Should politicians be able to hike taxes without standing up to cast a vote?
Thanks to a 2017 policy implemented by Justin Trudeau’s Liberals, that’s exactly what happens every year with alcohol taxes.
Every year since 2017, alcohol taxes have increased automatically on April 1 without a vote in Parliament.
Back in 2017, Trudeau introduced the alcohol escalator tax, which automatically increases taxes on beer, wine and spirits every year at the rate of inflation. This year’s increase will be 2%.
That may be less than in years past, but that’s still a tax hike. And it’s a tax hike without a vote.
Over the past nine years, this undemocratic tax hike has cost Canadian consumers roughly $1.6 billion, according to the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.
If the Carney government wants Canadians to pay higher taxes every time they grab a beer to watch the game, they should at least be forced to stand up in Parliament and defend that tax hike.
Industry is heavily taxed
Increasing taxes on alcohol right now cannot be defended. The industry is still reeling from U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariff policies. Carney keeps talking about buying Canadian and building up the economy here at home. But his tax hikes are hurting domestic producers.
Plus, a massive percentage of what Canadians already pay when they buy beer, wine and spirits is taxes.
Roughly half of the price of beer, two-thirds of the price of wine and three-quarters of the price of spirits is simply taxes.
That’s bananas.
Consider the price of beer. Back in 2018, a study found that Canadians paid, on average, five times as much in taxes on a case of beer compared to their American counterparts. And that’s before the brunt of the Trudeau government’s alcohol escalator tax was even felt.
Does it really make sense to any rational individual that a Canadian consumer should pay five times as much in taxes as a consumer south of the border?
Or that the cost of any product should be made up more of taxes than the cost of the product itself?
Carney should copy Poilievre’s idea
During last year’s federal election campaign, Pierre Poilievre’s Conservativespromised to scrap the alcohol escalator tax and reduce tax levels back to where they were in 2017.
Carney has copied all kinds of Conservative policies over the past year. That’s another one he should add to his list.
According to the Conservative platform, undoing the escalator tax would save Canadian consumers $366 million this year alone.
Taking a page out of the Conservative platform by ending the escalator tax and returning rates back to 2017 levels is something Carney should get behind.
Automatic alcohal tax hikes need to be scrapped
This isn’t just about taxes. It’s about democratic fairness.
Most members of Parliament in Ottawa today weren’t even there back in 2017 when the alcohol escalator tax was first introduced.
Why shouldn’t our elected representatives cast a vote? Why shouldn’t they have a say in what the tax rate on alcoholic beverages should be? Why allow tax policy to be decided by politicians of yesteryear?
And what kind of precedent does this set for the future?
Today, it’s an automatic tax hike on alcohol. But tomorrow, it could be an automatic tax hike on income, sales or corporate taxes.
The time for action is now. Unless the Carney government does something, alcohol taxes will rise by yet another 2% on April 1.
With tax rates sky-high, the industry reeling from tariffs and the democratic rights of Canadians at stake, Carney must act this winter to undo yet another damaging Trudeau-era policy.
Originally published here
