When Chrystia Freelands proposed to increase taxes on capital gains last April, he presented the change (and related promises to invest in dental care, school feeding and housing programs) in strictly moral terms.
“Before they complain too bitterly, I would like one percent of Canada – 0.1 percent of Canada – consider this: what kind of Canada do you want to live?” she asked in what would turn out to be his last speech about the budget. “Do you want to live in a country where those who are on top live luxury lives, but they must do it in closed communities, behind increasingly high fences, using private medical care and airplanes, because the public sphere is very degraded and the anger of the vast majority of his less privileged compatriots burns with such intensity? ”
Eight months later, Freeland has apparently decided that increasing the rate of inclusion of capital profits is not strictly necessary to avoid social collapse.
In question this week: Donald Trump continues to launch tariff threats to Canada, now as president of the United States. The deadline for the race for liberal leadership arrives. And Doug Ford’s plan to convene early elections in Ontario.
The official explanation of Freeland’s campaign is that his change of opinion was precipitated by the recent electoral results in the United States and concerns about the competitiveness of the Canadian economy. But last April it was not exactly inconceivable that Donald Trump became president and the Republicans obtained control of both the Senate and the House of Representatives.
To be fair with Freeland, she would not be the Prime Minister of Finance to change course. And a leadership career is an appropriate time for any party to reflect on their elections.
I gave goodbye to carbon tax and changes in capital gains
The first – perhaps the most predictable – victim of the current self -reflection period of the Liberal Party was the Carbon tax. Carbon tax was undone not only for its own lack of public support, but also because of the unpopularity of the prime minister. Justin Trudeau’s possible successors would always want to demonstrate that they were not him, and perhaps the fastest and simplest way to do it was to renounce carbon tax.
Of the three alleged favorites in the current race for liberal leadership (Mark Carney, Chrystia Freeland and Karina Gould), only Gould has said that he would not completely repeal the consumption tax on carbon emissions (I would freeze it at the current price).
He Changes in the capital gains tax announced last spring. They were another objective that invited reconsideration. As evidenced by Freeland’s rhetoric wedges, liberals Initially they were anxious for a fight on politics. But they weren’t winning that fight, a Survey by Abacus this month He found that 27 percent of Canadians supported the policy, while 44 percent wanted it to be eliminated. (The extension of Parliament too He left the legislation to encode the changes in limbo..
Like carbon tax, politics now seems effectively dead: conservatives have already opposed it and now all favorites for liberal leadership do so also.
As the career for liberal leadership, the former governor of the Bank of Canada, Mark Carney, leads the former Minister of Finance Chrystia Freeland, solidifies the race.
“Since the policy was introduced in last year’s budget, Mark Carly has been clear that he sent the wrong signal at the wrong time to the builders and innovatives that make possible the growth of our economy,” said Carney’s campaign this week.
These are only the first steps of what could be an important political debate for the Liberal Party over the next six weeks.
Where will the winds blow the next party?
The Liberal Party has long operated on the left side of the political spectrum, but has also long shown will and ability to change with the predominant political winds. This is how a party goes from Mackenzie King (famous for its caution) to Lester B. Pearson (famous for its activity), passing through Jean Chrétien (famous for balancing the federal budget) and Justin Trudeau (famous for not doing so).
In fact and in fact, Trudeau moved the liberal party to the left of what he had been under his immediate predecessors. To some extent, that could have been dictated by the preeminent concerns of the moment. But long before Trudeau was forced to resign, it was possible to see how the game could change course, even if it was slightly, after its wake.
It was considered that Trudeau’s liberals focused mainly on issues such as inequality, the redistribution of wealth, social programs, climate change and reconciliation. Therefore, it would not be surprising that in the race to choose the successor of Trudeau there was some impulse to focus on things to which he was accused of not paying enough attention, such as economic growth and fiscal discipline.
In his renunciation letter to the prime minister, Freeland emphasized a difference of opinion on how much the government was spending. And in its campaign launch last week, Carney expressed concern that the Trudeau government had let its “attention deviate from the economy too often.”
A turn towards these issues would fit both the discourse of the elite of the moment (rarely, or never, so much attention has been paid to the GDP per capita of Canada) as well as with the predominant political tendency (the liberals have largely lost voters in front of the conservatives). ). A new approach to classical economic concerns could also align with the most immediate threat to the country: Donald Trump’s commercial policies.
But anyway, the details will import.
If it is not an increase in surplus value, then what?
Eliminating carbon tax could have been politically necessary (or inevitable), but also leaves a vacuum in the existing Canada plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. How will that gap to liberal leadership applicants?
Abandoning changes in capital gains may seem quite easy, but the federal government also expected the measure Increase federal income by $ 19.4 billion over the next five years. Would the candidates replace that income or tried to fix them without them?
But the reform of capital gains was not promoted only as a way of raising income to pay things such as dental care. It was also said that it was economic inequality and rebuilding an unfair tax system.
On the way to a meeting of the Liberal Group in Ottawa on Thursday, the parliamentarian of Toronto, Chrystia Freeland, says that his approach while he is running to be the next leader of the party is to revive his bases and make his processes more democratic.
“In addition to the fiscal cost [of scrapping the capital gains changes]There should be some political caution … because the question will be: do they put anything else in the window that speaks to the progressives? “Tyler Meredith, former main political advisor of the Trudeau government, warned about him Race to replace this week’s podcast (I was talking before it was clear that all the favorites would reverse the changes).
“Because I think that from a perspective of inequality of income and wealth, we have to be careful not to also expose the NDP.”
The greatest concern of the Liberal Party at this time could be to close the gap with the conservatives. But it also owes a good part of its success in the last three elections to progressive policies and to obtain progressive votes, in issues such as climate change and reconciliation.
And if last April there was a moral imperative to build a more egalitarian society, it is difficult to imagine that even Donald Trump can make that principle debatable now.
