Sure, they’re ‘technically’ Tory tax cuts, but they look good in orange, don’t they?

Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 11/03/2024 (575 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

What possible motivation could the new NDP government have buying ads to promote the income tax cuts passed by the former Progressive Conservative government? The answer is that there are probably multiple motivations, and none of them are particularly flattering for the governing party.

The social media campaign features pictures of various representative taxpayers — a single man, a family with two children — and the potential savings they will get from both an increase to the basic personal exemption and an increase in the brackets that dictate what rate of tax Manitobans pay.

For the record, the bump to the basic personal exemption was put into effect last year and was, effectively, a done deal. The indexing of tax brackets was scheduled to kick in Jan. 1. Which means the NDP could have delayed or eliminated the latter, but chose not to.

Finance Minister Adrien Sala said the advertisements were necessary to “ensure Manitobans know about the work that we’re doing and delivering on our commitment.” Although plausible, Sala leaves out a lot of context in that statement.

First, there is no acknowledgement the tax cuts were passed by the previous government, and voted against by the then-opposition NDP. Denying the Tories a moment of applause is hardly surprising; to the winner of general elections go the spoils, including taking credit for past government actions.

And second, that in keeping these tax measures in place, and retaining others including the education property tax rebate, this NDP government has suddenly become as hawkish about tax cuts as the former Tory government.

And that should be reason for anyone who voted NDP to ask a critically important question: what is it exactly that the current government stands for?

First off, it is hardly surprising Premier Wab Kinew is embracing Tory tax cuts; he said during and after last fall’s election campaign that his government would not eliminate or roll back any of the myriad of tax expenditures introduced by his predecessors. He even promised — and delivered — a cut of his own by temporarily removing the 14 cents per litre provincial gasoline tax on Jan. 1.

However, the shift in focus from tax skeptic to full-on tax cutter has been impressive.

In the 2019 provincial election campaign, Kinew promised a higher tax rate on high-income (more than $250,000) earners while trying to offset that policy with a cut on taxes levied against small businesses.

After the Tories were re-elected, then-premier Brian Pallister floated the idea of cutting the provincial sales tax to six per cent, an idea that Kinew denounced as a threat to health and education funding.

In 2021, the Pallister government delivered a budget with a stunning plan to eliminate the education portion of property taxes, starting with a 25 per cent rebate worth more than $200 million. Kinew said the money for the rebate came from “underfunding seniors care, it’s coming from cuts in real dollars to the health-care system, and it comes from underfunding the education system.”

In the leadup to last fall’s election, Kinew and the NDP became much more circumspect about whether they would keep or roll back the Tory tax cuts. In the campaign proper, the NDP went all-in on keeping the tax cuts to insulate them from the baseless Tory allegations Kinew, if he formed government, would actually raise taxes.

But to actually spend taxpayer money to celebrate Tory tax cuts? A decision like that could form a central part of the curriculum of a master class in partisan taunting.

Still stinging from being dispatched to the opposition side of the Manitoba legislature, the Tories must be incensed about the sight of NDP cabinet ministers parading the tax cuts around the province like the head of a bagged wild boar. If there is any solace for the Tories, it is that in embracing those tax cuts, the NDP is playing with political fire.

It’s an interesting coincidence that in the same week that we got word of the tax-cut advertising campaign, the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives delivered an analysis of the Manitoba income tax cuts that showed that high-earning men are, by far, the greatest beneficiaries.

The theory, born out by Statistics Canada data on tax filers, is pretty solid: men tend to dominate higher-paying jobs and, as a result, reap the greatest benefits from income tax cuts. In general, the CCPA found that the top 10 per cent of all tax filers — which is dominated by men — will take home 26 per cent of the value of the tax cuts.

That is slightly more than what the bottom half of all tax filers — a constituency dominated by women — will receive (only 24 per cent of the value of the tax cuts).

The Kinew government is clearly loving the prospects of claiming credit though social media advertising campaigns. It’s a rare ‘have-your-political-cake-and-eat-it-too’ moment.

But sooner are later, someone is going to come around with an alternate narrative.

Meet the Manitoba NDP: the party of high net-worth men.

dan.lett@winnipegfreepress.com