LILLEY: Trudeau stubbornly set to punish Canadians with beer tax hike | Maqvi News

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About 50% of all restaurants and bars in Canada are currently losing money.

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And on April 1, the Trudeau Liberals are going to make it even harder to turn things around with another increase in taxes on beer, wine and spirits.

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Not only that, the tax hike is once again promising to be a big one.

The annual “escalator tax” is tied to the rate of inflation and this year is set at an increase of 4.7%.

The idea of automatically increasing the tax on alcohol each year was brought about by Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland in 2017 when inflation was low – for the past few years, though, inflation has been out of control and adding on more taxes won’t help.

The hospitality industry has yet to fully recover from the pandemic and is still dealing with higher prices for wages, food and other supplies, so the last thing they need is another tax hike that will increase costs.

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Beer Canada, the lobby group for brewers across the country, notes that Canada already has the highest beer taxes in the G7 with an average of 46% of the price you pay going to government. Sales of beer are down 6.5% since 2019 and the sale of beer in bars and restaurants is down 20% compared to before the pandemic.

Adding on extra costs hurts the estimated 21,000 people working for breweries across the country and the many thousands more working in bars and restaurants.

Last year, after a sustained pressure campaign, the Trudeau Liberals capped the alcohol tax increase at just 2%. While I think they should stop increasing the tax every year, the least they could do is cap it, but they refuse to, and they refuse to give the struggling hospitality industry any rhyme or reason why.

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Ontario has a similar annual escalator tax on beer that was brought in by the previous Liberal government. On Friday, Premier Doug Ford announced that the government would freeze the tax rate as they have done every year since coming to office in 2018.

That’s what the Trudeau government should be doing, but they are too stubborn.

The Liberals should consider that they are down in the polls to the Conservatives by a whopping 15 points, according to the latest figures from Leger. Even worse, they are down 20 points among men with the Conservatives getting 43% voter support among men compared to just 23% for Trudeau and the Liberals.

If Trudeau and his brain trust were smart, they would have announced that they too are freezing the tax, maybe even make a big show about it ahead of the Super Bowl – an event half the country will be watching on Sunday, according to Maru Public Opinion. In case people in Trudeau’s office don’t get the connection, lots of beer will be consumed, mostly by men, during the game.

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It would be a popular move with voters, and it would help ensure the survival of jobs in the hospitality industry, in breweries big and small, in wineries and distilleries.

Instead of working with the industry and doing the right thing, the Liberals are ignoring the industry. So the industry is fighting back and once again has an advertising campaign featuring Bob and Doug McKenize telling the government to “take off” the tax hike.

Ads are airing on 16 radio stations from St. John’s to Vancouver that lean heavily towards a male audience. Just like this is a tax that consumers and the industry don’t need, this is a fight the government doesn’t need and they should back off from now.

Trudeau likes to say he has our backs, he could show it with this move instead of showing he’s just got a hand in our back pocket as he lifts our wallet.

blilley@postmedia.com

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