Scrap the Carbon tax

Canadians all support cleaner air and water. But a carbon tax won’t do anything to protect our environment. All it will do is increase costs on business and kill jobs. Increasing the price of fuel and the price of electricity will put the price of everything up. Businesses will be forced to choose between keeping employees on payroll or paying the hydro bill. This is unacceptable. This tax needs to be scrapped. It is the right plan.

One of the Harper Conservative Government’s major achievements was to reduce the corporate income tax from 22% in 2007 to 15% in 2012. But we can still do better. Canada’s combined corporate income tax rate is 15^thhighest in the OECD. Bringing it down to 10% will increase the after-tax return on investment, and thus encourage businesses to invest more. This will create jobs and unleash Canada’s productive forces. This is the right plan.

There is a simple way for the federal government to show fairness to all regions of the country, to all industries, and to taxpayers. It is to completely stop subsidizing businesses and to reduce their taxes. This is not only fair, but it is economically efficient. It respects that the free market can make decisions far better than Ottawa bureaucrats. And it will stop the consistent practise of throwing good taxpayer dollars after bad into failing and mismanaged companies. Ending the practise of picking winner and losers is the right plan.

For too long, the CRTC has been stifling competition and innovation in the telecommunications sector. Canada has a strong and mature telecommunications sector, and it doesn’t need to be coddled by government bureaucracy making fake competition. This is unacceptable. The CRTC needs to get out of the telecom industry, and foreign competition needs to be allowed. More competition is the right plan for Canada.

Canada has some of the highest air travel costs in the world. In cost competitiveness, we rank 124^th. Many Canadians rarely, or never, fly because of the cost. Many others only fly from American airports because it is so much cheaper there. To tolerate this in a country as vast as Canada, where air travel is often a necessity, is unacceptable. Privatizing the airports, and running them like businesses instead of government cash cows, will help reduce costs. It is also important to open the sector to more competition by lowering foreign ownership requirements and pursuing open skies agreements with other countries. These measures will help keep more money in the pockets of Canadian travellers. It’s the right plan.

Canadians have long benefitted from competition in the market for packages. What’s more, letter mail volume decreases by 6% per year. With the skyrocketing cost of stamps and constant threats of labour action, there is simply no reason to maintain Canada Post’s monopoly on letter mail. We all know that monopolies have less incentive to reduce costs and improve service. Postal services should operate in a competitive environment, just like any other sector of the economy.

Everyone knows the more you tax something, the less of it you get. The Capital Gains Tax is a tax on investment. When our economy is hardly growing at all, why would the government want to have less investment in the private sector? Abolishing the Capital Gains Tax would make sure you never pay tax on any of your savings. It will give our entrepreneurs access to a larger pool of capital. And it will allow every single Canadian to invest more and save more money. It is the right plan.

Canadians are paying too much tax. The Income Tax Act is a complicated mess that costs Canadians nearly $7 billion a year to comply with. Every Canadian deserves a tax cut. Simplifying the Income Tax Act by reducing taxes on all income above $15,000 and below $100,000 will mean that those earning in this range will save as much as $2,163 per year in taxes. Taxing income earned over $100,000 at 25% will keep more money in the pockets of Canadians. It is a tax cut for every single Canadian. This is the right plan.

Canadians are paying too much tax. The Income Tax Act is a complicated mess that costs Canadians nearly $7 billion a year to comply with. Every Canadian deserves a tax cut. Simplifying the tax code and raising the basic personal exemption to $15,000 will ensure that every single Canadian has at least $529 more in their pocket than they did under a Liberal Government. This is the right plan.

The Accelerated Capital Cost Allowance has allowed certain businesses to write off investments against taxable income more rapidly and has been a great success story. Making this program permanent and applying it to all sectors will put money in the pockets of every single business owner. It will allow new growth and new investment. It will increase prosperity. It is the right plan.

I would stop our reliance on the United Nations for refugee selection. Civil society groups that work on the ground have a much better grasp of who could successfully integrate into Canada than a big international bureaucracy. We should rely instead on private sponsorship, including by faith-based organizations. The Liberals are strangling this to make room for poorly delivered state sponsorship.

Our immigration policy should not aim to forcibly change the cultural character and social fabric of Canada, as radical proponents of multiculturalism want. The vast majority of Canadians rightly expect immigrants to learn about our history and culture, master one of our official languages, and adopt widely shared Canadian values such as equality of men and woman, tolerance for diversity and respect for Canadian law.

To ensure our security, I would increase resources for CSIS, the RCMP and Canadian Immigration and Citizenship to do background checks on all classes of immigrants, including more face-to-face interviews if deemed necessary.

Canada has always been a country largely open to immigration, because of its vastness and its relative youth. I believe that by and large, our immigration policy has been very successful. However, Immigration should answer the needs of sectors where there is a scarcity of manpower with specialized skills; and in more general terms contribute to increasing the number of younger workers in a society that is fast aging. It shouldn’t be used as a social engineering program for ideological purposes.

I will continue to work closely with our allies to ensure peace and security, especially against radical Islamic terrorism. We will only get involved in foreign conflicts when we have a clear strategic interest in doing so and when the security of Canadians is directly impacted.

My foreign policy will be focused on liberalizing trade with as many countries and regions of the world as possible. This is not only the best way to ensure our prosperity, but also to help other countries develop and get richer, and to ensure a more peaceful world.

My government will review the $5 billion that Canada spends every year on international assistance programs. Canada will do its part with humanitarian aid to fight global health crises and respond to emergencies such as major conflicts and natural disasters. But we will not send billions to other countries to boost their economies while many Canadians, including some First Nations communities, have levels of poverty comparable to third world countries. Instead of sending billions of dollars to other countries, we should use that money to cut taxes or help Canadians in need, here in Canada.

Countries such as China, India, Vietnam and many others that are fast growing out of poverty did so because they got rid of their communist and socialist economic policies. There is a direct link between the level of economic freedom and the level of development. They got richer because they adopted free-market policies, liberalized trade and private property rights, even if only imperfectly. My government will promote these ideas at every opportunity.

I won’t aim to please the foreign affairs establishment and the United Nations — a dysfunctional organisation which for years has disproportionately focused its activities on condemning Israel. Instead, I will ensure our country’s foreign policy will be refocused on the security and prosperity of Canadians.