Thursday March 27, 2025, Jonquière, QC — At a campaign stop in front of the Rio Tinto aluminum plant in Jonquière today, the leader of the People’s Party, Maxime Bernier, detailed his plan to get rid of the deficit in one year so as to allow for sustainable tax cuts for Canadian households and businesses.
Bernier noted that with the uncertainty surrounding the trade war with the US, it is more important than ever that Canada clean up its public finances and reduce taxes to make our economy more competitive and productive.
“You can’t reduce taxes sustainably unless you cut spending and eliminate the deficit first. Because today’s deficits will have to be paid by higher taxes tomorrow, or will be paid indirectly by inflation if they are financed by monetary creation by the Bank of Canada,” explained the PPC leader.
Bernier listed a series of unnecessary or poorly managed federal programs that are wasting tens of billions and can be either eliminated or partly slashed.
While this year’s deficit is almost $50 billion, these spending cuts would allow for more than $60 billion in savings. A People’s Party government could therefore start cutting taxes in the second year of its mandate.
These programs and annual savings include:
1. Eliminate corporate welfare to save $25 billion
2. Eliminate foreign aid to save $10 billion
3. Stop sending money to Ukraine to save at least $5 billion
4. Eliminate subsidies to CBC and the media to save $2 billion
5. Cut equalization at least by half to save $13 billion
6. Cut spending on Indigenous programs, which has tripled under Trudeau to $32 billion, to save billions of dollars
7. Eliminate all programs to promote DEI, multiculturalism, and other grants to thousands of groups across the country, to save billions of dollars
8. Eliminate Trudeau’s new unconstitutional national social programs (daycare, pharmacare, dental care) to save several billion dollars
“The other parties are promising you tax cuts, but they never talk about corresponding spending cuts. They are too afraid to displease groups that benefit from these programs at the expense of all Canadians. They will continue to put us in debt. This is irresponsible. It’s time for serious reforms,” concluded Bernier.
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