Liberal leader Justin Trudeau and his brain trust just can’t get their math straight

Today in the House of Commons, Justin Trudeau is pushing a confused and misdirected corporate tax credit. Since proposing this measure last week, Liberals have now tried to use five different numbers to explain it.

• First, the Liberal Leader told the Canadian Press he had a plan that would create 176,000 jobs by giving companies an EI holiday on all new hires. He said it would cost $225 million. It would actually cost more than five times that amount using Statistics Canada data.
• Later, Liberals added a new qualifier, amending their proposal to say it would “help to create” – a clear admission that their business tax break might not actually create new jobs.
• Then Ralph Goodale followed with a new explanation, saying their plan would go to “net new jobs” – but using net new jobs still means their previous costing didn’t balance.
• Now, Justin Trudeau and his very malleable brain trust are tweeting out a new claim, that every business will get $1300 and it will help to create 175,000 jobs.
• Of course the maximum employer contribution to EI is actually less than $1,300, which begs the question of whether Liberals are promising to send out cheques now to make up the difference?

Bad math and spending money that isn’t theirs on poorly thought out tax giveaways. That’s Justin Trudeau’s record.