OTTAWA, ON – Today The Honourable Pierre Poilievre, Member of Parliament for Carleton and Official Opposition Critic for the Treasury Board, reacted to the tabling of the 2016 federal budget.
“This budget is a betrayal of the middle class. This budget contains tax hikes on students, kids’ sports, charities, and small businesses, as well as several broken promises.”
“The Liberals are cancelling the textbook and education tax credits: that’s a tax hike on students. They’re cancelling the children’s fitness tax credit: that’s a tax hike on kids’ sports. They promised to lower the Small Business Tax Rate to 9% – they are not. They’re taxing the capital gains on real estate and shares given to charities: that’s a tax hike on charities. This budget is full of tax hikes.”
“This is also a budget of broken promises. The Liberals promised a $10 billion deficit – in reality we see a massive $29.4 billion deficit. They promised to balance the budget by 2019 – they won’t. In fact, Canada will remain in deficit well into 2021, where the government will still be $14.3 billion in deficit. The Liberals promised that the debt-to-GDP ratio would be 30% this year. It’s actually 32.5%, and it will remain above 31% into 2021.”
“Perhaps most revealingly, there is nothing in the budget that projects anything post-2021. Their projections just end, as if a few years of massive deficit spending will have no impact on the following years, where the government of the day will eventually have to re-balance the budget. Their projections are incredibly short-sighted.”
“Budget 2016 is a clear betrayal of the middle class. It raises taxes on Canadian families at exactly the wrong time,” Poilievre concluded.
Read the budget at www.budget.gc.ca