Ottawa

Thomas Mulcair on taxes

The NDP leader refuses to target the rich

The NDP leader reminds Bloomberg that his party opposes the cuts to the corporate tax rate that have been made by the Harper government. The NDP’s budget submission in 2011 recommended setting the rate at 19.5% (the NDP’s 2011 platform committed to maintaining a corporate tax rate lower than the rate in the United States). The NDP also proposed reducing the small business tax rate and establishing a job creation tax credit. In its 2012 budget submission, the NDP asks “the federal government to tie financial incentives to real job creation.”

More interesting, Mr. Mulcair seems to eliminate any possibility of a tax-the-rich proposal from the federal NDP.

Mulcair said he would not raise taxes for high-income earners because marginal tax rates in the country are already too high. “Absolute guarantee it will never be part of my program,” he said. “It’s never been my policy and it never will be.”

Last year, the Ontario NDP successfully convinced the Liberal government to accept a surtax on those earning $500,000 or more in return for the NDP’s support for the government’s budget. And the surtax enjoyed widespread public support.

More than three-quarters of people surveyed — 78 per cent — like her idea with only 17 per cent opposed and 5 per cent unsure, according to the Forum Research poll. “It’s hugely popular. You never see that — that’s huge,” Forum president Lorne Bozinoff said Wednesday.

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