Dr. Colin Carrie, M.P. – Oshawa 

Oshawa’s business competitiveness has recently taken another hit from another Liberal Government tax hike. The Liberal CPP payroll tax hike will cause premiums to rise by up to $2200 per worker but it will take 40 years before these new benefits will go to seniors; seniors who were promised help during the election. Just 6 months ago Liberals promised that the deficit would be a “Modest” 10 Billion dollars. Fast forward just 6 months and we see a deficit 3 times higher! How can Canadians trust the Liberals with their pensions decades from now if the Liberals can’t even keep their promises made just months ago?

According to Dan Kelly, CEO of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business; “Two thirds of small firms say they will have to freeze or cut salaries and over a third say they will have to reduce hours or jobs in their business in response to the CPP/QPP hike.” Even internal Finance department projections show that the recent agreement between Ottawa and the Provinces will be a drag on the economy until 2030 and suppress employment growth until 2035. Thankfully, businesses in Oshawa have managed to persevere but we must ensure that this new tax hike in addition to the highest electrical rates for Industry and a new Liberal Carbon Tax won’t make it harder to attract new business in Oshawa.

Recently, the Americans have clarified that they will not be implementing a new federal or state carbon tax. While Canada’s Liberal government has raised taxes on business, the Americans have promised to lower business taxes! Imagine you are the owner of 2 factories; one in the USA and one in Canada. You want to manufacture your product in Canada, yet you need to be competitive internationally in order to create jobs and sell your products. These anti-competitive Liberal policies can be the difference between keeping jobs in Canada or moving those jobs a hundred miles south. 

The Liberals turned Ontario from a ‘have’ province into a ‘have not’ province in less than a decade. Now the Trudeau government is implementing the same job killing policies nationally. My Scottish Grandmother always said that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. The Liberals inherited a balanced budget and the best job-creating economy in the G8. One year into their mandate, the Liberals have failed to create a single net new job. We don’t have a decade to stop these insanely harmful job killing policies. We can’t let THEIR policies kill YOUR job!