A Commons Finance committee report tells Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland to “close the growing income gap” with new taxes. However, Bank of Canada (BoC) data shows that no growing income gap exists, according to Blacklock’s Reporter.. Money .“Some witnesses called on the government to address growing income inequality,” said the committee report Responding to the Challenges of our Time. .It recommended Freeland “take steps to close the growing income gap and generate revenue to fund poverty reduction programs by closing tax loopholes and ending the use of low-tax or non-cooperative jurisdictions for tax purposes, taxing extreme wealth, and implementing a tax on excessive profits, including windfalls associated with the pandemic.”.A BoC report Income Inequality in Canada 2022 showed that income inequality is not increasing..“Data show[s] income inequality in Canada increased substantially during the 1980s and first half of the 1990s, but has been relatively stable over the last 25 years,” said the report..The report noted that “income inequality in the United States has been higher than in Canada for the last four decades.”.Conservative MPs on the Finance committee opposed implementing any new taxes..“Stop the taxes,” said the Conservative MPs minority report. .“No new taxes. This includes cancelling all planned and new tax hikes, such as the tripling of the carbon tax.”.“Conservatives dissent to this report because it fails to address the inflation and cost of living crisis created by increasing tax hikes and out of control Liberal spending,” Conservative MP Jasraj Singh Hallan (Calgary Forest Lawn, AB) told the Commons. .“For those reasons, we cannot support the recommendations of the report.”.In Freeland’s 2022 budget, the government introduced $1.1 billion in new taxes on banks and insurance companies, including a 15% Canada Recovery Dividend tax..Cabinet hit the banks and insurance companies with an additional tax increase by moving the corporate tax rate from 15% to 16.5%.. Bank of Nova Scotia .“Our pandemic deficits are and must continue to be reduced,” Freeland told the Commons at the time. .“The extraordinary debts we incurred to keep Canadians safe and solvent must be paid down.”.New Democrats since 2020 have sought a 30% windfall profits tax worth $7.95 billion a year, by the Parliamentary Budget Office estimate. .“That’s a massive amount of new revenue,” New Democrat Leader Jagmeet Singh earlier told reporters. .“People are worried about the cost of this pandemic and they’re worried because they don’t want to see the cost fall on them.”.Parliament in 1940 introduced an Excess Profits Tax Act that imposed a minimum 35% tax on corporations and a 75% surcharge on net gains over “standard profits” based on tax filers average revenues in the previous three years. .“If the Liberal government doesn’t actually get down to making the ultra-rich pay their fair share, what’s going to happen is the burden is going to fall on people,” said Singh.
