Opinion
UCP Tax Cut Hits the Target but Misses the Mark
Opinion by Cory G. Litzenberger
Well for fear of being lynched, let me talk about how I think the UCP’s Job Creation Tax Cut may be (partially) incorrect.
While I applaud politicians for laying out their plans in advance of an election, my fear is that the plan is too slow in implementation and cuts too far.
I think a tax cut needs to be moderate and quick – not slow and deep.
Here are my thoughts for various tax changes we need to do in Alberta:
General Corporate Income Tax Rate:
Instead of cutting by 1% per year over 4 years, bring it back by 2% to 10% from 12% in the first year and keep it there.
By delaying the cut as the UCP currently proposes, it could reduce the impact it will have on the economy as the change to the bottom line will not be impacted enough for a corporation to make larger investment until year two or three of the plan.
Quicker action by government will result in quicker action by business, resulting in quicker action in the economy and job creation.
10% also still makes us the lowest jurisdiction in Canada.
Personal Income Tax change to 3 brackets:
– 8% for first $50k
– 10% for the next $100k
– 12% for over $150k
This reduction from 10% on the first $50,000 saves roughly $600 in personal income tax (after factoring in the basic personal tax credit) for every individual making more than $50,000 a year.
It also saves 2% for those making under $50,000 currently.
This is an important cut in order to reward people that call Alberta home, as you will see below.
A rich person paying 12% in Alberta on their personal income is better than them paying 0% because they live somewhere else.
Harmonized Sales Tax (HST) 5%
Yes, I think we need to remove the inflationary and regressive carbon tax as it is way too high of a burden and causes a ripple effect in inflationary pricing how it was implemented.
However, I suggest we implement a 5% HST (which is a flow-through for businesses and does not have the same impact on pricing).
Now, hear me out before you break out the yellow vest!
Currently, anyone visiting our province as either a tourist or a temporary worker from another province are using our infrastructure like roads, water, and yes, even hospital emergency rooms.
When these non-Alberta residents file their personal tax returns, they file it based on their home province of residence as of December 31. Since most of them don’t have a permanent residence in Alberta, this results is them paying income taxes to other provinces, while using our infrastructure for free.
Other provincial residents not paying any taxes in Alberta while here unfairly puts the cost on all of us that live here.
If we implemented an HST similar to the GST program, low income households would still receive credit back (just like GST credit) to offset most (if not all) of any HST they pay.
The $600 in income tax savings we mentioned above for everyone else, is equivalent to $12,000 of taxable supplies consumed ($24,000 in a double income household where they each make over $50,000 of income).
Don’t forget that basic grocery and shelter do not have sales taxes, and if Andrew Scheer gets elected, neither will basic home heating.(https://twitter.com/andrewscheer/status/854364648388182016)
This income tax reduction of $600 to $1,200 would offset much of the sales tax you would pay, but would now start to charge non-Alberta resident visitors and workers.
The reason for an HST instead of a PST is that currently, an HST is required to be charged by all GST registrants across Canada. If you are a GST registrant, you are automatically an HST registrant.
For example, in my office in Red Deer, I have to charge my Ontario customers HST and send it in to the government even though my business is in Alberta.
An HST could reduce the potential for tax leakage out of our province by funneling it back to Alberta because of other retailers in other provinces requiring to charge it on things purchased outside of, or shipped to, Alberta.
Results
– a competitive corporate tax rate to attract investment and do it quicker than the original UCP plan;
– low personal income tax to attract wealthy individuals (and their tax residency) back to Alberta to make it their place of residence, again, quickly;
– removal of the inflationary carbon tax;
– insertion of a relatively low cost HST so that we can get back some of that transfer payment money from the residents of other provinces.
In Summary
– Reduce Corporate moderately and quickly.
– Reduce Individual moderately and quickly.
– Remove Carbon tax.
– Implement an HST.
I know that the slight mention of a sales tax in Alberta makes the hair on the back of your neck stand straight up, and for many conservative politicians, they would resign before suggesting it. However, even as a fiscal-conservative tax accountant like myself, I believe that if it is implemented properly with tax reductions elsewhere, it can add to the bottom line for the province.
