This Black History Month, it’s important to recognize that economic injustice—both in Canada and around the world—is deeply rooted in racism. The property system in Canada was founded on the forced displacement and exclusion of Indigenous peoples from their land and immigration policies that prevented non-white immigration, effectively barring many thousands of people from accessing property in Canada. These racialized colonial systems laid the foundation for the current racial wealth gap, where racialized Canadians have about half as much wealth as their non-racialized counterparts.
Unlike the United States, where constitutional barriers have historically shielded the ultra-rich from direct taxation, Canada faces no such constitutional legal obstacles—only political ones. And those political excuses are running out.
A wealth tax enjoys overwhelming public support. Nearly 90 percent of Canadians back it, yet successive Liberal and Conservative governments have refused to act. Their refusal isn’t due to legal constraints but to the immense influence of corporate lobbyists and billionaire donors who oppose any effort to make them pay their fair share.
Just last year, powerful corporate interests mobilized to kill a progressive tax measure that would have primarily targeted Canada’s wealthiest citizens and corporations: the partial closure of the capital gains loophole.
It doesn’t seem like the article ever explains what a wealth tax is?
Works similar to property taxes you pay on a house or a car…
It’s a tax on assets and net worth.
Typically taxes are on income, but the stupidly wealthy pay accountants to do weird financial tricks so it looks like they don’t have income, even though they have incredible lifestyles and wield outsized influence thanks to their money. A wealth tax theoretically sidesteps that crap.
(not op) I’m against a wealth tax, but what you mentioned is a serious problem that does need to be fixed.
The best I’ve come up with is taxing use of collatorlized assets. Are you a founder in a company that went public and you have a lot of money in stock? Great, well done! Oh, you want to buy a house without selling any of that stock and take out a loan against that stock, that you don’t pay back for decades or until you die by simply adding more collateral? Tax that. Don’t let them use it indirectly without taxing it. If they repay the collateralized loan, let them get a refund and tax however that gets paid back. They have the money to make sure all the paper work is handled correctly.
I’m sure there’s other tricks that would need to be addressed, but it should be doable without a blanket tax on unrealized gains.
Edit: also let the tax agencies investigate the lavish lifestyles and have them show how they are paying for things, and when it ultimately comes to this or other ways, tax that. Short of offsetting their yearly spend with donations to charity, tax it. Don’t let this $0 income/capital gains shit continue through trickery.
This is one of those problems where I don’t really care about the exact nature of the solution, just that it’s addressed. Individuals hoarding wealth and power to the detriment of society is bullshit.
A tax on wealth only with zero loopholes to avoid it.
It needs to cover capital gains because of how many measure their wealth by unrealized stock gains.
Also estate tax loopholes need closing so generational inequality doesn’t worsen