BarrieToday welcomes letters to the editor at [email protected]. Please include your daytime phone number and address (for verification of authorship, not publication). The following letter from Wasaga Beach resident Ken Robertson is in response to LETTER: MP says new luxury tax will 'devastate' manufacturing,' published June 9.
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Whenever the business community cries about unproven claims of job loss due to any tax levied, the Conservatives and Barrie-Innisfil MP John Brassard are quick to support them.
The tax levy on $100,000-plus automobiles and $250,000-plus boats proves how out of touch Mr. Brassard is with the ordinary citizen who has to struggle to make ends meet every day. To the best of my knowledge, the five main auto manufactures in Ontario don’t produce any product that is worth $100,000.
I have no sympathy for anyone who can afford a $100,000 car or a $250,000 boat; it is long overdue that the boys who can afford the big toys start sharing the tax burden that us average Canadians have been carrying.
Manufacturers and businesses enjoy the benefits of taxpayer subsidies and tax write-offs that the rest of us don’t enjoy. I can assure you that the owners of $100,000 cars and $250,000 boats are in better shape to pay a bit more tax than I am.
Mr. Brassard has proven once again how out of touch he and his party are with ordinary Canadians who can’t even imagine what it would be like to afford a $100,000 car or a $250,000 boat. By the way, a boat you can only use six months a year.
After reading this letter to the editor, my blood started to boil. Governments, both red and blue, have granted the business community and the wealthy with many loopholes in the past decades to avoid paying their share of taxes.
Mr. Brassard met with the National Marine Manufactures Association to hear their concerns about C-19 and jumped at the chance to lobby on their behalf.
I wonder if Mr. Brassard has ever considered lobbying for the single mom who has to decide between food or rent, or the worker whose wages have been stagnant for years and now with inflation, has little or no disposable income, or how about the family who are priced out of the housing market where home ownership is a pipe dream?
I can assure you, Mr. Brassard, that these hard-working Canadians who are trying to keep their head above water couldn’t care less about some luxury tax that will be put on a $100,000 car or a $250,000 boat.
If Mr. Brassard really cared about the people who have to sit on Highway 400 everyday while watching their gas gauge, wondering how they are going to pay their rent/mortgage, or put healthy food on the table, he would talk to the CEOs of grocery store chains, big oil and the big banks whose gouging is bankrupting individuals and households. This letter shows who Mr. Brassard really cares for.
I have not read Bill C-19, but if it is a start to address the economic inequality in Canada then I am all for it.
Ken Robertson
Wasaga Beach
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