It's Not Your Money; It's Theirs

Canadians are happy to part with what they've earned and not care where it ends up or with whom.

To wit:

The profligate Trudeau government is proposing a tax reform to ensure fair tax contributions from all, but in reality it’s nothing more than a stealth tax hike designed to fill government coffers at the expense of Canadian charities. The tax grab is coming by way of proposed changes to the alternative minimum tax (AMT), and the country’s donors and charity fundraisers are upset.

 

Giving to charity is for suckers, right, Liberals?

Except for Justin's dad's foundation:

 

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The Liberals’ cabinet retreat in August, focusing on the rising cost of living for Canadians, ran up a six-figure tab from just one government department, while any expenses from other departments have yet to be disclosed.

The Privy Council Office (PCO) confirmed it spent $160,467.17 on lodging and transportation at the P.E.I. summer retreat. The costs were disclosed in a response to an order paper question by Conservative MP Tracy Gray.

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The total cost of the retreat could be higher, since the PCO was the only department to provide an answer to Gray’s question.

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Cabinet should consider directly paying individual reporters up to $45,000 a year in the name of diversity, says a Department of Canadian Heritage report. Direct cash payments would be in addition to rebates of $29,750 per employee at cabinet-approved newsrooms: “A paradigm shift is needed in the way traditional news media share the stories of Indigenous, racialized and religious minority communities.”

 

(Sidebar: what's a "racialized"?)

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Trudeau is set to raise his federal excise tax on alcohol again in 2024. This time by 4.7%.

But even a 4.7% tax hike downplays how much tax you pay every time you go to the liquor store.

Taxes in Canada already make up about half the price of beer, two-thirds of the price of wine and more than three-quarters of the price of spirits.

That means if you buy a 24-pack of pilsner, a couple bottles of Pinot and a bottle of vodka, you can expect to pay about $120. More than $75 of that is tax.

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But you benefited from Justin's largess. You even voted for it:

Nearly four out of five Atlantic Canadians want last month’s carbon tax carve-out to extend more than just home heating oil, according to a new poll.

Commissioned by the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, the Leger poll shows net support for extending the federal government’s three-year carbon tax pause on home heating oil to other forms of home heating at 77 per cent.

Of those, 58 per cent are strongly in favour of extending the carve-out while 19 per cent report being somewhat in favour.

Thirteen per cent of respondents were opposed to that plan — seven per cent said they were somewhat opposed to extending the pause, while only five per cent reported strong opposition.

Ten per cent of respondents said they didn’t know.

 

Justin can't afford to ditch this tax because it is the thing that lines governmental coffers.

If people truly knew the terrible state of Canada's economy and how bad it will get they would bolt up their houses and run away:

Gone are any prior Liberal promises of a return to a balanced budget, and, instead, the federal deficit is set to remain stuck between $30 billion and $40 billion for the foreseeable future. By 2025, debt servicing payments are expected to top $50 billion per year, putting them roughly on par with the amount of money the feds spend each year on health-care transfers.

The Trudeau government’s usual counterpoint to all this is that Canada’s debt situation is still in great shape as compared to its peer countries. According to the fall economic statement, Canada “maintains both the lowest deficit and net debt-to-GDP ratios of all G7 countries.”

“Years of responsible fiscal stewardship have left Canada in an enviable fiscal position relative to our global peers,” reads an introduction.

But while Canada is still doing exponentially better than the debt burdens of places like Japan or the U.S., discussions of debt often contain a pretty glaring omission: They don’t account for Canada’s remarkably high rate of sub-sovereign debt. As a result, when the debt from all Canada’s 10 provinces is mixed in with its total federal debt, Canada suddenly emerges as one of the more indebted nations in the developed world.