Juno News - How Socialist is Canada？

00:00:00.000 I'm Jasmine Moulton and on this week's episode of Reality Check, I'm going to be answering the

00:00:03.780 question, how socialist is Canada? In Canada, our political spectrum is shifting to the left

00:00:16.640 and this should worry anybody with even a basic understanding of history. Stephen Kotkin wrote

00:00:21.780 in the Wall Street Journal that communism killed 65 million people as a result of mass deportations,

00:00:29.140 forced labor camps, and police state terror, but mostly from starvation as a result of its cruel

00:00:34.540 projects of social engineering. But you'll rarely hear a leftist say that they want communism.

00:00:39.680 More realistically, they'll say, no, no, no, we want just democratic socialism like they have in

00:00:45.160 the Scandinavian countries. The left now likes to use this term democratic socialism because it sounds

00:00:50.400 a lot nicer. And although you might hear a lot of American politicians talking about it, like Bernie

00:00:55.520 Sanders AOC, don't go thinking it's not here in Canada yet either, because you'll find these exact

00:01:01.620 words in the NDP's constitution. But here's the problem. Communism is an offshoot of socialism and

00:01:08.200 both of them share the same underlying philosophy. In fact, both share the following political beliefs,

00:01:13.920 a rejection of capitalism, advocating for state control over the means of production instead of

00:01:18.480 private ownership, and both seek greater equality in the distribution of income. So before we dive right

00:01:24.620 in to answer the question, how socialist is Canada, we really need to get a definition down because

00:01:29.680 as the Fraser Institute points out, the definition of socialism has really evolved over time. In a

00:01:35.520 Toronto Sun opinion piece from the Fraser Institute, they write,

00:01:38.680 Indeed, as communism proved an utter failure in the real world and broadly collapsed in the late 1980s

00:01:44.680 and early 1990s, the meaning of socialism shifted to mean large-scale redistribution. In other words,

00:01:51.680 socialists accepted that firms and industries could be privately owned, but that the benefits of

00:01:57.500 markets should be harnessed for collective ends through higher taxes, much higher taxes, to finance

00:02:03.160 higher levels of government spending. But am I just being alarmist? Are Canadian politics really

00:02:08.720 shifting to the left? Yes, and here's proof. Former Liberal Prime Minister Jean Chrétien and current

00:02:14.340 Liberal Prime Minister Justin Trudeau were elected 22 years apart. So Chrétien was elected in 1993,

00:02:20.520 Trudeau was elected in 2015, and both were elected under the same Liberal Party of Canada banner,

00:02:27.500 but they have vastly different policies. Chrétien, for example, focused on deficit reduction,

00:02:33.300 debt repayment, and tax cuts, which the proof is in the pudding, they spurred economic growth.

00:02:38.160 Whereas just over two decades later, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau ran massive deficits in good

00:02:44.880 economic times, I might add. He added over $100 billion to Canada's national debt before the

00:02:50.840 pandemic started. And of course, we all know what happened after the pandemic started. Yes,

00:02:55.440 he tripped us over the $1 trillion debt mark and doubled the country's national debt. But don't take

00:03:01.560 my word for it. Take a look at this chart, which shows the two Liberal Prime Ministers are at the total

00:03:06.780 opposite ends of the spectrum when it comes to debt. So for those of you listening to the audio-only

00:03:12.440 version, not watching on YouTube, this chart shows Prime Ministers that added to per-person debt in

00:03:19.980 Canada over time. And it only looks at Prime Ministers that governed without a world war or an economic

00:03:26.860 downturn. So of course, Trudeau's tenure is only covered on this chart up until 2019. So you can see

00:03:34.480 quite a stark difference between Chrétien and Trudeau, both Liberal Prime Ministers, in quite a close

00:03:39.040 period of time. Trudeau added to the per-person debt by 5.6%, while Chrétien slayed that debt,

00:03:46.580 decreased the national debt per person by over 13%. So quite a stark difference, as you can see.

00:03:52.440 But racking up massive amounts of debt for Canadians is not the only thing that sets Prime Minister

00:03:57.380 Justin Trudeau apart. Trudeau's made a lot of awkward comments admiring communist dictators over the

00:04:03.620 years. Take a listen. There's a level of admiration I actually have for China. Their basic

00:04:11.160 dictatorship is allowing them to actually turn their economy around on a dime. On behalf of Sophie, our

00:04:17.380 children, and myself, as well of all Canadians, I want to offer our deepest condolences on the death of

00:04:23.900 Fidel Castro, to the Castro family, and to the people of Cuba. So from statements about China's basic 0.92

00:04:30.700 dictatorship, to compliments to Fidel Castro, this has a few Canadians scratching their heads about our

