Conservatives pledge to cut personal income taxes

BRAMPTON — Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre — who is spending the first few days of the federal election campaign in the highly sought-after ridings that surround Toronto — pledged Monday to cut income taxes by 2.25 percentage points.

At a morning campaign stop at a plant that makes cardboard packaging for food products in Brampton, Ont., Poilievre said he would drop the lowest personal income tax bracket to 12.75 per cent from 15 per cent, which amounts to a 15 per cent cut.

The party said the cut would translate into annual tax savings of $900 for the average individual and $1,800 for a dual-income family.

“This is a tax cut for seniors who are drawing their pension or retirement income. This is a tax cut for the workers behind me. This is a tax cut for the waitress, for the welder, for the barber,” Poilievre said.

“This is a tax cut for everybody who has ever got up early in the morning and worked hard to build our country.”

The Conservatives said the tax cut would be fully implemented by fiscal year 2027-28. They project it would cost the government $7 billion in each of the first two years, and $14 billion a year after that.

Poilievre said he would pay for it through cuts to government spending.

“We will be cutting bureaucracy, cutting consultants, cutting handouts to insiders, and we will cut back on foreign aid,” Poilievre said.

“We will also bring in a dollar-for-dollar law that will require ministers to find one dollar of new savings for every dollar of new spending. That will drive down the cost and drive up the efficiency, so that we can get value for money.”

Poilievre said his party would explain the expected cuts in more detail in its fully costed election platform; he didn’t say when that would be released. He also has pledged that cuts to Canada’s foreign aid spending would entirely pay for a new military base in Iqaluit.

Global Affairs Canada reports that in 2023, Canada’s foreign aid spending was about $15.5 billion, including $7 billion for official development assistance and $6.3 billion in loans and development financing. More than 75 per cent of the loans went to Ukraine.

This announcement came after Liberal Leader Mark Carney promised on Sunday a one percentage point cut to the lowest income tax bracket, a cut he said would benefit a dual-income family by up to $825 a year.

The Liberals directed questions about the cost of their tax cut to the Parliamentary Budget Officer, which is tracking election promise costs for all parties. Its website says a one-point cut to the lowest income tax rate, from 15 to 14 per cent, would cost $5.9 billion.

Poilievre hosted a rally in North York on Sunday evening to kick off his campaign, drawing an enthusiastic crowd of hundreds of people to a hotel ballroom that quickly filled to capacity. Staff had to turn people away from the event after the space filled up.

On Monday, he repeated a line that got a laugh from the enthusiastic crowd at the rally, citing a meme he saw recently featuring a child asking their father about income taxes.

“And his dad said, ‘Well, it’s kind of like your report card at school, except the opposite — the better you do, the more you get punished.’ And that is what income tax is. It is the fine you pay for the crime of working hard,” Poilievre said.

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He said the Liberals have “taxed our people and our businesses, sometimes into submission,” and have weakened Canada by locking its economy to that of the United States.

“I know that people are scared. They feel threatened. They’ve lived through hell over the last decade, and now they’re facing these unjustified threats from (U.S. President Donald) Trump, who, quite frankly, needs to knock it off,” Poilievre said.

At the press conference, he answered four questions from media outlets pre-selected by Conservative staff and did not take followup questions.

— With files from Nick Murray in Ottawa

This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 24, 2025.