Matthew Lau: Canadians’ slim election pickings

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For the past six years, the Liberal government has committed unceasing economic blunders. Fortunately, by virtue of living in a democracy, Canadians have other choices. One is the NDP. Their platform includes untold billions in spending for: national prescription drug coverage, national dental care, a guaranteed livable income, government support for various industries as part of a “national industrial strategy,” student debt forgiveness and a doubling of Canada Student Grants, $10 a day child care, and sundry climate change programs, including the creation of a “Civilian Climate Corps.”

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They propose to pay for these promises, and many others, with new or increased taxes on personal income, corporate profits (including a retroactive tax increase on companies that earned “too much” during the pandemic), luxury goods, and net wealth. Since all this will raise nowhere near enough revenue, there would also be massive borrowing. On top of this, the NDP proposes a dramatic expansion of the regulatory state. If the goal is to increase prosperity and improve living standards, such policies might possibly work — maybe, somewhere. Not on planet earth, unfortunately.

Meanwhile, back here on Earth, there is, as the main alternative to the blundering Liberals, the Conservative Party. The Conservative plan has been widely praised as serious and substantial. Unfortunately, most of it is also wrong. The Conservatives’ solutions to perceived economic problems involve greater government economic planning and silly gimmicks; for example, they want to help the hospitality and tourism sector by increasing government handouts and providing 50 per cent subsidies for food and non-alcoholic drinks purchased for dine-in from Monday to Wednesday over a period of one month.

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The Conservative plan to unleash innovation also relies heavily on government expansion, including creating a new government bureau that will “invest” $5 billion to advance innovation in various sectors over the next five years. The Conservatives’ platform section on free trade seems to have as much to do with restricting trade as allowing it. Free trade agreements, such as with Australia, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom, could be beneficial if they really did liberalize trade, but the Conservatives’ many commitments to provide support and protection to domestic manufacturing, agriculture, and other industries make clear they are not any sort of real free traders.

Climate change is one area where the Conservatives have historically been less bad than the Liberals, but it is not clear this is still the case, even despite the Liberals’ increasingly alarmist and unreasonable climate agenda. The Conservatives have committed to the same misguided emissions targets as the Liberals, and their platform includes all sorts of expensive policies: a zero-emission vehicle mandate, clean fuel regulations, a national clean energy strategy, many billions in spending, and a bizarrely designed carbon tax that requires consumers to pay into a “Personal Low Carbon Savings Account” whenever they buy hydrocarbon-based fuel.

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The Conservatives say they will get spending under control, but spending cuts are badly lacking in their plan, and even the CBC budget cut that Erin O’Toole made a key piece of his leadership campaign last year and re-committed to as recently as this spring did not make it into the platform. The Conservatives also seem unambitious in cutting taxes. Their one-month GST holiday is a gimmick, and while I’m one of the last people to complain about a tax cut, it is difficult to think of a much sillier way to cut taxes than that. Corporate and personal income taxes are more economically harmful than the GST and so should be cut first, while having different tax rates for different months makes no sense.

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To be fair, the Conservative platform does include a few good planks. Their child-care policy — a refundable tax credit — offers families greater flexibility in their child-care arrangements and is therefore materially better than the Liberal policy. The Conservatives’ pledges to review the tax system and business regulations with an eye to simplifying and trimming both may well prove to be beneficial, but judgement will have to be reserved for when the reviewing is over and the cutting — if they follow through with it — actually begins.

On the whole, unfortunately for voters, good policies in the Conservative platform seem to be significantly outweighed by bad ones, so that the three main choices in this election are: the unhappy status quo, an economic plan more appropriate for an alternative universe, and another plan made up of policies that are mostly wrong. In this election, like a hapless sports team, Canadian taxpayers and consumers seem destined to lose. The only question is, how badly.

Matthew Lau is a Toronto writer.