The ball drops, 2024 arrives – and with it, the crushing weight of Justin Trudeau’s broken promises. As Canadians ring in the new year, fresh tax hikes sting like a hangover.
Trudeau once pledged relief for average citizens. Now his legacy inflicts pain. This Prime Minister has presided over a massive deception, abandoning the middle class to financial devastation.
Liberal policies have left the working masses struggling just to stay afloat against inflated costs of living. Their dreams of stability lie shattered under Trudeau’s tax jackhammer.
With each new government failure, families fall deeper into an abyss of rising taxes, swelling household costs, and misguided policies benefiting the elite. The new year brings a new wave of economic misery courtesy of the Liberals.
Canadians have run out of tomorrows and empty promises – the only hope is to eject the false prophets now bleeding them dry. Trudeau’s 2024 is a ticking time bomb set to obliterate what remains of the middle class dream.
In 2015, Justin Trudeau campaigned on a promise to help the middle class, vowing to make the rich pay more so average Canadians could get some tax relief. Fast forward to 2024, and it seems Trudeau has broken that pledge.
Under his government, taxes and the cost of living have risen substantially for the middle class, who are finding it increasingly unbearable financially.
Trudeau claimed he would champion the middle class, but that theory never really panned out. Despite stereotypes, there simply aren’t enough wealthy Canadians to fund widespread tax breaks for the middle and lower classes.
In reality, middle income families saw their taxes go up an average of $840 per year by the Liberals’ third year in power in 2018. And that was before the imposition of the federal carbon tax.
If any Canadians still believed Trudeau’s promises on taxes, 2024 will surely shatter those illusions.
According to estimates from Franco Terrazzano, the federal director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, the combination of higher payroll taxes, carbon taxes, and taxes on alcohol could add between $700 to $1300 to the average family’s tax bill this year.
This staggering tax burden doesn’t even factor in the impacts of skyrocketing inflation under the Liberals’ watch. Nor does it include the future costs of their policies like net-zero electricity or electric vehicle mandates that will saddle Canadians with trillions in additional expenses over the next 25 years.
Far from protecting the middle class, the Trudeau Liberals are steadily choking the life out of it through overt taxation and hidden inflation. In 2024, Canadians will face even higher mandatory contributions for programs like the Canada Pension Plan and Employment Insurance.
For a worker earning approximately $73,000 annually, these deductions will now surpass $5,100, regardless of whether they use EI or not. Employers too will have to pay over $5500 per employee in payroll taxes, which harms small businesses along with the middle class.
These extra payroll costs come at the worst possible time, as small businesses also grapple with looming deadlines to repay pandemic relief loans.
The financial pressures bearing down on small businesses are compounding heading into 2024. Many took out Canada Emergency Business Account or the CEBA loans from the government to survive pandemic shutdowns. Now the deadline looms to pay back these loans or see interest charges accrue.
Rod Castro, owner of two Ottawa restaurants, says he hasn’t paid himself in months while figuring out how to handle his CEBA debt. The original loan terms offered forgiveness of up to $20,000 if at least $40,000 was repaid by January 18. After that date, outstanding balances start accruing 5% interest, creating an urgency for businesses to refinance or repay the loans.
But refinancing often means taking on a new loan at a higher interest rate, which Castro is reluctant to do. Other small business owners like Nathan Hynes face the same dilemma – pay off the CEBA loan by depleting reserves or take on more expensive debt.
Many businesses haven’t fully rebounded from the pandemic, so added financing costs could push them over the edge. Kara Deringer, owner of an Edmonton restaurant, doesn’t think she can refinance and may default. She’s taking side jobs just to chip away at debts amid rising personal costs.
Despite desperate pleas from small business advocates, the Trudeau government stubbornly refuses to extend the deadline for Canada Emergency Business Account or the CEBA loan forgiveness. They reject calls to push the cutoff past January, showing callous disregard for entrepreneurs still facing pandemic financial wounds.
An extra year could save thousands of vulnerable businesses from default or bankruptcy. But the Liberals refuse this lifeline, content to let more small companies fail after two years of COVID battering.
Who knows how many businesses could permanently close if forced to take on added debt to repay the loans.
Trudeau seems indifferent to their pleas, willing to sacrifice more dream-chasing entrepreneurs at the altar of debt reduction. For small business owners, the middle class fantasy shrivels under mounting strains and government disregard.
The carbon tax is also set to rise again this year from 14 cents per liter on gasoline to 17.5 cents. The same will apply to propane and natural gas, further driving up household energy bills by an estimated $400 to $900 even after the Liberals’ rebates. And federal alcohol taxes are increasing by 4.7% in April, so enjoy less of your after tax income.
Adding insult to injury, the inflation the Liberals fueled has consumed nearly $4000 from the average Canadian’s income over the past two years. As the costs of food, gas, housing, utilities and everything else rose rapidly, real wages failed to keep up despite rising nominal incomes.
Inflation was largely a consequence of Liberal overspending, which added hundreds of billions to the national debt and forced interest rates higher to curb borrowing costs. Those higher interest rates translate into larger mortgage, rent and loan payments for the middle class.
Even housing has become prohibitively expensive, with home prices rising faster than incomes. While supply constraints are partly to blame, the Liberals pouring a million new immigrants per year into the country while only 300,000 new homes are built each year is a recipe for unaffordability.
Through runaway spending, excessive taxation, inflation, and housing policies, the Trudeau Liberals have quietly siphoned thousands in disposable income away from average Canadians. And their costly environmental plans will only compound the pain on household budgets.
After 8 years of Liberal government, the middle class dream is evaporating. Trudeau’s broken promises on championing the middle class have manifested in the harsh reality of 2024, where unbearable taxes and costs of living are crushing Canadian families financially.
The very group the Prime Minister pledged to help has been buried under the weight of his government’s misguided policies. The “rich” have gotten richer, while the rest of the country struggles to stay afloat.
After close to a decade of Trudeau’s leadership, the middle class lies in ruins, crushed under the weight of uncontrolled Liberal spending and misguided policies. Families now slave away just to afford basic necessities, their dreams of financial stability shattered.
Yet Trudeau continues inflicting damage, from piling on new taxes to fueling rapid inflation. He has abandoned all pretense of helping average Canadians.
Now, Trudeau openly mocks struggling citizens through government-funded media outlets. As food prices surge to record highs under his watch, CBC News ran an article blaming “the loss of cooking skills” rather than Liberal policies.
This ludicrous claim is a blatant attempt to divert public attention from the real culprits behind the economic pain. Trudeau refuses to take any responsibility for the crushing cost of living his decisions directly enabled.
Instead, his propaganda arm crafts laughable stories scapegoating the victims of Liberal mismanagement. The government treats citizens like ignorant children, hoping absurd distractions will prevent public backlash over their own failures.
But Canadians know the truth – their livelihoods are being destroyed by inflated costs stemming from Trudeau’s reckless spending and excessive taxation.
No amount of state-sponsored distractions can disguise the reality of this government’s disastrous impact on the middle class. The Prime Minister’s arrogant mocking of citizens only hardens public resolve to unseat the detached and destructive Liberals.
The only hope for restoring the middle class dream is to vote out those who destroyed it – to send the Liberals packing and start repairing the financial devastation they caused. The road to recovery begins by ending this detached and destructive governance in 2024.
