Roundup: Trudeau makes a move

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After months of anticipation, the Liberals unveiled the first real plank of their policy book yesterday, being their tax plan as it relates to middle class families. By restructuring the current universal childcare benefit, eliminating income splitting, and introducing a new tax bracket on those earning over $200,000 per year, Trudeau has proposed a income tax cut for the “middle class,” along with childcare benefits that will be more means tested than the current system, all under the banner of “fairness.” Immediately the government was apoplectic, and Pierre Poilievre, incredulously, tried to spin it as the Trudeau Tax™ and that somehow eliminating the doubling of TFSAs was a “tax hike” on those earning more than $60,000 per year (never mind that that income was already taxed, and that bracket got the income tax cut). The NDP insisted that the plan wouldn’t give a tax cut to “two-thirds” of Canadians, but when challenged on how they would cut those taxes, they instead pivoted to “childcare!” Emmett Macfarlane is glad there are now concrete proposals to debate, while John Geddes has three questions about the proposal. Kevin Milligan and Lindsay Tedds give more of the economic details and analysis.

Good reads:

  • In the Duffy trial, it was the voir dire on accepting that 2010 Senate audit from Ernst & Young.
  • Apparently between five and 10 senators could be in trouble thanks to the Auditor General’s forthcoming report.
  • Senator Housakos was named the new Speaker, but I’m dubious as he’s still quite junior and really not very independent-minded – indeed, he’s very close to the PMO.
  • The government is arguing that releasing Omar Khadr would cause “irreparable harm,” and that bail is not a Charter right. They do know he’d be out in what, a few more months, right?
  • The Auditor General is warning that this office can’t afford any more budget cuts.

Odds and ends:

PEI re-elected a Liberal majority, and an openly gay premier.

Glen McGregor gets to the bottom of the Harper birth date conspiracy theory.

And the Dominion Carillonneur played the Star Wars theme with the Peace Tower bells yesterday to mark Star Wars Day.

https://twitter.com/g026r/status/595335822171369474

https://twitter.com/mikepmoffatt/status/595333669830668288