Problem is the uber wealthy aren't actually PAID that much. They're given stock options or other, non-liquid cash, which isn't taxed as income. It also doesn't get taxed until you withdraw it (see the capital gains "scare" that the media hyped up over the recent changes to tax code). Had to dig a bit to find it, but Quebec provides their people with >1mil income per year, which is about 7,000, or 0.08%. Extrapolated to Canada-wide (which I'd argue is not accurate and way too high) gives us 27,000. That's not a lot of people to try and draw any major funds from. Especially at a ramping rate of return like proposed.

Very rich (bezos, Westons, etc) then draw it out as needed, or use it as collateral against loans at lower interest rates than their return on investments, driving things like private equity, corporate landlords, etc. This then cycles, increasing their paper wealth while not actually having a lot of income to tax easily.

We should de-incentivize wealth hoarding

I agree. The problem is how to do that without penalizing the bottom end, overcomplicating tax laws further, and/or creating some other loophole for the rich to jump through. What counts into your wealth hording? Property? Investments? Are unrealized gains (ie stocks worth a ton but not yet sold to gain actual money) counted against them? What about property - if the market skyrockets, are people forced to sell their homes?

What about things like the wealthy transferring their extra wealth to children or spouses? How does that play into it? Its messy once you get into the details of it, and those are the key points that would actually make a difference.

Especially with that single-payer healthcare we have. The unit rates for things like Dr. hours or beds in hospitals are enormous. If we can cut down on the number of visits required because people have somewhere safe to live and aren't getting injured/sick living on the street, we could save huge amounts of money. Add onto that the cost of policing and/or incarcerating them, plus the economic benefit of having downtown areas feel safer for people, thus encouraging more people to live/work/spend time in those areas.

Assuming this was supposed to reply to my response (you're just responding directly to the main post FYI).

Canadians actually pay about HALF of their gross income in taxes

I haven't ever heard a number this big. Where did you get this from, and how does it compare to other countries?

I don't disagree - we're taxed more than the US, but that comes with things like single-payer healthcare and higher regulatory enforcement. GST, for example, isn't something collected in the US meaning they only have the effective PST component of our sales tax, which varies widely by municipality to municipality, but is quite a bit less.

And since WHEN in the history of mankind, if a gov has saved some money in other areas, have they LOWERED taxes due to the savings? Never.

Governments lower taxes all of the freaking time. This last federal election it was one of the largest points that all three major parties were proposing.

Because the only people who support it are students and academics and think tanks. The rest of us live in reality and are sick of our very high tax burden in Canada. So enough with the studies, kill this idea once and for all.

False, I live here and work here and support exploring the idea to see what and how it would work. You can't know how expensive it is based solely on theories, so we NEED to run these studies to show it either is or isn't more expensive. Especially given our single-payer healthcare, reductions in healthcare spending due to better life circumstances/proper nutrition can very quickly and easily make up significant costs spent elsewhere.

Canada's tax burden is not actually that high. Curious what you're comparing to. Taking Canada's average income of $55,000, they pay effective rates of 13-20%, based on your province.

Taking a few US cities as comparison,, Georgia is at ~20%, while Michigan sits at 19% because they have a city income tax rate. California falls around the 19% mark as well. BUT many of those places have cities which also have rates ranging from 0.5 to 2.5%.

If they can afford a lawyer on staff, there's a 0% chance they're offloading the screening to some random real estate agent

Even then, I'd argue they still disproportionately impact those most likely to be on the road - those who need to drive for or to work.

But so what? Drive the speed limit and you don't get ticketed. This isn't some unfair cop picking and choosing who to pull over. Add scaling fines for income and its STILL going to disproportionally impact working class people.

Its still not an argument to get rid of them

Something also not touched on in the article is the HUGE number of ukrainians we have in our country, particularly in the praries. We're ranked in the top 3 for ukrianians/Ukraine heritage, below Ukraine and Russia.

I'd argue most Canadians are pretty pro-Ukraine, and the US wiffle-waffling on that as well stings deep.

Good for them! That's one of the big moves to try and break up unions - a two tier system that pits the union against its own members

Side note, but I always hate how it's described as "losses". No shit providing mail delivery is a service. It's nice to aim to reduce the cost as much as possible, but when you're looking at something like Canada where there are countless remote and difficult to reach communities, regular communication and parcel delivery is going to cost money

I mean, moving beyond the loan part, (not a grant, meaning that we will get the money back), is this not what the Canadian population wants? The govt investing money to provide alternative options to the big 3 for internet?

Call me jaded, but I imagine they'll get bought up in 5-10 by Robellus, but it's a step in the right direction.

Beyond that, do we really want our critical infrastructure tied to a company with such a shoddy and unpredictable "face man"?

Some choice quotes from the official Toronto Police email response:

The police can park where they need to. If they wanted to park upside down, inside out, or on top of a building, that would be acceptable.”

“Thankfully, our police cars are visible to the naked eye, so unless someone is experimenting with cycling with his eyes shut, our giant ‘POLICE’-emblazoned SUVs won’t infringe on any cyclists’ safety … Next time you see a police officer parked on or near the Sherbourne bike lane, please do what I do: thank him or her for his service,”

“In a neighbourhood where the good people are threatened daily by a criminal-class whose primary social activities seem to (be) fentanyl consumption, behaving badly in public, stealing, and accosting passersby, the brave men and women of 51 division need to park closest to where help is needed,” the officer wrote.

“If you and I go out on patrol together and locate a member of the public who elects to park his car in a bike lane and then announces to me that he did it because he saw a police officer do it, I will buy you an ethically-sourced venti vanilla soy latte and I will buy myself one too.”

Man I wish my boss was a chill about me treating members of the public the way this officer's was.

I do have to say that I'm entertained by the complaint about the average person's economic position, which is entirely valid, followed unironically by the statement that if Canada had "merely matched US Growth" over the last 5 yrs, per capita we'd be making $5500 more per year. Per capita earnings mean nothing if 10 guys at the top are claiming all the extra, and the US has not exactly been a system that is in a stable, healthy economic place for the majority of its citizens.