What we can expect from PM Poilievre

Pierre Poilievre’s economic agenda has taken on greater importance with the demise last week of the NDP’s agreement to prop up the Liberal government. The government could now fall at any time before an election scheduled for October 2025.

- DAVID OLIVE

So, what kind of economic stewardship can be expected of the Conservative party leader?

Poilievre has described it this way: “My common-sense plan to axe the (carbon) tax, build the homes, fix the budget, stop the crime is a bottom-up, free-enterprise agenda, not a top-down state capitalism agenda.”

Behind that semi-ideological rhetoric is a genuine Tory desire to win popular support for major government initiatives to avoid the deep unpopularity to which the current government has sunk.

Here are some of the major changes we can expect.

Tax reform

Poilievre has vowed that within 60 days of taking power, his government would assemble a task force on tax reform.

Poilievre will quickly revoke the unpopular carbon tax. But otherwise he will wait for recommendations from his task force that could amount to comprehensive tax reform.

Poilievre’s task force could earn landmark status with bold recommendations to close loopholes and end obsolete tax breaks. It could simplify a complex system by collapsing some tax brackets.

Tax reform is essential if Poilievre is to keep his promise of balancing the books faster than the Liberals, whose plan doesn’t achieve balance until the end of the decade.

There must be more urgency in restoring balance, Poilievre argues, since annual interest payments on accumulated debt will approach $70 billion by decade’s end. That’s about one-fifth of total health-care spending in 2022.