Sept 28, 2021

The September 20th federal election is said to have cost taxpayers $600,000,000 and the result is only the smallest of changes in seats in ridings with the Liberals again leading a minority government. To get anything done the Liberals will need support from members of other parties and an alignment with the NDP seems like their best bet, most of the time.

The NDP was very vocal about their platform being about “taxing the rich” to pay for the immense cost of their proposed social programs as well as debt for the pandemic response, the CERB, the vaccinations and all that. The rich are an easy target to verbalize, but they will be a lot harder to hit. 

The consultation on the federal government’s proposed Luxury Tax remains open until September 30th. To assist in the fight against the Luxury Tax, contact your marine trade association and get behind their program…not just for the next 48 hours, but for the years to come. We are in for a long-term fight.

It would be great to see the government drop the proposed Luxury Tax on boats worth over $250,000, but the truth is that this is really one of the few tax targets they think they can identify and hit.

A recent interview on BNN Bloomberg laid out the very messy implications of increasing the capital gains tax, raising the personal tax rate and so on. There is not much they can really do without major political damage. In terms of political optics, none of the options really expresses the philosophy of “Tax the rich” except to tax autos and aircraft worth over $100,000 and boats worth over $250,000.

My guess is that few luxury autos or aircraft are actually bought by individuals – they would be bought by businesses and leased back, probably contributing little or no tax revenue. I think that boats are probably the only target that could actually get hit with the Luxury Tax.

We are in for a long and hard battle and working with your marine trade association is the best way to organize and mount a strong resistance to this wrong-headed tax. With their shared resources, we, the members of the industry, can mount and maintain locally-focused pressure on your MPs and that’s where the pain point will be.

Also, remember that while the Liberals won 159 seats to 119 seats for the Conservatives, the Liberals only got 32.6% of the popular vote with the Conservatives got a bit more with 33.7%. Consider as well, that the voter turnout was around 60% and you see that the Liberals have a weak mandate to govern.

 We need to keep the pressure up.

Andy Adams – Editor