On Tariffs, Taxes, and Poilievre

Well, here we are, in the strangely surreal place of watching the United States turn itself inside out. Trump is enacting swaths of the Project 2025 plan he disavowed throughout his election. He has shut down diversity programs, fired FBI officers, shut down healthcare and science funding, and has turned over the $6 trillion US Treasury spending systems to an unelected, inexperienced, oligarch.

I worry for my American friends who are living under such a heartless, greedy, and soulless government.

Trump, and whoever is guiding his signing hand (Republicans? Libertarians? Oligarchs?), doesn’t care much for friends though. This weekend’s tariffs have shown, quite clearly, that the government of the United States can no longer be trusted as an ally or a friend. There is no way to sugar-coat this; doing so would be dangerous. Our friend has become our abuser.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s statement on Sunday was powerful and pointed, expressing so well what is on many of our minds. I have often expressed disappointment with some of his decisions, particularly around electoral reform. Despite being in the process of resigning, and enduring a divorce and years of dirty name-calling, he showed true character and leadership in encouraging Canadians to stand together in this coming storm. He gave hope, as he did during the Covid pandemic, promising support for Canadians harmed by Trump’s punishing and expansionists whims while, with class, expressing sympathy for the millions of Americans caught in this maelstrom.

we were always there, standing with you, grieving with you, the American people.

Elizabeth May wrote today about meeting with the PM, other opposition leaders, and the Premiers about the tariff crisis. True to her Green Values, she spoke of the need to build bridges with like-minded countries and people. In this crisis we have an opportunity to create better solutions, ones that incorporate justice, resilience, and tackle the climate crisis.

As damaging as the tariffs are likely to be to our economy, they will also boomerang and hurt Americans. We need to prepare, build bridges with other democracies and rebuild a new network of solidarity for peace, justice and climate. This alliance must protect peoples and planet from an emerging new world order of oligarchs and fascists…

…We need to be unafraid, resilient and fair. The bully will be surprised if we refuse to panic. Let’s hope we can use this crisis to make real changes to our fragmented federation- eliminate interprovincial trade barriers, emerge with an economy based, not on a rip and strip model of resources exported without value added, moving to a circular economy, with greater resilience and self-sufficiency.

I hadn’t seen much from Poilievre on the issue. I had been joking, privately (I’ll admit this is not kind and I should probably do some self-examination on this), that he was trying to decide which pithy saying to use. Either “Dump the Trump” or “Stump for Trump” would not have been surprising.

It turns out, at a press conference today, that he echoed much of what Trudeau and May have said. It is high time we worked conscientiously to remove inter-provincial trade barriers. Put in place tariffs that send a clear message. He suggested working with sympathetic Americans to build good business relationships. A good idea, although I wonder if many are going to be far too busy protecting themselves from far worse than tariffs. Predictably, sadly, he also took the opportunity to attack Trudeau, turning a serious national crisis into a cheap (and apparently, false) attack.

But the bit of Poilievre’s solutions that really stood out to me is this:

Poilievre then said the “tariffs must not be a tax grab,” saying all money gained from tariffs should be put towards a “an immediate, emergency, ‘bring it home’ tax cut.”

Poilievre has expressed his opinion that we should take the money collected from tariffs and use them to cut taxes. At first blush, I thought that was pretty reasonable. Why not ease the burden of those higher prices with lower taxes?

Hold on just a moment though.

Groceries – healthy whole foods – aren’t taxable. Long term apartment rental is not taxable. People who live in poverty pay very little or nothing in income taxes. When you cut taxes, the people who benefit the most are the one’s who have money to tax. The folks that get hurt the most are the ones who need the services those taxes fund.

What Poilievre is proposing does very little to help the people who will be hurt the most by tariffs: people who can hardly afford to buy food right now and who can hardly afford housing. Instead he will give tax breaks to the wealthiest people in the country so they can squirrel more away in investments and expensive toys while beggaring the government so it can’t afford to help those most in need.

Ironically, this appears to be Trump’s goals too. He is, essentially, funding large corporate tax cuts with tariffs. I’ll give Poilievre some credit here; unlike Trump who seems to be under the illusion that foreign countries pay for tariffs, I’m pretty sure Poilievre is very clear on how this works.

The wolf in sheep’s clothing, if you will, is that Poilievre has signaled that he will continue with the populist agenda of selling off the public good to enrich corporations and grow shareholder value. While he speaks of standing up for Canada, he is aligned with the political ideology that has brought the United States beyond a flawed democracy to an emerging oligarchy. If he succeeds in becoming the Prime Minster, we will likely face many of the same challenges as our friends to the south: attacks on public healthcare, journalism, the social safety net, democratic institutions, unions, science, education, women’s rights, and LGBTQ+ rights.

Let’s not give him that power.

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