00:04:36.640 current Prime Minister's views on socialism. Now, of course, our state broadcaster, the CBC, ran opinion

00:04:42.500 pieces saying that Canadians shouldn't call our Prime Minister a socialist. But I digress. If you really

00:04:47.940 need proof that the Canadian political spectrum is shifting to the left, look no further than when our

00:04:54.500 current Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, back in 2015, when he was running in a federal election, he was not yet

00:04:59.480 a prime minister, made a pledge to outspend the typically socialist party in Canada, the NDP. At the

00:05:07.220 time, the NDP's leader, Tom Mulcair, in a surprising move for the NDP, surprisingly responsible, promised to

00:05:13.940 balance the budget for the following four years. Trudeau actually pounced on the NDP's promise and

00:05:20.100 criticized them for austerity. So now essentially what we have is the typical centrist party, the Liberals

00:05:25.740 under Justin Trudeau, leapfrogging the NDP, the typical socialist party in Canada, and therefore bringing the

00:05:33.880 whole political spectrum in this country to the left. Now keep in mind, the NDP has typically been the furthest

00:05:39.600 left mainstream political party in Canada. And the word socialism was part of the NDP's constitution until the party

00:05:47.440 voted to remove it just less than 10 years ago in 2013. This is a party that literally still has a socialist caucus, okay, the NDP is a

00:05:55.720 party that is supposed to be the furthest left political party, mainstream political party in Canada. But now of course, we have the Liberal Party fighting to out-socialist the socialists, but now they don't have to fight because as anyone who's been observing

00:06:07.720 Canadian politics will know, the two parties, the Liberals and the NDP have essentially made a pact, a coalition to support each other in parliament and basically keep this minority government running until 2025. But while we're on this question of how socialist is Canada, it's worth examining quickly how it's going to be a

00:06:25.700 how many votes the NDP typically gets. In the last federal election, which was in 2021, the NDP received over 3 million votes, which is approximately 18% of the vote. But what I found even more interesting is that the communist party in Canada actually got 4,700 votes, and the Marxist-Leninist party got over 4,500 votes.

00:06:46.700 So don't believe leftists when they tell you that nobody wants this Soviet era communism, because almost 10,000 Canadians voted for communism in the last election.

00:06:55.700 All right, so let's get back to this question, how socialist is Canada? We've seen our political spectrum is moving to the left, but this doesn't answer the question. So how do we measure how socialist the country has actually become?

00:07:07.700 Well, the McDonnell-Laurier Institute put out a really cool graphic a few years back looking to answer this exact question. Now, as a caveat, this data was released before Justin Trudeau became prime minister. So take that with a grain of salt.

00:07:21.700 That said, the McDonnell-Laurier Institute found that the size of government in Canada was around 44%. But that's only when you look at government spending. And of course, the size of government, it gets a little complicated, but it's actually much bigger than that.

00:07:36.700 So they point out that measuring the size of government really should include things like tax expenditures or price regulation because, for example, the price of supply management or the cost rather incurred by Canadians by our supply management program, which is obviously government run, could run around $600 per year, but that's not reflected in government spending.

00:07:57.700 So you have to factor that in another way. So when you include all of these factors, a much more accurate representation of the size of government in Canada is 64% of GDP.

00:08:08.700 In other words, the government controlled 64% of our economy. And keep in mind that numbers from before Trudeau took over.

00:08:16.700 Now, why does size of government matter? Well, as the Fraser Institute reports, the size of government relative to a country's economy actually has an impact on economic growth

00:08:26.700 and social progress. So the ideal size for government spending would be somewhere between 26 to 30% of GDP.

00:08:36.700 As you pointed out at the beginning, before Trudeau came into office, Canada was around 44%.

00:08:41.700 So already what we know what we can conclude is that government in Canada is way too big already.

00:08:47.700 I mean, think of all of the areas where the Canadian government interferes in the market.

00:08:51.700 Obviously Canada's socialized healthcare and education systems are top of mind because they're the most expensive items.

00:08:57.700 But think of these other places where the government interferes nationalized childcare programs, provincial liquor boards and hydro corporations,

00:09:04.700 Canada post the media, including our state sponsored broadcaster CDC.

00:09:09.700 And of course the media bailout of hundreds of millions of dollars.

00:09:13.700 The Trans Mountain pipeline, which trio bought from Kinder Morgan for 4.5 billion back in 2018.

00:09:20.700 Via rail auto sector bailouts, many of which have still not been repaid and ongoing corporate welfare, not only to the automotive sector,

00:09:28.700 but to various favored companies in this country.

00:09:31.700 And those were just a few literally off the top of my head that I thought of, but there are a lot more.

