Tax Facts 10

Randall White is the author of Voice of Region: On the Long Journey to
Senate Reform in Canada and Global Spin: Probing the Globalization
Debate, and the co-author of Toronto Women.

People who are less hostile to taxes than the Fraser Institute will
probably find parts of this book irksome. Some of its methods and
assumptions are open to debate, as the authors themselves admit.
Moreover, the book makes no attempt “to look at the benefits that
Canad-

ians receive from government in return for their taxes.”

That said, a variety of interesting and useful information is provided.
We learn, for instance, that the overall tax burden in Canada is still
below the average for the world’s most developed countries, though it
is higher than in the United States, Japan, and the United Kingdom. The
authors worry in particular about the prospect of growing taxation
discrepancies between Canada and the United States, by far our largest
trading partner. The recent adventures of the Canadian dollar tend to
give credence to their fears. What they do not point out is that
addressing this concern aggressively would almost certainly have
negative implications for such things as Canada’s public health-care
system. Government awareness of this fact helps explain why, as the
authors note with regret, “a significant tax cut outside of Ontario
seems very unlikely.”