by penalizing them, you're just telling people, you're telling young men across the country,
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rather than starting a business, don't even bother because you're just going to be taxed to no end.
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And so I think the fact that everyone stepped away from this is a really good sign.
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I applaud you and your organization for taking the government to court.
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And I am really excited about the Conservatives' idea there to allow people to reinvest and defer capital gains tax.
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I think you're right. The carbon tax is a little bit more not, you don't really know what's happening,
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what you see is and what you get, because Mark Carney believes in this stuff, right?
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This is who he is. Everything about him is based on his belief in net zero,
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in creating a green new economy, in trying to promote the never-ending grift, which is green energy.
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And it's just a matter of time before they introduce something else, right?
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They believe so firmly in this idea that we're going to just magically create a new source of energy
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and that all we need is just more government subsidies for it.
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So I'm wondering, Marco, what else have we seen from the Liberals
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that are promoting this sort of idea of a new green economy or a green shift?
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Well, you know, Carney's been pretty wobbly on that oil and gas cap, right?
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I mean, look, they've supported their own production cap on Canada's oil and gas sector.
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They have supported it for quite some time now.
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And look, so I think Canadians have every reason to have trust issues with the Liberal Party,
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both on carbon taxes, but then all the other different energy regulations, right?
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They brought in the discriminatory tanker ban on the West Coast.
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I remember, this was the government that rejected the Northern Gateway Pipeline,
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that moved the regulatory goalposts on Energy East Pipeline, right?
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So like Canadians, taxpayers have every reason to be extremely skeptical.
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But like, let's also not lose sight of the carbon tax issue.
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Mr. Poliev and the Conservative Party is the only major federal party that has committed to ending all carbon taxes,
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getting rid of the consumer carbon tax, ending that law,
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but also ending the hidden industrial carbon tax that hits oil and gas companies, refineries, utilities, fertilizer plants.
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And look, Carney is trying to sell people these magical beans, right?
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Carney's essentially saying, don't worry, folks.
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It's just going to be the businesses who pay for that.
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When you carbon tax a refinery, that makes gas and lean and diesel more expensive, right?
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When you carbon tax utilities, that makes home heating more expensive.
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When you carbon tax fertilizer plants, well, that increases costs for Canadian farmers and it makes food more expensive.
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The United States does not have a national carbon tax.
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So if Carney hammers businesses in Canada with this carbon tax, what's going to happen?
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It's going to push Canadian businesses to cut production in Canada, set up shops south of the border,
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so it means higher prices for Canadians and fewer jobs for Canadians.
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Well, not just that, but we've talked about this on the show before,
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that the retaliatory tariffs that Mark Carney is imposing on the Americans is actually a tax paid by Canadians.
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So when they say a 25% tax on American goods, that's American goods imported into Canada and purchased by Canadians.
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I wish that more Canadians would understand that and that the media would say it plainly.
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A tariff is a tax, and the tax on American goods is a tax on Canadians.
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The government of Canada knows that simple reality because there's billboards from the government of Canada in the United States
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Okay, well, if a US tariff is a tax on Americans, the converse is also true, right?
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A Canadian tariff is a tax on Canadian businesses, which means higher prices for Canadians.
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And look, if Washington, D.C. wants to hit Americans with new taxes,
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it doesn't mean that Ottawa should hammer Canadians with new taxes.
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In fact, we should be doing the exact opposite.
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We got to be cutting income taxes, cutting business taxes, cutting capital gains taxes,
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and cutting the regulations that make it nearly impossible to invest and actually build stuff here in Canada.
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Well, maybe we should invest in some billboards in the GTA reminding swing voters in Ontario
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that the tax introduced by Carney is a tax that they will pay.
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Okay, I want to ask you because the polls have shown us that, I mean, not all seniors,
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I know like a significant portion of them support the Conservatives.
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The ones watching this channel right now most likely are going to go out and vote for Pierre Polyev.
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But what we have seen from polling is that older Canadians and baby boomers
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are leaning more towards the Liberals, leaning more towards Mark Carney.
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That's why I was interested to see the Conservatives introduce a new tax cut for seniors.
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So essentially what Polyev is proposing is to expand the tax-free portion of a working senior's income
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They're working because they're struggling to pay the bills, right?
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They're working because they're struggling to actually enjoy their golden years.
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So allowing a working Canadian senior to keep $10,000 more of their income tax-free,
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Because we're talking about people, if you're working in your golden years,
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one, you might just want to keep working, keep busy.
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they're doing so because they're just having a tough time struggling to afford the necessities of life.
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which would expand the tax-free portion of working senior's income by 10 grand,
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Hey, speaking of seniors voting in this election,
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So in Canada, we currently don't have home equity taxes,
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which are essentially just capital gains on the sale of your primary residence.
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In 2016, Trudeau brought in a reporting requirement with the CRA.
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So when you sell your home because of Trudeau as of 2016,
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you got to tell the CRA how much you made off the sale of that home.
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Now, why is the reporting requirement in place?
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That was the first step towards a home equity tax in Canada.
