Ottawa Journal by David Tilson MP — Local business needs our support, not higher taxes

October 9, 2017 · 0 Comments

Canada’s local businesses deserve some respect from their government.
After all, they’re the backbone of our economy.
Most local business owners are middle class Canadians — the people who put their time, effort and sweat into paying the bills and paying their employees before they pay themselves. They’re not big multinational corporations — they’re our neighbors. The Trudeau Liberals are targeting them with a massive tax hike, threatening jobs and the communities that are sustained by our local businesses.
These Liberal tax hikes will significantly impact the local manufacturing shops, the farmers selling the local produce you love, and the greasy spoon where your family has breakfast for a treat once in a while. Our communities are woven together by our local businesses. They employ our neighbours, they grow the economy and they sponsor community hockey.
Yet Trudeau is targeting local businesses with a major tax increase. He thinks that most small businesses are just vehicles used by wealthy Canadians to avoid paying taxes. This is wrong, and it’s insulting to the Canadians who have worked hard to build up their local businesses. The vast majority of local business operators don’t have pensions or government bailouts to fall back on like Justin Trudeau does. Whatever money they can save helps them pay their workers during a bad year or for retirement after a lifetime of work.
So far, Trudeau has increased personal income tax, cancelled the promised local business tax rate reduction, and rolled out their nationalized carbon tax that will squeeze the margins of many local businesses. Now they are proposing to take away the one incentive entrepreneurs had to strike it out on their own.
Why is he doing this? He is doing it because he has a spending problem. Trudeau inherited a balanced budget and a growing economy yet he preferred to keep Canada billions of dollars over budget every year. Now he is going to local businesses with his hand out, demanding they pay for it.
There’s nothing fair about this at all. Local businesses grow our communities and create jobs. They need our support, not higher taxes. Canada’s Conservatives are going to fight Justin Trudeau’s attack on local businesses every step of the way.