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2025 Federal Election

Fool Me Once: The Cost of Carney–Trudeau Tax Games

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10 minute read

Sam Cooper

By providing advance notice, the government effectively lit a starting pistol for investors: sell now or face a higher tax later. And sell they did… The result was a short-term windfall for Ottawa.

Was it just a cynical shell game?

Last year, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced a major capital gains tax hike, only to delay its implementation — a move that triggered a flurry of asset sales before the higher tax could take effect. That maneuver temporarily swelled federal coffers and made the 2024–25 fiscal outlook appear stronger, although Trudeau is no longer around to capture the political benefits.

As it turns out, his successor, Mark Carney, has been able to swoop in and campaign in Canada’s snap election on the back of reversing the very same tax hike. This sequence — proposal, delay, revenue spike, and cancellation — raises serious questions about the Liberal Party’s credibility on tax fairness and economic stewardship. And it adds a thick layer of irony that Mr. Carney, in his previous role at investment giant Brookfield, reportedly helped position tens of billions in green investment funds through offshore tax havens like Bermuda — a practice that appears starkly at odds with the Liberal campaign’s rhetoric on corporate taxation and fairness.

In April 2024, the Trudeau government unveiled plans to raise the capital gains inclusion rate — the portion of profit from asset sales that is taxable — from 50% to 66.7% for individuals and businesses earning over $250,000 in gains annually. The change, part of the spring budget, was set to take effect on June 25, 2024. By providing advance notice, the government effectively lit a starting pistol for investors: sell now or face a higher tax later.

And sell they did.

In the weeks leading up to the June deadline, Canadians rushed to lock in gains under the lower rate. Some sold off stocks, others divested investment properties — even treasured family cottages — to beat the looming hike. The result was a short-term windfall for Ottawa. Capital gains that might otherwise have been realized gradually over years were instead pushed into a single quarter.

In fact, the prospect alone of the June 25 change was projected to generate C$10.3 billion in additional revenue over two fiscal years — an eye-popping sum from a tax policy that, in the end, was never enacted. This fire-sale effect temporarily inflated federal revenues and painted a rosier picture of the Liberals’ fiscal management than reality would suggest.

Critics say this was no accident.

“It was used to plug a fiscal hole, not because there was some grand strategy on tax policy,” said Sahir Khan, of the University of Ottawa’s Institute of Fiscal Studies and Democracy, pointing to the $20 billion budget overshoot from the previous year.

It was a play that appears unprecedented, potentially financially reckless—and, in the context of Canada’s high-stakes snap election—perhaps politically manipulative. On the face of it, this gambit provided short-term budgetary relief—a sugar high for Ottawa’s ledgers—while any pain would be borne by Canadians cashing out investments early or by future governments left with a revenue hole once the rush subsided.

To better understand the economic impact, I reached out to Victoria-based fund manager Kevin Burkett, whose firm Burkett Asset Management manages $500 million and advises Canadian clients.

Most major tax changes announced in a federal budget take effect immediately to prevent taxpayers from planning around them,” Burkett told me. “However, this budget introduced a nine-week delay, widely seen as an opportunity to sell assets before higher tax rates applied. In reviewing both the benefits and risks with our clients, those who chose to sell early are understandably frustrated by recent announcements as they’ve now prepaid taxes unnecessarily.”

I asked Burkett whether these circumstances—the abrupt reversal of tax policy and the politics surrounding it—might linger in ways we can’t yet foresee. Has some deeper confidence been shaken?

He measured his words carefully.

“Emphasis on enforcement in tax compliance overlooks the critical role of perceived fairness in maintaining trust in the system,” the British Columbia-based financial manager told me. “In recent years, last-minute policy changes, seemingly political, risk undermining this fairness and eroding confidence in the integrity of tax policy.”

Good-Faith Voters Left Holding the Bag

What about those Canadians who heeded the government’s signals? Consider the family that sold a cherished vacation property, or the entrepreneur who offloaded company shares pre-emptively to avoid a looming tax hike. Now, they find that the increase was never actually enforced. Incoming Liberal leader (and Prime Minister before the campaign writ was dropped) Mark Carney confirmed in early 2025 that the capital gains changes would not move forward at all.

Meanwhile, Ottawa has already happily counted the extra tax revenue generated from their asset sell-offs. It’s hard to escape the conclusion that these Canadians were sacrificial pawns in a larger power play. On March 21, 2025, Carney’s office formally announced the cancellation of the proposed increase to the capital gains inclusion rate, framing the reversal as a pro-investment, pro-entrepreneurship decision: “Cancelling the hike in capital gains tax will catalyze investment … and incentivize builders, innovators, and entrepreneurs,” he said.

