Poilievre to Axe Liberal Capital Gains Tax Hike

Conservative leader pledges new government will reverse last year’s NDP-Liberal capital gains tax hike on jobs, homebuilders, investment, farmers and small businesses; saving 414,000 jobs and $90 billion in GDP.

January 16, 2025
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 

Vancouver, BC – Common Sense Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre committed today to reversing last June’s NDP-Liberal tax hike on capital gains—a tax economists agree will kill over 400,000 jobs. The NDP-Liberals hiked the capital gains tax inclusion rate to 66% as of June 25, 2024, which Conservatives will reverse. Poilievre will make up the lost revenue from “Axing the Liberal Jobs Tax” by cutting taxpayer-funded corporate welfare and handouts that have been wrought with scandal and waste.

“Trudeau’s Chief Economic Advisor, Carbon Tax Carney, and former Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland supported this job-killing tax increase, which is further driving billions of dollars out of our country right as we face President Trump’s tariff threats,” Poilievre said. “This Liberal job and investment killing tax was a bad idea before President Trump’s tariff threat, it is outright insanity now.”

Nine years of Liberal economic vandalism has devastated our economy. The economy of Texas (with 10 million fewer people) is now larger than all of Canada’s Provinces and Territories combined. According to Trevor Tombe, “Ontario has a per-person level of economic output that is similar to Alabama…The Maritimes are below Mississippi, and Quebec and Manitoba lag behind West Virginia. Only Alberta exceeds the US average of $76,000.”

What we need is a government that encourages growth and investment. Instead, in the face of 25% tariffs being threatened by President Trump, Mark Carney, Chrystia Freeland, and Justin Trudeau put together a budget that included a lawless job-killing capital gains tax hike on Canadians. Now that Justin Trudeau has prorogued parliament, this tax will not become law before the next election. Yet it is still, lawlessly, being treated as if it was law by CRA.

The tax will make homebuilding more expensive during a housing crisis, force doctors to leave Canada during a doctor shortage and make food more expensive during a cost-of-living crisis. The C.D. Howe Institute has confirmed that the capital gains tax hike will kill 414,000 jobs and cause Canada’s GDP to decline by $90 billion. On Tuesday, Common Sense Conservatives wrote a letter calling on Minister LeBlanc to cancel their lawless job tax increase until we can have an election. But only Common Sense Conservatives can be trusted to axe this job-killing capital gains tax increase permanently, saving Canadian jobs and dollars.

Common Sense Conservatives will pay for this tax cut by cutting back on corporate welfare, the generous government subsidies that go to big, politically powerful corporations that have proven to be completely wasteful. As just a few examples, the NDP-Liberals have gifted $9 million on edible crickets for Canadians, $1 billion on their Green Slush Fund, where the ethics commissioner has already confirmed that laws were broken, and $50 million for Mastercard to build an office.

Only Common Sense Conservatives have a plan to bring jobs, production and paycheques home by axing job-killing NDP-Liberal taxes, ending unconstitutional C-69 and unleashing the potential and power of our workers. Let’s bring it home.