Annual anti-tax report is still bogus after all these years: Editorial | Toronto Star

There is no sweeter time of year for those perennially convinced of government’s greed and bloat than the release of the Fraser Institute’s annual Canadian Consumer Tax Index, which never lets the truth get in the way of a bit of anti-tax panic.

The numbers are again eye-popping. According to the authors, the tax bill of the average Canadian family has increased by a whopping 2,006 per cent since 1961. We now pay more in taxes than we do on housing, food and clothing combined, the report gasps, as it does every year.

As ever, however, the scandal the report purports to uncover would seem far less scandalous if only the numbers used were not so distorted and out of any context.

To take a few egregious examples: the report doesn’t account for inflation. It includes corporate taxes in the average family’s tax bill, though these are largely shouldered by richer Canadians. It presents the mean family as the typical one, though the median family, which earns less and thus pays less in taxes, would be more appropriate.

The report asserts that Canadians, on average, spend more than 40 per cent of their income on taxes. A recent study from the Broadbent Institute put the number at about half that. There are many ways to calculate these things; the Fraser Institute’s questionable methodology no doubt suits its dogmatic aversion to taxes and active government.


Nor does the report mention that Canada is increasingly a low-tax country compared to our peers. When it comes to taxes as a share of GDP, for instance, Canada is well below average among OECD nations. But saying that, we suppose, might dampen the outrage.

The study’s greatest failing, however – the omission that ultimately renders its statistics meaningless – is that it makes no mention whatsoever of what we get in return for our tax money. Nowhere does the report mention “public services” or “programs,” nowhere “roads” or “schools.” It’s true that taxes as a percentage of our income have risen over the last 56 years, by around 7 per cent, but consider what they have bought: medicare, for instance, and the Canada Pension Plan, to name just two programs established after their baseline year of 1961.

Not only are these and other aspects of our social safety net arguably central to our national identity – the civilization, you might say, for which taxes have been the price. But they have also yielded exceptional value for money.

A 2009 report from the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives found that middle-income Canadians enjoy public services, from education to health insurance to pensions, worth about $41,000 annually per family – or roughly 63 per cent of their income and more than they pay in taxes. Conversely, we have watched as decades of tax cuts have led to eroding public services, but also to rising inequality, persistent homelessness, traffic gridlock and crumbling schools.

By delinking taxes from the services they buy, the Fraser Institute has long fed into a false narrative that for decades was in the ascendancy: that any tax is a bad tax and any cut a free good. In recent years, however, that view has begun to fall out of favour, and not just on the left. The IMF, the OECD, and other past champions of austerity have all made the case that the costs of tax cuts often outweigh their benefits and taxes and the collective action they pay for are essential if we are to meet our biggest challenges.

A few years ago it was almost unthinkable that a Canadian politician could run successfully on the promise of raising any taxes ever. But in the last federal election, both the New Democrats and the Liberals promised tax hikes for at least some Canadians that would have seemed political suicide in recent elections past.

The Fraser Institute’s annual anti-tax litany was always bogus. Now, thankfully, it’s starting to look out of touch.

our wonderful Liberal government they said our taxes would go down!

It is fake news. The propagandist Fraser institute releases this same bullshit report every year, with their phoney numbers. Here’s a few of the CKA threads on this :

Here at the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, our supporters often seek clarification
from us on the truth of the many internet chain mail letters that makes claims of
outrageous government spending.

One email that gets passed into our inbox at least once a month is entitled “$15
billion given to foreign countries?” It admonishes the Canadian government for
sending billions in foreign aid to countries like Russia and Mexico, while ignoring
seniors, veterans and the homeless.
Does Canada really ship billions overseas in foreign aid? Yes it does. While the
government comes nowhere close to spending the amount claimed in the email, in
2011-2012 alone, Ottawa spent $6 billion in foreign aid – a pretty big chunk of
change.

To put things in perspective, that’s just slightly more than the feds spend on
departments of health, the environment and the Canada Food Inspection Agency
combined. Foreign aid also costs more than the cumulative budgets of the Royal
Canadian Mounted Police and the Canada Border Services Agency.
The bulk of the aid budget - $4 billion – goes to the Canadian International
Development Agency (CIDA)– which was folded into the Foreign Affairs and
International Trade department in the recent federal budget.
CIDA divides countries into three main categories: fragile, low-income, and middleincome states. The agency focuses its aid on a handful of countries in each category.
The money then gets spent on local CIDA employees, along with grants to NGOs and
businesses in the region.

But that hasn’t always been the agency’s business model. Founded in 1968, CIDA
focused its efforts on major infrastructure projects like roads and highways in the
developing world. But a lot of this government to government funding ended up in
the Swiss bank accounts of foreign dictators.

