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By Matthew Lau

The class warfare section of the federal NDP’s plan, released four months before the federal election, is entitled “A New Deal for Tax Fairness.” It’s found on page 44 of the platform, in a sea of economic absurdities and expensive promises. This is unsurprising. It’s the NDP; economic absurdities are their stock-in-trade. Under Jagmeet Singh’s leadership, their inventory is overflowing.

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The corporate income tax hikes and sharp rise in capital gains taxes the platform proposes are standard fare for the NDP, as is a higher personal income tax rate for top earners, despite evidence from the C.D. Howe Institute and Fraser Institute that the Liberals’ last tax hike of this kind was so economically damaging that it actually caused government revenues to fall. The NDP’s plan for a wealth tax, however, breaks a sort of glass ceiling on the worst taxes proposed in Canada.

The proposal is for an annual one per cent tax on wealth over $20 million. This means that if an Ontario resident to whom this tax applies invests $100,000 in a 1.5 per cent GIC for one year (about the rate currently offered by big banks), he or she will earn a $1,500 nominal return on which will be owed $1,833 in tax — $833 in income tax, including the higher top marginal income tax rate, plus another $1,000 for the wealth tax.