Canada’s local businesses are the backbone of our economy.

Most local business owners and farmers are middle income Canadians — the people who put their time, effort, and sweat into paying the bills and paying their employees before they pay themselves. They’re not big multinational corporations – they’re our neighbours, and the Trudeau Liberals are targeting them with a massive tax hike, threatening the jobs and the communities they sustain.

These Liberal tax hikes will significantly impact local manufacturing shops, family farms, and the favourite restaurant where you take your family. Our communities are woven together by our local businesses. They employ our neighbours, grow the economy, and sponsor community events.

Yet Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is targeting local businesses with a major tax increase. He thinks most small businesses are just vehicles used by wealthy Canadians to avoid paying taxes. That’s wrong, and it’s insulting to the Canadians who have worked hard to grow their local businesses. The vast majority of local business operators and farmers do not have pensions. Whatever money they can save helps them pay their workers during a bad year, or for retirement after a lifetime of work.

Prime Minister Trudeau said he would be the champion of the middle class. Instead, Justin Trudeau’s tax changes have resulted in higher taxes for 80% of middle-class families.
So far, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has increased personal income tax, cancelled the promised local business tax rate reduction, and rolled out his nationalized carbon tax that will squeeze the margins of many local businesses. Now the Liberals are proposing to take away the one incentive put in place to promote entrepreneurship in small business.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said he was going to tax the rich without saying who the rich are. It turns out his proposed tax changes will most dramatically affect 2/3 of small business owners who make less than $73,000 per year.

Why is he doing this? Because he has a spending problem. Prime Minister Trudeau inherited not only a balanced budget but a surplus and a growing economy yet he continues to drive Canada into a deeper deficit each year. Now he is going to local businesses and farms with his hand out, demanding they pay for it.

There’s nothing fair about this Liberal plan to fund their reckless spending. Local businesses need our support, not higher taxes. I, our Leader Andrew Scheer and Canada’s Conservatives are going to fight Prime Minister Trudeau’s attack on local business owners and farmers every step of the way.