I also think it can do so without being a burden to those that live here by taxing those that don’t.
———
Cory G. Litzenberger, CPA, CMA, CFP, C.Mgr is the President & Founder of CGL Strategic Business & Tax Advisors; you can find out more about Cory’s biography at http://www.CGLtax.ca/Litzenberger-Cory.html
Great Reset
Climate expert warns against extreme ‘weather porn’ from alarmists pushing ‘draconian’ policies
From LifeSiteNews
Bjorn Lomborg, author and president of the Copenhagen Consensus, continues to call attention to the extreme measures being demanded by climate change activists and politicians.
A climate expert has taken aim against what he calls “weather porn” – images and stories meant to convey a false impression that the world is on the brink of cataclysmic climate disaster – in order to force unnecessary policy changes by governments across the globe that will destroy prosperity and kill, not save, human lives.
In a series of recent opinion pieces and social media posts, Bjorn Lomborg, author, president of the Copenhagen Consensus, and a visiting fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, continues to call attention to the extreme measures being demanded by climate change activists and politicians who seek to inflict policies that are far more harmful than helpful.
“Watching the news, you get the sense that climate change is making the planet unlivable. We are bombarded with images of floods, droughts, storms and wildfires,” wrote Lomborg in his recent newsletter. “But this impression is wildly misleading and makes it harder to get climate change policy right. Data show climate-related events like floods, droughts, storms and wildfires aren’t killing more people.”
“Quite the contrary. Over the past decade, climate-related disasters have killed 98% fewer people than a century ago,” said Lomborg. “If we want to achieve fewer disaster deaths, we should promote prosperity, adaptation, and resilience. But when we are inundated with ‘weather porn’ and miss the fact that deaths have dropped precipitously, we end up focusing on the least effective policies first.”
‘Six billion deaths in less than a year’
In an op-ed published by The Wall Street Journal (WSJ), Lomborg described what would happen if climate alarmists were to suddenly get their way:
The world still gets four-fifths of its energy from fossil fuels, because renewable sources rarely provide good alternatives. Half the world’s population entirely depends on food grown with synthetic fertilizer produced almost entirely by natural gas. If we rapidly ceased using fossil fuels, four billion people would suddenly be without food.
Add the billions of people dependent on fossil-fuel heating in the winter, along with our dependence on fossil fuels for steel, cement, plastics and transportation, and it is no wonder that one recent estimate by economist Neil Record showed an abrupt end to fossil fuel use would cause six billion deaths in less than a year.
Global elites have made it clear that they have judged the world to be vastly overpopulated, and have set for themselves a goal of reducing the world’s total population to just 500 million people. An “abrupt end to fossil fuel use” would come very close to achieving their utopian anti-human goal.
“Why is the environmental movement stewarded over by murderous, human-hating wackos who desire to see billions of people die?” asked James Corbett of the Corbett Report last month.
Not mincing words, Corbett continued: “Because the conservation movement (and all of the mainstream environmental organizations that grew out of that movement) was pioneered by murderous, human-hating eugenicists and funded by the eugenicist royals who wanted to keep their beautiful natural vistas clear of the riff-raff scurrying around beneath them.”
“Why do nation after nation appear to be in a race to the bottom, implementing policies that will actively hinder the productivity of their own populations and making it more and more difficult for those on the lowest rung of the economic ladder to eke out a subsistence living on the corporate-governmental fascist plantation that we call the developed world?” wondered Corbett.
“And why is it now increasingly in vogue for governments to offer “medically assisted dying” as their “solution” to the strain and stress of this deliberately degraded world? Because those same governments are stewarded over by elitist eugenicists who hate you and want you dead.”
‘Follow the science’ obscures truth, allows for the promotion of dangerous policies
Lomborg has said that the constant refrain of “follow the science” allows politicians to “obscure and avoid responsibility for lopsided climate-policy trade-offs.”
