President of the Canadian Treasury Board Stockwell Day fuelled speculation of an upcoming election last Thursday night by claiming his team was ready as he was visiting Conservative supporters in Pointe Claire at the Towne Hall on Brunswick Blvd.
The Conservatives’ plan to continue cutting down corporate taxes up until next year has a lot of people talking about an election these days in Canada these days. The measure was a part of the conservatives’ business tax plan created in 2007 which stipulated that corporate taxes would be lowered from 22 to 15 per cent by Jan. 1, 2012. This year, the tax was lowered to 16.5 per cent.
The Conservatives have launched a cross-country campaign to defend the tax cuts last week and Day’s visit to Pointe Claire was a part of the effort. Although he stated an election is not what Canada needs right now, Day defended the controversial measure and challenged the opposition during an interview with The Chronicle.
“We are focused on the economy, we are focused on jobs, and we’ve seen the economy increase. Canada has the strongest economy now in all industrialized nations. We’ve seen jobs increase. We’re focused on the economy. If the opposition wants to force an election, we are certainly ready. But we think the people of Quebec want us to focus on jobs and the economy,” he said.
Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff has been criticizing the tax cuts in the media lately saying Canada cannot afford corporate tax cuts and that they do not necessarily create jobs as reported by the Globe and Mail last week. Day was adamant Thursday night about defending his government’s decision on tax reductions.
“We promised in 2007 that we would help all job creators, small businesses, medium and other sizes by continuing to lower taxes and that has worked. We have seen an increase in jobs, we now have the strongest economy in the industrialized world and because of that, we’ve been able to increase our grants to provinces in areas like health and education,” he said.
Pierrefonds-Dollard Member of Parliament Bernard Patry attacked this statement when contacted by The Chronicle Monday. He cited a Liberal press release as a source to state the tax cut doesn’t affect small and medium businesses, only the large corporations.
“The cuts are just for big corporations, the level of imposition for small enterprises stays at 11 per cent. Plus, tax cuts to big corporations don’t create jobs. A lot of temporary jobs were created in recent years but how many well-paid full-time jobs were created? We need to invest in education, invest in green technologies, and invest in universities for our people to acquire new skills. Cutting taxes just for the sake of cutting taxes is not the right thing to do,” he said.
Responding to Liberals critics addressing the fact that funds should be allocated to education instead of corporate tax cuts, Day again defended his government’s actions in that domain.
“We invest in education, we invest in health care. We have increased the transfers to provinces for health care by six per cent. We have increased the amount of transfers to provinces for post-secondary education and because we are lowering taxes on the job-creators, small businesses, medium businesses, we’ve seen an increase in jobs and an increase in our economy. Our plan is working. The opposition plan to increase taxes and increase spending will hurt the economy,” he said.
