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Red Deer – Lacombe MP Blaine Calkins not impressed by first federal budget in 2 years

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This is what happens when people think budgets balance themselves.

Monday, Justin Trudeau released his 2021 budget, his first in two years, which introduces risky and untested economic schemes that will harm the personal financial security of Canadians by strangling job growth and raising taxes on hardworking Canadian families. It is most certainly not a balanced budget.
As a Member of Parliament from Alberta, I have some serious concerns about this budget and its impact on this province and the people that I represent.
Once again, there is nothing in this budget that addresses the increasing rates of rural crime in our province and across the country. Canadians are being victimized regularly and this government continues to turn a blind eye.
The budget also fails to properly support our agriculture sector and focuses primarily on climate issues. Farmers have for generations been the stewards of our land. Budget 2021 fails to recognize their important contributions to our environment, such as zero till and low till, and reward them for it. Rather than adopt Conservative Bill C-206 and exempt farm fuel from the full burden of the Carbon Tax they are only giving back a pittance of what farmers pay to run their farms and important implements such as grain dryers.
Budget 2021 contains nothing for our oil and gas sector, other than decelerating the capital cost allowance on technologies used in this sector, thereby further discouraging investment. It’s interesting to note that the word “pipeline” is mentioned 5 times in the budget, but not a single instance is related to the energy sector.
Unemployed Canadians hoping to see a plan to create new jobs and economic opportunities for their families are going to feel let down.
Workers who have had their wages cut and hours slashed hoping to see a plan to reopen the economy are going to feel let down.
Families that can’t afford more taxes and are struggling to save more money for their children’s education or to buy a home are going to feel let down.
While I am very concerned about what is not in the budget, I am also very concerned about what is in the budget. It seems to me that Budget 2021 is increasing and encouraging dependency on the government at a time when we should be concerned about strengthening our economy and securing our nation.
After celebrating a deficit of only $354.2 billion in 2020/21, the Liberals are excited to announce an additional deficit of $154.7 billion for 2021/22. In fact, Trudeau’s projections show that the federal debt load will nearly double to $1.4 trillion by 2026, up from $721 billion before the pandemic. With Budget 2021, Government debt will exceed 100% GDP. They have abandoned any fiscal anchors at all. It remains unfathomable to me that the Liberal government continues to mothball the oil and gas sector, the economic driver of our nation in favour of increasing financial burden on Canadians.
As I only received this budget at the same time as the rest of Canada, I will be spending the next few days reviewing this massive 724-page document.
Make no mistake, Budget 2021 is an election budget, but only if Justin Trudeau needs your vote.

Business

Taxpayers criticize Trudeau and Ford for Honda deal

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From the Canadian Taxpayers Federation

Author: Jay Goldberg

The Canadian Taxpayers Federation is criticizing the Trudeau and Ford governments to for giving $5 billion to the Honda Motor Company.

“The Trudeau and Ford governments are giving billions to yet another multinational corporation and leaving middle-class Canadians to pay for it,” said Jay Goldberg, CTF Ontario Director. “Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is sending small businesses bigger a bill with his capital gains tax hike and now he’s handing out billions more in corporate welfare to a huge multinational.

“This announcement is fundamentally unfair to taxpayers.”

The Trudeau government is giving Honda $2.5 billion. The Ford government announced an additional $2.5 billion  subsidies for Honda.

The federal and provincial governments claim this new deal will create 1,000 new jobs, according to media reports. Even if that’s true, the handout will cost taxpayers $5 million per job. And according to Globe and Mail investigation, the government doesn’t even have a proper process in place to track whether promised jobs are actually created.

The Parliamentary Budget Officer has also called into question the government’s claims when it made similar multi-billion-dollar handouts to other multinational corporations.

“The break-even timeline for the $28.2 billion in production subsidies announced for Stellantis-LGES and Volkswagen is estimated to be 20 years, significantly longer than the government’s estimate of a payback within five years for Volkswagen,” wrote the Parliamentary Budget Officer said.

“If politicians want to grow the economy, they should cut taxes and red tape and cancel the corporate welfare,” said Franco Terrazzano, CTF Federal Director. “Just days ago, Trudeau said he wants the rich to pay more, so he should make rich multinational corporations pay for their own factories.”

