Now is no time for risky experiments or fantastical utopias. Instead, we must do what has always worked: free enterprise. Only voluntary exchange of work for wages, investment for interest and product for payment allows free people “to do well by doing good,” as Benjamin Franklin said.

Canada’s current public-private debt ratio of 387% of GDP is the highest on record, twice the historic average, higher than the U.S. during the subprime debt crisis, higher than Greece during its sovereign debt crisis and higher than every G7 country but Japan. Only low interest rates have allowed Canada to forestall a major debt crisis. Unless the debt ratio drops before rates rise to normal levels, said crisis is inevitable.

Just as families cannot forever pay their bills on credit cards, nor can the federal government perpetually pay its bills on the national credit card. The solution is to replace the credit card economy with a paycheque economy.

Only paycheques will reduce our debts, put food on the table, roof over head and tax-dollars into schools, hospitals, and roads. Only paycheques secure our future against a debt crisis and rescue our people from poverty and bankruptcy.  

Where do paycheques come from? From unleashing free enterprise so entrepreneurs can build more, business can hire more, and workers can earn more.  Borrowing money out of the economy to subsidize politically-powerful corporations, interest groups and bureaucracies will only add to the national credit card. Rather, we need real industries paying real wages by making real things for real customers in the real world.

Living Within Our Means:

1. Introduce no new permanent spending programs.
2. Implement a plan to balance the budget in ten years.
3. Limit government spending increases to below inflation and population growth.
4. Restore the independence of the Bank of Canada to ensure it focuses solely on its mandate of targeting inflation to 2 per cent a year.
5. Eliminate targeted corporate welfare programs. Examples include: $50 million to Mastercard, $40 million to Blackberry, and $12 million to Loblaw’s, etc.

Paycheques:

6. Introduce a New Hire Incentive to promote hiring: provide a reduced EI premium for all SMEs for any increase of $50,000 in insurable earnings over the previous tax year.

Federalism:

7. Remove the $170 per capita cap on fiscal stabilization payments to the Provinces and Territories.
8. Prohibit any changes to the Equalization formula without consultations with the Provinces and Territories, ensure all Equalization calculations are made public, and guarantee that a successful referendum on Equalization cannot be ignored.

Opportunity and Autonomy for First Nations:

9. Amend the First Nations Fiscal Management Act to allow indigenous peoples to independently create a First Nations Infrastructure Institute (FNII).
10. Allow First Nations communities to monetize major transfers to fund infrastructure projects.
11. Amend the First Nations Fiscal Management Act to give communities the option to fund more of their budgets through collection and control of their own taxes on fuel, alcohol, cannabis, tobacco and other own-source revenues.
12. Make the First Nations Fiscal Management Act available to all indigenous governments and their organizations that want it, including treaty and self-government arrangements.
13. Support the development of a new fiscal relationship using the First Nations Fiscal Management Act as a model for interested First Nations.
14. Support the development of a national indigenous-run land title registry to improve access to capital.
15. Expand indigenous fiscal powers to include sales, resources, tobacco, cannabis, excise and income, or taksis.

Infrastructure:

16. Accelerate broadband buildout.
17. Accelerate project permit application processing for infrastructure.
18. Ensure the financial viability of NAV Canada.
19. Withdraw from the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank

Public Health and the Pandemic:

20. Rejuvenate the National Emergency Strategic Stockpile and collaborate with provincial, territorial and regional authorities on asset management.
21. Make home care and palliative care more available across the country.
22. Work with provinces on palliative care.
23. Focus social spending programs on low-income Canadians who need help.
24. Allow provinces to use their shares of federal infrastructure money for long-term care.
25. Ensure that the PMPRB changes do not create barriers for new medicines for Canadians.

Resources and Industry:

26. Repeal Bill C-69 and Bill C-48 to allow more and bigger paycheques for energy, trades and transportation workers.
27. Repeal the Carbon Tax.
28. Cancel the planned Clean Fuel Standard.
29. Improve the circulation of Canadian energy products both domestically and internationally through the creation of an energy corridor that would provide a unique and fast-tracked regulatory regime for energy infrastructure, such as transmission lines, pipelines, renewable energy, and future green and blue hydrogen projects.
30. Examine the use of fiscal tools, such as a flow-through share instrument similar to the Canadian Exploration Expense, to incentivize and facilitate capital investment for decommissioning inactive wells.
31. Provide the same accelerated capital cost allowance regime to the energy sector that the government has provided to the manufacturing sector.
32. Streamline the process for approving new construction permits in the aluminum industry.
33. Prioritize exports of clean-burning Canadian natural gas and natural gas technology to coal-intensive countries to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions.

Small Businesses:

34. Reverse the 2021 increase on Canada Pension Plan contribution rates.
35. Start counting the person hours and cost of all federal rules and paper burden. Then reduce said hours and costs every year.
36. To help small businesses survive the Covid-19 pandemic, preserve jobs and limit the number of bankruptcies, allow small businesses access to the 30 day protection from creditors afforded to companies with debts over $5 million under the Companies Creditors Arrangements Act, making it easier for them to restructure in case of insolvency.
37. Repeal punitive tax penalties on passive income, so that small businesses can set aside funds for a rainy day without excessive tax burden.

Taxes and Regulations:

38. Create no new taxes.
39. Exempt spouses from the Tax on Split Income rules.
40. Ensure independent advisors (contractors) qualify for wage support.
41. Repeal the automatic escalator on excise duty rates applied to beer, wine and spirits.
42. Undertake comprehensive regulatory and tax reform to spur productive investment.
43. Require regulators by law to consider economic impacts when imposing regulations.
44. Encourage Statistics Canada to capture and publish internationally-comparative data on the time and cost of administrative burden created by government regulation.
45. Implement a 2-for-1 rule that would require regulators to repeal two regulatory requirements for every new one they introduce over the next five-years.
46. Establish a capital gains exemption on the proceeds of an arm’s length sale of private shares or real estate. This exemption would apply to any portion of the proceeds that are donated to a registered charity within a predetermined timeframe of the completion of the sale.
47. Amend the Income Tax Act to clearly define that income earned by private campgrounds who employ less than five full-time employees year-round be considered as “active business income” for the purpose of determining their eligibility for the small business deduction.
48. Review the rules defining passive and active business income, including the five-employee rule for small businesses.
49. Consult with stakeholders and consider compliance costs before changing product labelling requirements.
50. Exempt credit card interchange fees from GST at point of sale.
51. Adopt the Opportunity for People with Disabilities Act from the previous parliament, to ensure people are always better off from working.
52. Eligibility for the disability tax credit (DTC) and a registered disability savings plan (RDSP) be uncoupled so that individuals who are denied the DTC do not have their RDSP government co-contributions clawed back.
53. Reform tax and benefit programs to allow low income workers to keep more of their wages to be the primary beneficiaries.
54. Create a legally enforceable duty of care from CRA to taxpayers.
55. Replace Excise Duty Exemption on wine made of 100% Canadian-grown grapes with program that encourages purchase of locally grown grapes.
56. Implement an annual cost recovery fee on the tobacco industry to recover the cost of the federal government’s tobacco control strategy.
57. Allow 10 million litres of craft beer, that spoiled during pandemic, to qualify for a refund on excise duty or credit against future excise duty owing.