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The Trudeau government spent hundreds of thousands of our tax dollars funding and promoting a report pushing for new home taxes.
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So in this election campaign, I hope the media, I hope journalists, ask Mr. Kearney,
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Are you thinking about bringing in home equity taxes?
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are you going to prove it by removing Trudeau's 2016 reporting requirement?
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Well, Marco, tell us a bit because both the major parties,
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Conservatives and Liberals, have put out housing reports.
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They both have identified a lack of housing as a major concern,
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especially in cities like Toronto and Vancouver.
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And, you know, to me, the policies look a little similar,
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other than the fact that Mark Kearney came out saying that he wanted to put government
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I don't know who's out there asking for more government involved in housing.
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his plan is to build a rental home so that Canadians can be more dependent
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big private company in order to do this public-private partnership.
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All signs are pointing towards Brookfield as potentially a partner
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that he might make a deal with, which is really quite concerning.
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what do you think about the two parties' housing platforms
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Well, let me just talk about that proposal from Kearney that you mentioned there.
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Like, first of all, folks, government is not the solution to homes.
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everyone in Canada would have seven homes by now.
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Because the size, cost, and intervention of governments across Canada
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OK, so we don't need more government busybodies.
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So what Kearney's proposing is he wants to eliminate the sales tax.
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I believe the threshold is up to a million dollars,
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Now, for Mr. Polyev, he increases the threshold,
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so cut the sales tax off of homes up to about $1.3 million.
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And that's for everyone, not just first-time homebuyers, right?
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So look, edge to Mr. Polyev on that tax cut proposal.
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because we talked about the home equity tax flirtations
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would you remove that reporting requirement with the CRA?
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I know the polls show that they might be completely wiped out.
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I asked you if you've been tracking what they've been saying.
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because I don't know that they're really saying much or proposing much.
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I mean, it could be a situation where they hold the balance of power,
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once again, if it's a liberal minority government.
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So is there anything we should be looking out for from the NDP?
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Like, they want to spend more money on everything forever, right?
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And like, look, the government is already more than a trillion dollars in debt.
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You have a simple fact of life now that interest charges on the debt
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are blowing a $1 billion hole in the budget every single week.
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Well, a billion dollars, that's a new hospital.
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Every week that is gone because of the interest charges on the debt.
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just like announcing these crazy spending plans
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because you have to remember, folks, that we're not living in a vacuum.
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We're living in a situation where you have the government's money printer
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We're in a situation where the debt is already more than a trillion dollars.
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where every single dollar you pay in federal sales tax
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Okay, so folks, stay on guard for the new Democrats' spending proposals.
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We can't be spending more money on everything forever.
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so we can cut taxes to make life in Canada more affordable
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Well, I couldn't have said it better myself, Franco.
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Axing the Tax, The Rise and Fall of Canada's Carbon Tax,
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Number one is I just think ordinary Canadians deserve some credit here, right?
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Because look, this was truly a David versus Goliath story
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where for years you had the talking heads in the media, right?
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All the big smart people around Ottawa or Toronto
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telling Canadians to sit down, be quiet, and pay your carbon tax bills, okay?
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For years, these politicians, these bureaucrats, these big government activists
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And like, look, it would have been easier for the people just to have given up,
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Ordinary Canadians worked their butts off, organized rallies, went to rallies,
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put up bumper stickers, emailed their politicians, convinced people in their neighborhoods
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And that's one of the reasons why I wrote this book.
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Just people need to know that they fought hard for a very long time
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and they deserve some credit with the carbon tax on death's doorstep right now.
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The second reason, though, Candace, is like, look,
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you can already hear the carbon tax activists trying to spin this.
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They're going to try to say the carbon tax was a good idea.
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Trudeau just bungled the policy or he didn't communicate it well enough.
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And none of that could be further from the truth.
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The carbon tax always was, always will be a bad deal for Canadians, a bad idea.
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And this book shows you where the fight is heading next to end all of the carbon taxes in Canada.
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Well, I want to just highlight something you said, that the media basically just told us
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that we had to be good citizens, be good little Canadians, pat us on the head,
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pay the carbon tax, and basically just lie and cover for the Trudeau government for years upon years.
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just following what the Conservatives are doing, basically trying to neutralize the issue,
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what did we see the media out there celebrating Mark Carney,
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pointing out how the gas prices are down and doing a victory lap on behalf of the Liberals.
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It was the same media that was shaming you and telling you to be obedient and pay the tax.
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And everyone go out and buy a copy, support Franco and the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.
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There's a lot of political spice in there that hasn't been released to the public.
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So if you like politics, you like history, I think you're going to like this book,
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But look, folks, you deserve so much credit fighting back against really the elites
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And not to mention, Carney still wants to impose a hidden carbon tax on Canadian businesses,
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which will mean higher prices for you and fewer jobs for Canadians.
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Well, everyone go out and buy that book and support the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.
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Franco Teresano, thank you so much for joining the show.
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All right, folks, all the time we have for today.
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We'll be back again tomorrow with all the news.