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Maxime Bernier warns Canadians of Trudeau’s plan to implement WEF global tax regime

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From LifeSiteNews

By Clare Marie Merkowsky

If ‘the idea of a global corporate tax becomes normalized, we may eventually see other agreements to impose other taxes, on carbon, airfare, or who knows what.’

People’s Party of Canada leader Maxime Bernier has warned that the Liberal government’s push for World Economic Forum (WEF) “Global Tax” scheme should concern Canadians. 

According to Canada’s 2024 Budget, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is working to pass the WEF’s Global Minimum Tax Act which will mandate that multinational companies pay a minimum tax rate of 15 percent.

“Canadians should be very concerned, for several reasons,” People’s Party leader Maxime Bernier told LifeSiteNews, in response to the proposal.

“First, the WEF is a globalist institution that actively campaigns for the establishment of a world government and for the adoption of socialist, authoritarian, and reactionary anti-growth policies across the world,” he explained. “Any proposal they make is very likely not in the interest of Canadians.” 

“Second, this minimum tax on multinationals is a way to insidiously build support for a global harmonized tax regime that will lower tax competition between countries, and therefore ensure that taxes can stay higher everywhere,” he continued.  

“Canada reaffirms its commitment to Pillar One and will continue to work diligently to finalize a multilateral treaty and bring the new system into effect as soon as a critical mass of countries is willing,” the budget stated.  

“However, in view of consecutive delays internationally in implementing the multilateral treaty, Canada cannot continue to wait before taking action,” it continued.   

The Trudeau government also announced it would be implementing “Pillar Two,” which aims to establish a global minimum corporate tax rate. 

“Pillar Two of the plan is a global minimum tax regime to ensure that large multinational corporations are subject to a minimum effective tax rate of 15 per cent on their profits wherever they do business,” the Liberals explained.  

According to the budget, Trudeau promised to introduce the new legislation in Parliament soon.  

The global tax was first proposed by Secretary-General of Amnesty International at the WEF meeting in Davos this January.  

“Let’s start taxing carbon…[but] not just carbon tax,” the head of Amnesty International, Agnes Callamard, said during a panel discussion.  

According to the WEF, the tax, proposed by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), “imposes a minimum effective rate of 15% on corporate profits.”  

Following the meeting, 140 countries, including Canada, pledged to impose the tax.  

While a tax on large corporations does not necessarily sound unethical, implementing a global tax appears to be just the first step in the WEF’s globalization plan by undermining the sovereignty of nations.  

While Bernier explained that multinationals should pay taxes, he argued it is the role of each country to determine what those taxes are.   

“The logic of pressuring countries with low taxes to raise them is that it lessens fiscal competition and makes it then less costly and easier for countries with higher taxes to keep them high,” he said.  

Bernier pointed out that competition is good since it “forces everyone to get better and more efficient.” 

“In the end, we all end up paying for taxes, even those paid by multinationals, as it causes them to raise prices and transfer the cost of taxes to consumers,” he warned.  

Bernier further explained that the new tax could be a first step “toward the implementation of global taxes by the United Nations or some of its agencies, with the cooperation of globalist governments like Trudeau’s willing to cede our sovereignty to these international organizations.”   

“Just like ‘temporary taxes’ (like the income tax adopted during WWI) tend to become permanent, ‘minimum taxes’ tend to be raised,” he warned. “And if the idea of a global corporate tax becomes normalized, we may eventually see other agreements to impose other taxes, on carbon, airfare, or who knows what.”   

Trudeau’s involvement in the WEF’s plan should not be surprising considering his current environmental goals – which are in lockstep with the United Nations’ 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development – which include the phasing out coal-fired power plants, reducing fertilizer usage, and curbing natural gas use over the coming decades.    

The reduction and eventual elimination of so-called “fossil fuels” and a transition to unreliable “green” energy has also been pushed by the World Economic Forum – the aforementioned group famous for its socialist “Great Reset” agenda – in which Trudeau and some of his cabinet are involved.     

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