The political subtext was clear: the new leader was distancing himself from an unpopular Trudeau-era policy, aiming to boost Liberal fortunes ahead of an election. And boost he did—polling immediately ticked upward for the Liberals once the tax hike was shelved. Carney got to play the hero, scrapping a “widely criticized” proposal and casting himself as a champion of the business class.

Yet, conveniently, he also inherited the short-term fiscal boost Trudeau’s gambit had generated. In effect, Trudeau’s delayed tax hike handed Carney a double win: healthier-looking federal revenues in the near term, and the credit for killing the tax before it ever touched taxpayers. If that sounds orchestrated, it’s because the sequence of events feels almost too politically perfect.

Add this to the layers of irony.

Carney’s rise to the Liberal leadership was accompanied by lofty rhetoric about restoring trust and fairness—including tax fairness. It’s a bit rich, though, considering Carney’s own track record in the private sector on that very issue.

Before entering politics, Carney served as a vice-chair at Brookfield Asset Management, a global investment giant, where he co-led the firm’s expansion into green energy. Notably, as CBC reported this week, Carney personally co-chaired two massive “Global Transition” funds at Brookfield—one launched in 2021 and another in 2024—aimed at financing the shift to a net-zero economy. These projects became marquee pillars of “Brand Carney,” amassing roughly $25 billion from global investors and touted as a major effort to mobilize capital for the climate cause.

The financial structure of these funds tells a less high-minded story. According to documents obtained by Radio-Canada, both Brookfield Global Transition Fund I ($15B) and Fund II ($10B) were registered in Bermuda—a jurisdiction long synonymous with offshore tax advantages. In plainer terms, Mark Carney helped set up green investment vehicles that avoided the very tax burdens average Canadians shoulder.

The same kind of burdening and unburdening that defined Trudeau’s capital gains rug-pull now shadows Carney’s buoyant election campaign, which has gained momentum by adopting policy positions first championed by Pierre Poilievre. Poilievre vowed to undo Trudeau’s unpopular left-wing policies—the very ones Carney now pledges to reverse, despite their origins in his own party.

Canadians would be wise to remember the tax reversal. Fool me once, as the saying goes.

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2025 Federal Election

Mark Carney Wants You to Forget He Clearly Opposes the Development and Export of Canada’s Natural Resources

Published on

From Energy Now

At COP26, Mark Carney also said that he thinks “we have both far far too many fossil fuels in the world” and “as much as half of oil reserves, proven oil reserves need to stay in the ground” climate goals.

Mark Carney claims that he supports Canada’s oil and gas industry and wants to see Canada export more of our natural resources. But Carney is yet again lying.

If Carney was sincere, he would immediately commit to the full repeal of the Liberals’ C-69, the ‘No More Pipelines’ Act, C-48, the West Coast Tanker Ban, and the production cap. Instead he doubled down on capping Canadian energy production.

But it’s not just that, Mark Carney has a clear history of opposing Canadian energy and infrastructure projects in favour of his radical anti-energy ideology and his goal of shutting down Canadian energy production.

However, while deliberately fighting against Canadian energy, this high flying hypocrite was having his company, Brookfield Asset Management, invest in some of the largest global pipeline projects in Brazil and the United Arab Emirates.

When asked by Conservative Party Leader Pierre Poilievre at an Industry Committee meeting, if he supported Justin Trudeau’s decision to veto the Northern Gateway pipeline, Mark Carney said “given both environmental and commercial reasons … I think it’s the right decision.”

Then, just six months later at COP26, Mark Carney also said that he thinks “we have both far far too many fossil fuels in the world” and “as much as half of oil reserves, proven oil reserves need to stay in the ground” climate goals.

If this wasn’t enough Mark Carney has now teamed up with Trudeau’s radical anti-energy ministers to finish off Canada’s energy sector, a goal that he has outlined while attending a World Economic Forum event in Davos.

Starting with the radical, self-proclaimed socialist, Steven Guilbeault, who’s history of anti-energy and infrastructure policies is all too familiar to Canadians.

Mark Carney has enabled Steven Guilbeault to do even more damage by promoting him to his Quebec Lieutenant, giving him three new ministerial responsibilities so he can continue his climate crusade against Canadian energy and infrastructure projects.

Canadians remember when Guilbeault said that “I disagree with the [Trans Mountain] pipeline” and that “Canada shouldn’t be investing in new infrastructure for fossil fuels.”

They also remember when he proudly proclaimed that “Our government has made the decision to stop investing in new road infrastructure.” All from a minister who shamed Canadians for owning cars.

