From: Financial Post
Last week, before any Canadian was debating dubious prime ministerial dress-ups, Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer came out with a pledge to eliminate $1.5 billion in federal corporate welfare spending.
It’s only scratching the surface: by some estimates total annual federal subsidies to business are in the range of $14 billion. But it’s also nothing to sneeze at: $1.5 billion represents the tax bills of 100,000 average-income Canadian households.
But even as a tentative first step, Scheer’s proposal represents a clear break from the comfortable status quo consensus about corporate welfare in Canada. For starters, it’s hard to think of a major party leader openly using the term “corporate welfare” in recent years .