OTTAWA – LETTERS – For 10 years, Stephen Harper has been ignoring the people who do most of the heavy lifting in our economy. Those who work longer and longer hours for an ever shrinking piece of the pie, and less and less financial security.
Middle class Canadians need to have money in their pockets to save, invest and grow the economy – to bring fairness and to strengthen the heart of the Canadian economy.
But Mr. Harper’s unfair system has been giving money to those who need it least. The Liberal Party has a better, fairer plan: we will give a tax cut to the middle class and provide middle class families with more money to raise their kids.
Our plan will make the tax system fairer and cut the middle class tax rate from 22 percent to 20.5 percent. We will ask the wealthiest Canadians – those in the top one percent of incomes – to pay a little more so the middle class can pay less.
This tax relief is worth up to $670 per year, per person, or $1,340 per year for a two-income household.
We will also provide one bigger, fair, tax-free, monthly cheque to help middle class and low-income families with the high costs of raising kids.
A typical two-parent family, with two kids, earning $90,000 per year will get $490 tax-free every month. Under Mr. Harper, the same family only receives around $275 after-tax. Over a year, that’s $2,500 more help, tax-free. We will also provide more help to lower-income families.
All families in the middle class, and those hoping to join it, will receive more in monthly child benefits than under Mr. Harper’s system. That is 9 out of every 10 families.
Liberals will continue to present solutions to grow the economy. Our plan will put more money in the pockets of the middle class and those working hard to join it.
Yours sincerely,
Justin Trudeau
Leader of the Liberal Party of Canada
