WATCH: Former deputy finance minister Scott Clark says he’ll be looking closely at the federal budget to see if the balanced books are really credible.
OTTAWA — The Conservatives appear to be keeping their promise to balance the books. They’ve also offered an array of boutique tax cuts and benefits and kept corporate taxes low. Not a bad foundation for an election campaign, right?
Not so fast, says Scott Clark, a former deputy finance minister who served under Jean Chretien’s Liberals in the 1990s.
“This government has lowered taxes since it’s been in power, but that doesn’t constitute good tax policy, just simply lowering taxes,” Clark said in an interview on The West Block with Tom Clark.
READ MORE: Family Tax Cut will benefit middle to high-income earners, says PBO
There is, for example, the so-called family tax cut, a $2 billion per year commitment that has been widely criticized for benefiting as few as 15 per cent of Canadian families —mostly those that are already well off. Then the Conservatives promised to boost the Universal Child Care Benefit, at a cost of $4.4 billion, and to double the Child Fitness Tax credit, costing about $35 million —a benefit that Clark said left him scratching his head, wondering why it needs to be subsidized.
“And one of the outstanding commitments is to give an adult fitness credit … I’m not sure why adults need a fitness tax credit to go out and exercise,” he said. “The point is it’s not good tax policy. It hasn’t contributed to economic growth.”
READ MORE: How the Family Tax Cut works and who benefits from it
Despite what analysts may show, Employment Minister Pierre Poilievre said his government’s income splitting scheme benefits “overwhelmingly” modest and low income families the most.
“We’re putting, on average, over $1,000 in the pockets of a family with kids,” he said.
WATCH: Employment Minister Pierre Poilievre defends the government’s decision to forge ahead with a balanced budget while keeping taxes low.
Regardless, of who these tax cuts benefit and what the public thinks of them, though, the big ace up the Conservatives’ sleeve is the balanced budget.
“I think now most Canadians believe that the word deficit and the word dept are terrible, terrible things,” said Clark. “Unfortunately, that’s not always the case, but it’s the political reality.”
WATCH: This week’s West Block Primer takes a look at what we know will be in the federal budget, what we expect to be announced, and where the question marks remain.
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