Tories kick off election campaign with promise to balance budget, lower taxes By: Carol Sanders Posted: 12:21 PM CDT Tuesday, Sep. 5, 2023 Last Modified: 5:32 PM CDT Tuesday, Sep. 5, 2023 Updates

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Using the week’s grocery specials as a backdrop, Progressive Conservative Leader Heather Stefanson kicked off the party’s official election campaign Tuesday, promising to make life more affordable if the Tories are re-elected to a third term.

At a news conference outside a Winnipeg grocery store — hours after calling an Oct. 3 election — the premier promised to lower taxes, remove the federal carbon tax from hydro bills in the first 10 days of a new term, and balance the budget ahead of schedule.

Earlier Tuesday, Stefanson had asked Lt.-Gov. Anita Neville to dissolve the legislative assembly and issued the writs for Manitoba’s 43rd general election.

The PC leader, who was greeted at the Food Fare on Portage Avenue by most of the party’s 57 candidates cheering and chanting “four more years,” made her case for re-electing a Tory government.

“We are the only party taking affordability seriously… the only party who will fight for bigger paycheques,” she said.

“We are the only party taking affordability seriously… the only party who will fight for bigger paycheques.”–Heather Stefanson

Last month, Stefanson released a video on social media criticizing the Manitoba Government and General Employees’ Union for demanding bigger paycheques and increases on par with cost-of-living raises all MLAs receive, saying “Sometimes the answer just has to be ‘no’” to the demands of striking workers.

At her campaign launch Tuesday, she said the PCs would cut the rate for the lowest provincial income tax bracket in half — by 1.35 per cent per year over the next four years, amounting to $1,900 by 2028 for Manitobans earning an average income of $50,000.

“That’s equivalent to an extra paycheque for many Manitobans,” she said.

If re-elected, the Tories would continue to reduce the education property tax, eliminating it over 10 years.

Stefanson said the Tories have been able to cut taxes while making “historic investments” in increased health-care and education spending, “and we’ve done this through some of the most challenging economic times we’ve seen in years.”

A PC government would slay the $363-million deficit and balance the budget by 2025 — two years ahead of schedule, she said.

“Now, some of you might ask, ‘How are you going to pay for all of these affordability measures?’ — and you should, because fiscal responsibility is extremely important.”

Her answer didn’t include Manitoba receiving major increases in revenue this year, thanks to inflation leading to higher tax receipts, elevated earnings at Manitoba Hydro, and increased federal transfer payments.

When asked how much slashing the rate for the lowest income tax bracket would cost Manitoba, the PC leader couldn’t say.

“We will be costing everything out — that will be delivered by the end of the week,” she said. “I don’t believe the NDP have costed everything out.

“We delivered a budget this spring that had everything costed out. This is a continuation of that.”

In the 2023-24 fiscal year, the Tories cut personal income taxes by $311 million. It included raising the basic personal amount to $15,000 (from $10,145) in 2023, resulting in an estimated 47,400 people removed from the tax rolls.

Within a couple of hours of the announcement Tuesday, the PC party emailed reporters, saying the cost of reducing the tax rate for the lowest income bracket by half will cost $150 million per year.

When asked how a Tory government could tell Hydro to remove the federal carbon tax — after the Supreme Court of Canada has already ruled it constitutional — and why she waited until the campaign start to say she’d challenge it anew, Stefanson said the PCs have “a favourable legal opinion,” but wouldn’t elaborate.

“We’re hearing loud and clear from Manitobans that they don’t believe they should have to pay the carbon tax on their Manitoba Hydro bills,” she said.

“Manitoba is 97 per cent clean, green energy. Look at other provinces. We’re among the best in the country. Manitobans should benefit from that.”

While Manitoba may produce mostly clean energy, most of what it consumes to heat homes — natural gas supplied through Hydro — is subject to the federal carbon tax.

Stefanson’s promises to cut income taxes and flex the province’s jurisdictional muscle are too little, too late, Manitoba NDP Leader Wab Kinew countered.

“I think we all know that Heather Stefanson is trying to hang on to her job. She’s worried about her own paycheque,” Kinew said during a news conference on a balcony at West Broadway Commons, overlooking the Manitoba Legislative Building.

“I think we all know that Heather Stefanson is trying to hang on to her job. She’s worried about her own paycheque.”–Wab Kinew

“This government brought in a budget just a few months ago, and if they thought this was such a great idea, why didn’t they put it in their budget?”

He refused to say if ordering Manitoba Hydro to stop charging the carbon tax on natural gas is good policy. He called the Tory plan a desperate, “back-of-the-envelope” proposal.

“There’s not going to be any legal opinions necessary when we cut the gas tax or we freeze hydro rates,” Kinew said.

The NDP have promised a temporary holiday on the 14 cents per litre tax Manitoba charges on gas, and a one-year freeze on electricity rates.

Liberal Leader Dougald Lamont called the PC’s carbon tax pledge “outrageous” and “a campaign stunt.”

“This is a premier who is kicking off her campaign saying she doesn’t care about the supreme court or the law,” the candidate for St. Boniface said.

“For a government that’s tough on crime, they really don’t care about enforcing the law,” Lamont told reporters Tuesday.

— with files from Danielle Da Silva

carol.sanders@freepress.mb.ca

Carol Sanders
Legislature reporter

Carol Sanders is a reporter at the Free Press legislature bureau. The former general assignment reporter and copy editor joined the paper in 1997. Read more about Carol.

Every piece of reporting Carol produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print — part of the Free Press‘s tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press’s history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates.