It would be pretty rare for people to say that committee hearings have the same interest as a mystery novel. In order not to disappoint expectations, I just want to be quite clear about what I think about the luxury tax in general, what I think about some of the specific provisions and what I see as being the remedy, and consequently how I intend to vote on these packages of amendments, Mr. Chair.
When it comes to the luxury tax, this is something that New Democrats have supported for a long time. We see this as being part of a project to restore tax fairness to Canada in a context in which the wealthiest Canadians have been paying less and less of the tax burden in Canada at the expense of largely working Canadians in the middle class. That's why we've advocated for a luxury tax for a long time. It's why we're supportive of getting it implemented. It's why we don't want to see that process slowed down.
I will also say, though, that there are a number of different ways to implement a luxury tax. Initially, when this idea was being kicked around, there was a fair amount of concern expressed in the boating industry. While I understand not everybody in that industry is happy with the proposed tax, the threshold for boats was changed from $100,000 to $250,000 in recognition of some of the initial problems in the boating industry and in an attempt to correct some of the biggest challenges that arose out of the initial proposals for a luxury tax.
In the aerospace industry, we've heard there continues to be a fair bit of concern, and the concern is not necessarily about the principle of the tax. Although there may well be those in the industry who object to the tax on principle, we've also heard that the way the government has chosen to structure this tax could present certain problems. That's something that New Democrats are quite sensitive to, particularly when we're talking about an impact on Canada's ability to compete as a place to do aerospace manufacturing and to attract the kind of high-quality, high-paying jobs that come with aerospace manufacturing.
I'm reticent to try to rewrite the provisions of the luxury tax bill at this committee table under the time constraints that we have in the context of the BIA. I note that one of our colleagues on the committee, Mr. Chambers, has a proposal to get some more information about the potential impact of the luxury tax, and what it might look like, which I think is a very sensible proposal and one that I'll be happy to support when the times comes.
My own proposal for how to deal with this, and we'll come to it eventually in the amendment that I'm proposing, is to give the government flexibility on the “coming into force” provision, specifically for the aerospace component, so that as this committee—as I hope it will—carries out the instructions that Mr. Chambers proposes in his motion and we get more information about the potential impact of this way of going about a luxury tax in the aerospace industry, the government will have time to respond by delaying the implementation of this tax, if it feels that's suitable. It may well be able to respond in the fall in other legislation it may bring forward, either stand-alone legislation or legislation following up on the fall economic statement, for example.
I think there's still runway, if you'll forgive the pun, to address the problems with the aerospace provisions of the luxury tax. I think the best way to do that is to give a little more runway by giving some flexibility on the implementation date. That spares us the trouble of having to try to rewrite this tax at this table right now and get all of that right. It's why I intend to vote no to all the amendments on the luxury tax, except the one I'm proposing, which is that we build in some flexibility, with a different coming-into-force date.
I wanted to open up the conversation with those remarks, and I thank you for that opportunity, Mr. Chair.