Canadian businessman and Shark Tank star Kevin O’Leary is the latest to come out against the Liberals’ capital gains tax hike.
O’Leary said in an interview with BNN Bloomberg on Tuesday, that the solution is to ditch the country’s current leaders and start from scratch.
“I mean no disrespect, but I wouldn’t let them run a bodega. They don’t know what they’re doing,” he said.
O’Leary specifically called out Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland.
He blamed Trudeau for poor policy management, especially in handling natural resources and encouraging sovereign wealth to invest elsewhere.
“I can’t help but blame Justin Trudeau for that for the last decade. He’s a weak manager. In my opinion, he’s a very successful politician but a very, very weak manager,” said O’Leary. “We’ve made the policy so poor in terms of attracting capital for these massive projects that they just don’t come anymore.”
O’Leary criticized Canada for squandering its natural resources while investing in them abroad.
“It’s just shameful. It’s a real problem. I’m hoping there will be a change in policy in this country because I would love to invest more in it. I just find it impossible to do so,” said O’Leary.
The self-styled “Mr. Wonderful” called the capital gains tax hike a mistake for global competition.
“When you mess around with corporate tax rates, corporations are not people. They can move. Structures can move. And they will. And they’ll contort themselves if all of a sudden, they find a path of least resistance somewhere else,” said O’Leary.
O’Leary explained that a country should aim to be in the middle of G20 corporate tax rates, but Canada is moving toward the fourth quartile of competitiveness.
“I want to respect Freeland because she is the finance minister. But I don’t know why she’s the finance minister. She has no experience at this. She’s never even run a bank. I don’t know why she’s there, and she’s totally unqualified. Here she is making policy mistakes left and right, and here’s a bad one,” said O’Leary.
Freeland previously said that the tax hike would not affect Canada’s tax competitiveness in the global market when she called the hike a “fair” way to fund the Liberals’ spending.
The hike came into effect on Tuesday and forces Canadians making more than $250,000 in capital gains in a year to pay two-thirds in taxes instead of half.
The tax change will provide the Liberals $20 billion in revenue to help offset the $111.2 billion in spending announced in the last budget, despite no plans to balance it.
O’Leary explained that the capital gains tax hike will cause economic damage lasting decades.
“Bad managers do a lot of damage. And she is a very bad, underqualified manager. Why can’t I have a real finance minister? Why can’t I have somebody who was actually involved in financial services in this country? Why do I have that? She works for me. I’m a taxpayer,” said O’Leary.
The Canadian businessman’s opposition to the capital gains tax hike joins the chorus of small and large businesses, healthcare and tech leaders, farmers, policy experts, and everyday Canadians.
“Canada, if you look at resources per capita, is one of the richest countries on earth run by complete idiots,” said O’Leary, echoing similar comments made in March.
