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Poll points to Liberals’ clumsy rollout of proposed tax changes

Given the amount of ink and airtime provided to discussions about the federal government’s proposed tax changes, one would assume that this is an issue that is gripping Canadians and leading to endless conversations across the breakfast table.
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Given the amount of ink and airtime provided to discussions about the federal government’s proposed tax changes, one would assume that this is an issue that is gripping Canadians and leading to endless conversations across the breakfast table.

It’s not. When Insights West asked Canadians about the changes earlier this month, only 8% said they had been following the story “very closely” and an additional 26% answered “somewhat closely.” Simply put, two-thirds of Canadians were not ready or willing to interrupt the final days of summer with this matter.

The most negative reactions to the policy come from two groups that have traditionally despised any action from Ottawa since Justin Trudeau became prime minister: Conservative party voters in the 2015 election and residents of Alberta. No surprises here.

However, it is practically impossible to calculate the electoral ramifications of this policy proposal at this point. Only two of the three main parties have full-time leaders. Asking how Canadians would vote in a federal election today would be tantamount to asking Americans who they would support in the 2020 presidential election between Donald Trump and an unnamed Democratic party nominee. It’s simply too early, and the contenders are unclear.

What polling can do is provide an assessment of how Canadians are reacting to this change. The reviews are mixed, depending on the level of information of residents. But the most realistic conclusion is that the policy rollout left much to be desired.

When the views of the one-third of Canadians who have followed the story are reviewed exclusively, support for the federal government’s proposed tax changes reaches 58%, while opposition stands at 34%. This is the bit of good news for the federal Liberals: if you have seen, heard or read about the proposed policy, you are more likely to say it is good.

Most Canadians did not follow the story and were not ready to look at it as an issue of fairness, because the most even-handed element of the policy – the so-called “reasonableness test” – was not the cornerstone of the changes. The federal government’s initial statements, coupled with electronic media stories that had too little time to explain the intricacies at hand, allowed opposition parties to frame the changes as an insult to medical professionals.

The main thing the policy is trying to accomplish is ensuring that people who appoint relatives into corporations to place themselves in a lower tax bracket are not able to do so anymore. When this is explained to Canadians, the level of support for the “reasonableness test” jumps to 64% – the kind of numbers that federal proposals rarely reach.

Those who have followed the story do not think doctors should be singled out by the government. In addition, Canadians are more likely to believe that there are indeed two groups of fellow residents who are overpaid and enjoy too many tax breaks and perks: federal and provincial politicians.

A policy rollout enacted at the wrong time of the year and with a misguided target has become a distraction for the federal Liberals. It has also provided ammunition to a Conservative leader who was still finding his footing. The focus should have been on catching the people who take advantage of existing regulations and shutting out those loopholes. Singling out doctors instead of spending more time offering a deeper explanation of how to catch cheaters (in any profession) is like banning roads to deal with irresponsible motorists who text while driving. A policy roll-out on tax changes requires a scalpel. The federal government used a machete.

Waiting until the fall – when more Canadians consume information – and discussing the changes as a way to catch tax cheaters would have probably made all parties embrace the policy. Instead, the rollout emboldened the opposition and led to reporters asking the prime minister about his own wealth management strategies. This is definitely not the kind of situation that the government envisioned a few weeks ago. •

Mario Canseco is vice-president of public affairs at Insights West.