After this dismal failure, CIDA began in the late 1970s working at the local level
directly with the people they hoped to assist. But an academic study condemned the
agency for having “only marginal relevance to the needs of poor Third World
countries,” with little or no results to show for their large annual budget.
44 countries received Canadian funding in 2011-2012, with the bulk of the funding
going to a handful of targeted nations. The top three recipients of Canadian foreign
aid are Ethiopia ($208 million), Haiti ($204 million) and Tanzania ($181 million) –
three of the poorest nations on earth.

But Canada also donates to economic superpowers like China and Russia. With
economies of $8.2 and $2 trillion respectively, it begs the question: do they really
need our money?

Recently, the government has changed course on China and a handful of other
countries, shaving $377 million off the annual aid budget by 2014-15.
According to a 2004 opinion poll, Canadians are divided on whether foreign aid
should be a tool to advance the national interest or simply our moral imperative as a
wealthy nation. But regardless of what camp you fall into, it’s important to ask if
taxpayers are getting value for their dollars

The massive “foreign aid industry” of government bureaucrats, NGO workers and
local officials who have made careers out of aid funding will certainly say yes. But
there has been a growing consensus in recent years that while foreign aid is well
intentioned, it has had little to no impact on the countries it seeks to help.
Interestingly, a massive study of 6000 individuals receiving direct foreign aid in
developing countries found that while they appreciate the assistance, that the aid
has made no impact improving their lives.

The best example of the failures of foreign aid spending is Haiti. With a population of
eight million, it has received $1 billion in Canadian government funding since 2006
and billions more from the international community. This cycle of dependency on
foreign aid goes back decades. Yet the country remains the poorest in the Americas
and one of the worst governed places on earth.

Meanwhile, in the Palestinian territory of Gaza, CIDA admits that despite the
territory receiving the highest per capita foreign aid funding in the world, the
humanitarian situation is actually “regressing.” The majority of the population lives
in poverty and relies on food handouts from the UN mission in the region.
The UN estimates that 800 million people have been lifted out of poverty since 1990.
But there has been no evidence that this is connected to foreign aid. Instead,
countries that have adopted lower taxes, trade liberalization and the rule of law
have flourished.

Recognizing past failures, the government has pivoted its efforts away from
traditional humanitarian assistance towards private sector partnerships with both
Canadian and foreign businesses that will spur economic growth in developing
countries while boosting trade with Canada.
The feds seem to be basing their strategy on the old saying: “give a man a fish and
feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and feed him for a lifetime.”

Ottawa’s new initiative to use foreign aid to benefit the national interest may also be
the most effective way to boost the fortunes of people in developing nations.
Evidence from the last 45 years has made it clear that trade, not aid is what the
developing world needs.

So yes a lot of government money - $5.7 billion worth – gets spent on foreign aid
every year. But hopefully the recent changes will give taxpayers a better return on
their investment. Otherwise, Canada will continue to follow into the old trap, where
foreign aid transfers money from poor people in rich countries, to rich people in
poor countries.

Canadian Taxpayers Federation,

Yeh, really represents us.
Where's their local chapters, who and how votes for their board of directors? Why does their every policy represent big business, never ever the working taxpayer?

It's actually quite simple. If you have a problem with their numbers, prove them wrong. But it's good to know that you care more about who's on the board of directors of a watchdog agency than what's happening to your tax dollars or ever increasing tax burden.

It is fake news. The propagandist Fraser institute releases this same bullshit report every year, with their phoney numbers. Here’s a few of the CKA threads on this :



2017-08-29: Title: versus the Necessities of Life: The Canadian Consumer Tax Index, 2017 Edition | Fraser Institute

current-events-f59/taxes-versus-the-necessities-of-life-the-canadian-consumer-t119791.html?hilit=Taxes

2016-08-23; Title: Canadians now spend more on than on food, clothing and shelter combined, study finds | Financial Post

current-events-f59/canadians-now-spend-more-on-taxes-than-on-food-clothing-and-t117067.html?hilit=Taxes

2012-04-26: Title: Canadians pay more in than basic necessities: Report

current-events-f59/canadians-pay-more-in-taxes-than-basic-necessities-report-t100716.html?hilit=Taxes


Let me save you some time:



https://www.google.ca/amp/s/www.thestar ... ditor.html

Umm hate to break it to ya but CTF is not a “watchdog agency”. It’s a right wing lobby group privately funded to the tune of millions per year by unnamed, undisclosed donors and wholly controlled by a board of directors consisting of five people.

https://www.google.ca/amp/s/www.cbc.ca/amp/1.3802441

It also gets funding from US-based right wing groups.
https://thetyee.ca/Opinion/2018/07/05/C ... ation-Get/

But wait, haven’t we heard from conservatives that US environmental groups providing funds to Canadian environmental groups is somehow illegal or inappropriate? Conservative Jason Kenney recently announced a witch-hunt into the alleged “foreign funding “ of Canadian environmental groups. I guess that’s another one of the conservatives ‘ made-up unwritten crimes that’s only exists when liberals do it.

I'd rep if I could.

I'd rep if I could.