“More than one million people die in traffic accidents globally each year. Overnight, governments could solve this entirely man-made problem by reducing speed limits everywhere to 3 miles an hour, but we’d laugh any politician who suggested it out of office,” wrote Lomborg in his WSJ piece.
“It would be absurd to focus solely on lives saved if the cost would be economic and societal destruction,” said the climate expert. “Yet politicians widely employ the same one-sided reasoning in the name of fighting climate change. It’s simply a matter, they say, of ‘following the science.’”
Draconian net-zero climate policies are, according to Lomborg, prohibitively costly.
Recent peer-reviewed climate-economic research shows the total cost “will average $27 trillion each year across the century, reaching $60 trillion a year in 2100.”
“Net zero is more than seven times as costly as the climate problem it tries to address,” yet this is precisely what the Biden administration is hoping to achieve by 2050.
Outgoing U.S. climate chief John Kerry, one of the chief purveyors of “weather porn,” suggested recently that if climate change is not quickly addressed, we face planetary destruction “beyond comprehension.”
UN climate change executive secretary Simon Stiell issued a similarly ominous if not shrill warning on X this week: “We have two years to save the world,” and therefore, “starting now, we need a quantum leap in climate finance [and] Bold new national climate plans by all nations.”
Lomborg fired back on X, dismissing the UN climate honcho’s hyperbolic claims.
“UN employees have been telling the same stale story for more than half a century: Now, that is right now, we have just a few years to save the world.”
UN employees have been telling the same stale story for more than half a century:
Now, that is right now, we have just a few years to save the worldhttps://t.co/Oz3yOGZUg8
Be a bit more serious, please? pic.twitter.com/hC6Sgu3hWt
— Bjorn Lomborg (@BjornLomborg) April 11, 2024
“Some of the most popular climate policies will have costs far greater than climate change itself. When politicians try to shut down discussion with claims that they’re ‘following the science,’” concluded Lomborg in the pages of the WSJ.
“Don’t let them,” he urged.
Opinion
Fentanyl Fiasco: The Tragic Missteps of BC’s Drug Policy
From The Opposition News Network
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Unmasking the Destructive Cycle of Drug Policy in British Columbia. A Tale of Good Intentions and Dire Consequences
My fellow Canadians, it’s been a challenging time. I had initially planned to bring you the latest spectacle from the House of Commons, featuring Kristian Firth, but fate had other plans. A personal emergency struck closer to home—a fentanyl overdose in the family. This tragic event threw us headlong into the chaotic circus that is the British Columbia health system. Let me be frank: the system is a mockery. The privacy laws that supposedly protect us also shroud our crises in unnecessary mystery. When my uncle was found unconscious and rushed to the ICU, the walls of confidentiality meant we could not even ascertain his condition over the phone. They notify you of the disaster but cloak its nature in secrecy. It’s an absurdity that only adds to the anguish of families grappling with the realities of addiction.
Now, let’s address the elephant in the room: our approach to drug addiction. The authorities label it a disease, yet paradoxically offer the afflicted the choice between seeking help and remaining in their dire state. This half-hearted stance on drug addiction only perpetuates a cycle of relapse and despair. As we speak, thousands tumble through the revolving doors of our medical facilities—5,975 apparent opioid toxicity deaths this year alone, an 8% increase from 2022. Daily, we see 22 deaths and 17 hospitalizations, and yet our response remains as ineffective as ever. This issue transcends our national borders. The U.S. has openly criticized China for its role in the opioid crisis, accusing it of flooding North America with fentanyl—a drug so potent, it’s decimating communities at an unprecedented rate. Just last year, over 70,000 Americans succumbed to fentanyl overdoses. And what’s more damning? Reports from U.S. congressional committees suggest that the Chinese government might be subsidizing firms that traffic these lethal substances. Lets be clear this is a state-sponsored assault on our populace.