Then there is the pipeline hating Jonathan Wilkinson, who Carney appointed as Canada’s Minister of Energy and Natural Resources. Recently, Wilkinson wrote a scathing letter to Canada’s energy leaders for their opposition to the Carney-Trudeau Liberals production cap on Canadian oil and gas.

Despite Canadian industries being subject to unjustified tariffs from the United States, Jonathan Wilkinson recently told reporters that “Everybody’s sort of running around saying, ‘Oh my God, we need a new pipeline, we need a new pipeline.’ The question is, well, why do we need a new pipeline?”

Finally, there is Carney’s new Minister of Environment and Climate Change Terry Duguid.  Duguid has doubled down on Mark Carney’s climate radicalism by stating that “a Mark Carney government will maintain the cap on emissions from the production of oil and gas”.

From 2015 to 2021 Carney-Trudeau environmental and anti-industry policies have cancelled over $176 billion in Canadian energy projects, with many more being cancelled afterwards. That means $176 billion worth of jobs and powerful paycheques have been blocked from Canadians so Mark Carney and his Ministers can impose their radical net zero ideology.

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2025 Federal Election

Canada’s pipeline builders ready to get to work

Published on

From the Canadian Energy Centre

By Deborah Jaremko

“We’re focusing on the opportunity that Canada has, perhaps even the obligation”

It was not a call he wanted to make.

In October 2017, Kevin O’Donnell, then chief financial officer of Nisku, Alta.-based Banister Pipelines, got final word that the $16-billion Energy East pipeline was cancelled.

It was his job to pass the news down the line to reach workers who were already in the field.

“We had a crew that was working along the current TC Energy line that was ready for conversion up in Thunder Bay,” said O’Donnell, who is now executive director of the Mississauga, Ont.-based Pipe Line Contractors Association of Canada (PLCAC).

“I took the call, and they said abandon right now. Button up and abandon right now.

“It was truly surreal. It’s tough to tell your foreman, who then tells their lead hands and then you inform the unions that those three or four or five million man-hours that you expected are not going to come to fruition,” he said.

Workers guide a piece of pipe along the Trans Mountain expansion route. Photograph courtesy Trans Mountain Corporation

“They’ve got to find lesser-paying jobs where they’re not honing their craft in the pipeline sector. You’re not making the money; you’re not getting the health and dental coverage that you were getting before.”

O’Donnell estimates that PLCAC represents about 500,000 workers across Canada through the unions it works with.

With the recent completion of the Trans Mountain expansion and Coastal GasLink pipelines – and no big projects like them coming on the books – many are once again out of a job, he said.

It’s frustrating given that this could be what he called a “golden age” for building major energy infrastructure in Canada.

Together, more than 62,000 people were hired to build the Trans Mountain expansion and Coastal GasLink projects, according to company reports.

O’Donnell is particularly interested in a project like Energy East, which would link oil produced in Alberta to consumers in Eastern and Atlantic Canada, then international markets in the offshore beyond.

“I think Energy East or something similar has to happen for millions of reasons,” he said.

“The world’s demanding it. We’ve got the craft [workers], we’ve got the iron ore and we’ve got the steel. We’re talking about a nation where the workers in every province could benefit. They’re ready to build it.”

The “Golden Weld” marked mechanical completion of construction of the Trans Mountain Expansion Project on April 11, 2024. Photo courtesy Trans Mountain Corporation

That eagerness is shared by the Progressive Contractors Association of Canada (PCA), which represents about 170 construction and maintenance employers across the country.

The PCA’s newly launched “Let’s Get Building” advocacy campaign urges all parties in the Canadian federal election run to focus on getting major projects built.

“We’re focusing on the opportunity that Canada has, perhaps even the obligation,” said PCA chief executive Paul de Jong.

“Most of the companies are quite busy irrespective of the pipeline issue right now. But looking at the long term, there’s predictability and long-term strategy that they see missing.”

Top of mind is Ottawa’s Impact Assessment Act (IAA), he said, the federal law that assesses major national projects like pipelines and highways.

In 2023, the Supreme Court of Canada found that the IAA broke the rules of the Canadian constitution.

Construction of the Coastal GasLink pipeline. Photograph courtesy Coastal GasLink

The court found unconstitutional components including federal overreach into the decision of whether a project requires an impact assessment and whether a project gets final approval to proceed.

Ottawa amended the act in the spring of 2024, but Alberta’s government found the changes didn’t fix the issues and in November launched a new legal challenge against it.

“We’d like to see the next federal administration substantially revisit the Impact Assessment Act,” de Jong said.

“The sooner these nation-building projects get underway, the sooner Canadians reap the rewards through new trading partnerships, good jobs and a more stable economy.”

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