Liberal Party Leader Justin Trudeau said on Oct. 9 that if re-elected prime minister, his government would lower taxes for the “middle-class” to save an average family almost $600 annually.
Unfortunately M. Trudeau does not know the definition of “middle class” and uses it as a simile for ordinary people.
The true definition of middle class describes the segment of the population that is financially comfortable in a range below the wealthy and above the “have-nots”. If M. Trudeau measures a person’s worth by their possessions he is sadly mistaken. The actual “middle-class” does not need to save almost $600 annually. It is the people living at or below the poverty line who need his tax breaks, not the “middle-class”. The middle class is elitist. If we are to judge a person by their possessions, then we could say that a person who owns a home, an automobile, and a well-furnished home is “middle-class”. The reality is that these people have credit debt which includes a lengthy mortgage, a car loan for 24 to 60 months, and furniture that may have been bought at one of the big box stores with no money down and no interest for one year.
This segment of the population that M. Trudeau refers to as “middle-class”, I will refer to as “ordinary people”. These people live basically from paycheque to paycheque and pay their bills on time. Consumer laws make it compulsory now for the banks and credit card companies to divulge the amount of interest on every statement, and it is not unusual for a statement to say that making a minimum payment on the amount owing could take 15 years to pay the balance. These are issues that do not affect the “middle-class” M. Trudeau. Instead of lowering taxes to save an average family $600 annually, let’s look for a way to guarantee no child will go to bed hungry, and provide shelter for the homeless. The middle-class will look after themselves.