In response to this crisis BC NDP policymakers have championed the notion of “safe supply” programs. These initiatives distribute free hydromorphone, a potent opioid akin to heroin, with the intention of steering users away from the perils of contaminated street drugs. At first glance, this approach might seem logical, even humane. However, the grim realities paint a far different picture, one where good intentions pave the road to societal decay. Addiction specialists are sounding the alarm, and the news isn’t good. While hydromorphone is potent, it lacks the intensity to satisfy fentanyl users, leading to an unintended consequence: diversion. Users, unappeased by the drug’s effects, are selling their “safe” supply on the black market. This results in a glut of hydromorphone flooding the streets, crashing its price by up to 95% in certain areas. This collapse in street value might seem like a win for economic textbooks, but in the harsh world of drug abuse, it’s a catalyst for disaster. Cheap, readily available opioids are finding their way into the hands of an ever-younger audience, ensnaring teenagers in the grips of addiction. Far from reducing harm, these programs are inadvertently setting the stage for a new wave of drug dependency among our most vulnerable.
Programs designed to save lives are instead spinning a web of addiction that ensnares not just existing drug users but also initiates unsuspecting adolescents into a life of dependency. What’s needed isn’t more drugs, even under the guise of medical oversight, but a robust support system that addresses the root causes of addiction yet, the stark reality on the streets tells a story of systemic failure. Let’s dissect the current approach to handling addiction, a condition deeply intertwined with our societal, legal, and health systems.
Take a typical scenario—an individual battling the throes of addiction. Many of them find themselves ensnared by the law, often for crimes like theft, driven by the desperate need to sustain their habit. Yes, many addicts find themselves behind bars, where, paradoxically, they claim to clean up. Jail, devoid of freedom, ironically becomes a place of forced sobriety.
Now, consider the next step in this cycle: release. Upon their release, these individuals, now momentarily clean, are promised treatment—real help, real change. Yet, here’s the catch: this promised help is dangled like a carrot on a stick, often 30 or more days away. What happens in those 30 days? Left to their own devices, many relapse, falling back into old patterns before they ever step foot in a treatment facility.
This brings us to a critical question: why release an individual who has begun to detox in a controlled environment, only to thrust them back into the very conditions that fueled their addiction? Why not maintain custody until a treatment spot opens up? From a fiscal perspective, this dance of incarceration, release, and delayed treatment is an exercise in futility, burning through public funds without solving the core issue. Moreover, from a standpoint of basic human decency and dignity, this system is profoundly flawed. We play roulette with lives on the line, hoping against odds for a favorable outcome when we already hold a losing hand. This isn’t just ineffective; it’s cruel.
Final Thoughts
As we close the curtain on this discussion, let’s not mince words. The BC system’s approach to drug addiction treatment isn’t just flawed; it’s a catastrophic failure masquerading as mercy. Opposition leader Pierre Poilievre has hit the nail squarely on the head in his piece for the National Post. He articulates a vision where compassion and practicality intersect, not through the failed policies of perpetual maintenance, but through genuine, recovery-oriented solutions. His stance is clear: treat addiction as the profound health crisis it is, not as a criminal issue to be swept under the rug of incarceration.
Contrast this with the so-called ‘safe supply’ madness—a Band-Aid solution to a hemorrhaging societal wound. In the dystopian theatre of the Downtown Eastside, where welfare checks and drug dens operate with the efficiency of a grotesque assembly line, what we see is not healthcare, but a deathcare system. It’s a cycle of despair that offers a needle in one hand and a shot of naloxone in the other as a safety net. This isn’t treatment; it’s a perverse form of life support that keeps the heart beating but lets the soul wither.
Come next election in BC, if any provincial party is prepared to advocate for a true treatment-first approach, to shift from enabling addiction to empowering recovery, they will have my—and should have your—unwavering support. We must champion platforms that prioritize recovery, that respect human dignity, and that restore hope to the heartbroken streets of our communities.
The NDP BC government’s current model perpetuates death and decay under the guise of progressive policy. It’s a cruel joke on the citizens who need help the most. We can no longer afford to stand idly by as lives are lost to a system that confuses sustaining addiction with saving lives. Let’s rally for change, for recovery, for a future where Canadians struggling with addiction are given a real shot at redemption. This isn’t just a political imperative—it’s a moral one. The time for half-measures is over. The time for real action is now.
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