Domtar

Federal Conservative Party and opposition leader Pierre Poilievre visited Thunder Bay on Tuesday to tour the Domtar sawmill.

The tour coincided with the implementation of new American tariffs on lumber and wood products, which added 10% to the duties imposed on Canadian lumber products, bringing the total cost increase up to 45%.

In an address to Domtar workers, Poilievre suggested sawmills like Domtar’s could serve as a lynchpin for a new Canadian homebuilding effort.

“Right now we have the fewest homes per capita of any country in the G7, even though we have by far the most land to build on,” Poilievre said in remarks to the sawmill workers. “You guys get hit doubly hard because not only do you have high housing prices because of the shortage, but you’re not selling as much lumber as you otherwise could.”

Poilievre argued Canada should be building 500,000 to 700,000 new homes each year, which is more than double what the country currently builds.

The Opposition leader put much of the blame on taxes, saying almost a third of the homebuying cost is made up of taxes and regulatory expenses. He argued much of these taxes could be removed, making the average Ontario home “about $200,000 more affordable.”

Axe the tax

Lower taxes represent a major part of the Conservative leader’s platform, beyond eliminating homebuilding and buying taxes. Poilievre promises to lower income taxes and the industrial carbon tax, which he argues is contributing to inflation.

Asked by reporters what services might be cut to accommodate lower taxes, the conservative leader presented a wide range of possible cuts: “We have to cut the bloated liberal bureaucracy, the consultants, the corporate welfare, the foreign aid… Cutting back on phony, fraudulent refugee claims.”

Poilievre also promises that a conservative government would produce an economic boom that could raise government revenues without requiring higher taxes.

The Conservative leader did not have direct numbers for how much money might be saved by cutting refugee spending, nor specifics for how bureaucratic bloat might be addressed.

He says the refugee asylum backlog has increased 500% in the last two years. “Many of them have been here for years and never told us that they were refugees. And then all of a sudden, when their permit was up as international students or as temporary foreign workers, they told us they were refugees, and that’s just not believable.”

But while it’s true that the number of asylum claimants has ballooned in recent years, the number of approved claims has increased by less than 50% in the same timeframe.

Poilievre claims the government is spending billions of dollars to house and feed “fake refugees,” but it must be noted that only those whose claims of refugee status get approved by the Refugee Protection Division will have any access to the benefits the conservative leader refers to.

The Opposition leader is also promising to impose a three-strikes rule for criminal offenders as an alternative to bail reform, and produce an abstinence-based rehab program for drug users with 50,000 treatment spaces.