Originally Published in the National Post
Business leaders keep cozying up to high tax, anti-resource Liberals
“Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”Â
— A wise man
The Trudeau government’s tax hike on capital gains has investors and business leaders blowing up my phone.
They yelp: “What are you going to do about this?”
My answer: “No. What are you going to do about it?”
Most are stunned silent by the question. They had been planning to do nothing except complain and hope their useless and overpaid lobbyists meet Chrystia Freeland or Justin Trudeau to talk some sense into them while the opposition hounds the government to reverse course.
Sorry.
That won’t cut it.
Businesses and entrepreneurs are under attack again because Trudeau has learned that they won’t do anything about it. Why would Trudeau listen to business? He knows he has raised payroll and energy taxes on businesses, attacked the resource sector with unconstitutional laws, and faced no consequences from the business community.
He killed TransCanada’s Energy East pipeline by changing the rules, adding delays and complicating the process. Later, he killed the proposed $20-billion Teck Frontier Mine by signalling to the company that its application would likely be rejected at cabinet, despite it having the support of the affected First Nations and the independent environmental review body.
In both cases, the companies’ gutless executives agreed to take the fall. TransCanada said it had willingly cancelled its own project after spending $1 billion because of vague “changed circumstances.” Trudeau made the absurd claim that the company decided to cancel the 50-year asset because of a drop in the daily price of oil — but no one in the company had the courage to correct the public record.
Likewise, Teck Resources lied when it said that Canada’s debate over climate change was the reason it quit the project after spending millions — and only days before a final cabinet decision — again allowing Trudeau to avoid blame. (Presumably, Teck won’t invest in countries that are debating climate policy anymore.)
Just last month, Beer Canada thanked the Liberals for only raising the excise tax by two per cent because the sector was relieved that Trudeau’s tax-and-spend government did not raise the tax even higher.
The Canadian Federation of Independent Business (CFIB) once gave an award to Trudeau’s then-national revenue minister for letting businesses distribute T4s electronically (wow, big deal!) just a few weeks after the Liberal government in the fall of 2017 had unleashed a wicked tax assault on small private businesses’ passive investments and income sharing with families.
Recently, the Business Council of Alberta held a big event to suck up to the federal Liberals, who have killed two major pipelines, violated the Constitution with their anti-resource law C-69 and imposed a hated carbon tax on small businesses with no rebates for over five years now. All Alberta businesses should cancel their memberships and stop giving money to the Business Council, and small businesses should stop supporting the CFIB.
Sucking up to anti-resource, high-tax, big-government politicians has, and will, bring more anti-resource, high-tax, big-government policies. Politicians respond to political incentives. If there is no political price to pay for a bad decision, expect more bad decisions. If there is no political benefit from good decisions, expect no good decisions.
At the most, the Chamber of Commerce, Business Council, and Canadian Federation of Independent Business hold pointless luncheons and meetings and write op-eds or record interviews that almost no one sees. As leader of the Conservative Party of Canada, I refuse to meet the aforementioned groups. They tell me what I already know.
Trudeau knows it, too. That is why it’s a waste of time to tell him his latest tax hike will hurt wages, productivity and jobs. It’s like telling a pyromaniac that fire is dangerous: he doesn’t care.
The only area where any business lobby has borne fruit has been the rotten fruit of undue handouts, privileges, and protections by the state. Unfortunately, this is something Justin Trudeau has been all too willing to grant as it’s consistent with his big-government ideology, even though it means lower wages, higher prices for working-class Canadians and more unjust wealth inequality.
In some cases, corporate lobbyists even work against their company’s interests to curry favour within the Liberal government to win future career gigs for themselves. Their CEOs typically don’t notice because they know nothing about politics, so they delegate it to their government relations flacks, the way they might delegate advertising to the VP of marketing. The difference is that, often, the lobbyist doesn’t share the interests of the company, its workers, consumers or shareholders. A good solution would be to fire these lobbyists, stop talking with politicians and start trying to win the support of the population.
If you want to stop Trudeau’s latest tax hikes, don’t talk to politicians about it, talk to the people. If the tax hike is going to force doctors to leave Canada, the medical associations must ensure every patient knows that. If your factory will have to forgo expansion because Trudeau is taxing investment, assemble all your workers in the hall and tell them that. If his tax on venture capitalists is going to make it impossible for engineering grads to stay in Canada, make sure students (and their parents) in Kitchener-Waterloo know that.
Obviously, my future government will do exactly the opposite of Trudeau on almost every issue. But that does not mean that businesses will get their way. In fact, they will get nothing from me unless they convince the people first. So here is a how-to guide for dealing with a Poilievre government.
If you do have a policy proposal, don’t tell me about it. Convince Canadians that it’s good for them. Communicate your policy’s benefits directly to workers, consumers and retirees. When they start telling me about your ideas on the doorstep in Windsor, St. John’s, Trois-Rivières, and Port Alberni, then I’ll think about enacting it.
To be clear, that will not happen because you testify at a Parliamentary committee, host a “Hill Day” to meet MPs and Senators, hold a luncheon 15 minutes from downtown Toronto/Ottawa, or do media no one sees. Your communications must reach truckers, waitresses, nurses, carpenters — all the people who are too productive to tune into the above-mentioned platforms.
If I do pursue your policy, I expect that you will continue to advocate for it with those same Canadians in those same neighbourhoods until the policy is fully implemented.
Once upon a time, Canada’s business community played a useful role in the political debate. In 1988, free trade with the U.S. was headed to defeat, with only 38 per cent of Canadians supporting it and 42 per cent opposing it. So, the business community campaigned aggressively to show Canadians that slamming the door on trade was risky and that the deal would mean better wages and prices. Support for free trade jumped to 49 per cent for versus 36 per cent against. So, free trade happened. Wages and living standards rose. Inflation stayed low for decades. Not because businesses hired more lobbyists in Ottawa, but because it made the case to the people.
Want to stop the latest tax hike? Or get bureaucracy out of the way to build homes, mines, factories, pipelines and more? Then cancel your lunch meeting at the Rideau Club. Fire your lobbyist. And go to the people.
Pierre Poilievre is leader of the Conservative Party of Canada
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