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Roger Brown has long been a Conservative Party member and donor, but not any more. Not after losing about $100,000 on his investments Wednesday because of Finance Minister Jim Flaherty's decision to tax income trusts.

“It's the biggest loss I've ever experienced,” Mr. Brown said from his home in Nanaimo, B.C., as he watched 10 per cent of his life savings vanish. “The credibility in my mind of the Conservative Party has gone right down the toilet.”

Mr. Brown, 51, ran a small business before selling it a few years ago. Now, because of the income trust situation, “I guess I might be looking for a job now.”

David Marshall, 69, switched from the Liberals to the Tories in the last election, mainly because the Conservatives promised not to tax trusts. Yesterday, he watched helplessly as a sea of red flashed across his computer screen moments after the Toronto Stock Exchange opened. By the end of the day, he had lost $90,000 on his holdings in 16 trusts.

Just after the market closed, Mr. Marshall and his wife fired off an e-mail to the Prime Minister.

“As far as I am concerned you can rot in Hell!!!!” the message said. “And we mean it.”

Thousands of Canadians suffered similarly painful losses on the stock market Wednesday as income trusts were pounded. Although some investors welcomed the other proposals unveiled by Mr. Flaherty, including an increase in the age credit, others expressed fury for the Conservatives' broken promise. For these people, the investment losses were largely on paper and might be made up elsewhere, but the broken pledge really hurt.

“I will never vote for them again,” said William Barrowclough, a retired high-school history teacher in Peterborough, Ont., still tallying his losses yesterday afternoon.

“I shall contribute to the maximum, I'll knock on doors and I will vote for whoever is more likely to get rid of this bunch,” he added. “This is premeditated and vicious. They promised that they would not do this.”

There is no point in selling, said Mr. Marshall, a retired chemical worker who lives in Cornwall, Ont. He said he feels betrayed by Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

“What has really upset myself and my wife is that the government has lied to us.”

Noel Chaney, who lives in Courtenay, B.C., was close to accumulating just enough wealth from his investments to see him through his retirement. But after losing almost $70,000 on his income trust holdings yesterday, Mr. Chaney said he might have to go back to work.

“I'm flabbergasted,” he said adding that he was laid off from Telus Corp. four years ago and hoped to be able to afford early retirement. “I was getting really close and this has just really clobbered me.”

Mr. Chaney, 56, said he had been looking forward to campaigning for the Tories in the next election. “I won't be now, I can tell you that.”

Not everyone was angry at the proposed tax on income trusts. Paul Bourbonniere, a financial planner in Toronto, received only a handful of calls on the issue from clients yesterday. Mr. Bourbonniere said Canada is only doing what Australia and the United States did years ago.

“People are going to have to evaluate the businesses rather than the legal structure,” he said, referring to the rush of companies that converted into income trusts solely for tax reasons. “In retrospect, what you've got is yet another investment, or class of investments, that was predicated on a tax advantage and I guess we in the planning community should know by now that those things don't last forever because there shouldn't be that kind of tax differential.”

He added that many of his clients will come out ahead overall because of the other tax measures announced by Mr. Flaherty, including provisions to allow senior couples to split their pension income.

Stan Buell, president of the Small Investor Protection Association, based in Markham, Ont., said the new rules will be a “tough blow” for investors over the short term, but beneficial over the longer haul.

“There are already tonnes of seniors who have lost money with income trusts that have failed to live up to expectations and couldn't meet distributions,” he said. “Over the long term, a lot of investors will be saved the losses that were occurring with some of the unsuitable business income trusts.”

But that wasn't much comfort for people such as Barry Kington, 76, who depends on regular cash distributions from his income trust investments to support his wife and a grandchild. Mr. Kington said he wasn't too upset about losing $50,000 on his investments yesterday because it was only on paper. It's the future of trusts, which are designed to provide steady streams of cash to investors, that he's worried about.

“We depend on the income from these trusts,” Mr. Kington said from his home in Niagara Falls, Ont.

Graham Moores, 70, a retired accountant in Carbonear, Nfld., said he was counting on the coming conversion of Telus and BCE Inc. into income trusts for his retirement planning. In anticipation of the conversions, supposed to occur next year, Mr. Moores recently invested more than $150,000 in BCE and Telus stock.

Their share prices tumbled yesterday, costing Mr. Moores more than $50,000 on his trust holdings and investment in the telecommunications stocks.

“We've taken a hell of a lickin,'” he said yesterday. “How are we ever going to make it back? We ain't.”

With a report from Jacquie McNish