00:09:36.700 So it's no wonder that when you start adding all of these things up, you start to realize how government quickly becomes 64% of our economy.

00:09:44.700 Now the OG socialists and communists like Karl Marx, and probably anything you learned in politics 101,

00:09:51.700 is that true socialists want the means of production to be owned by the government or by the common people.

00:09:57.700 But as you'll recall, commentators from the Fraser Institute noted that the technical meaning of socialism has evolved over time.

00:10:05.700 And as they say, it now means large scale redistribution instead of ownership over the means of production.

00:10:12.700 So in other words, socialists have accepted that firms and industry should be privately owned,

00:10:16.700 but that the benefits of market should be harnessed for collective ends through higher taxes,

00:10:20.700 much higher taxes to finance higher levels of government spending.

00:10:24.700 So if modern day socialism really is marked now by redistribution of really high taxes,

00:10:30.700 let's consider taxes in Canada for a moment.

00:10:32.700 So the Fraser Institute does this really cool report every year called Tax Freedom Day.

00:10:37.700 And what Tax Freedom Day is, is basically if you paid all of your taxes to every government in Canada upfront.

00:10:44.700 So if you gave government every dollar you earned starting January 1st,

00:10:48.700 how long would you have to work strictly for government, strictly to pay your taxes,

00:10:53.700 until you could start retaining the money that you earned until your entire tax bill was paid off.

00:10:58.700 They found that for the average Canadian household, Tax Freedom Day this year fell on June 15th.

00:11:05.700 That's nearly half the year that you spend working to pay your taxes.

00:11:08.700 So they found that in 2022, the average Canadian family with two or more people will pay 45.2% of its annual income in taxes,

00:11:17.700 including income taxes, payroll taxes, health taxes, sales taxes, property taxes, fuel taxes, carbon taxes, and more.

00:11:26.700 And this was based on a total family income of just under 130,000 per year.

00:11:31.700 But let's consider if you earn a million dollars.

00:11:34.700 Six Buzz actually released an awesome video recently,

00:11:37.700 detailing how quickly socialism in Canada will erode those earnings.

00:11:41.700 Take a look.

00:11:42.700 This is what a million dollar salary looks like after taxes in Ontario, Canada.

00:11:46.700 Gross annual income $1 million.

00:11:49.700 Federal tax deduction $312,624.

00:11:53.700 Provincial tax deduction $194,282.

00:11:58.700 Canada pension plan deduction $2,681.

00:12:03.700 Employment insurance $730.

00:12:06.700 Total tax $510,317.

00:12:10.700 Net income $489,683.

00:12:15.700 If you make a million dollars in Ontario, Canada, 51% will go towards income taxes.

00:12:20.700 So as this video rightly points out, the top marginal tax rate in the province of Ontario,

00:12:25.700 obviously you have to combine your top marginal tax rate in your province with the feds.

00:12:30.700 So in Ontario, that amounts to about 54%.

00:12:33.700 But sadly, what they forget to include in this video is that

00:12:36.700 that's only the amount of tax taken off at the time of your paycheck.

00:12:40.700 So there's a lot of other taxes you pay at the federal, provincial and municipal level,

00:12:44.700 none of which are included in here.

00:12:46.700 So in reality in Ontario, if you're earning a million bucks,

00:12:48.700 you're paying way more than 54% of that income in taxes.

00:12:52.700 But at this point, it is really important to make a distinction that even though Canada has a ton of socialized programs

00:12:59.700 and really high tax rates, Canada is still a privatized capitalist economy.

00:13:05.700 Recall, a true socialist economy would abolish private property and nationalize all industry.

00:13:11.700 Canada isn't there.

00:13:12.700 But one really worrying trend is increasing acceptance of socialism amongst our youth.

00:13:18.700 As the Toronto Star reports, in a Canadian poll,

00:13:21.700 Forum says 58% of respondents had positive views of socialism,

00:13:26.700 whereas 55% of Americans have an unfavorable perspective.

00:13:31.700 Those most likely to respond positively about socialism include people aged 18 to 44,

00:13:37.700 women, the most educated, workers earning $40,000 to $80,000,

00:13:42.700 and those living in the Atlantic provinces.

00:13:44.700 I think now is the perfect time to drop a Tom Sowell quote,

00:13:47.700 which is that socialism in general has a record of failure so blatant that only an intellectual could ignore or evade it.

00:13:55.700 Because of course we see the most educated being the most in support of socialism in Canada.

00:14:01.700 But let's move on.

00:14:02.700 I thought it was also really interesting that on the other side of the political spectrum,

00:14:06.700 4 in 10 Canadians hold negative views about capitalism compared with just 33% in the United States.

00:14:14.700 So to answer the question we started out with today, how socialist is Canada?

00:14:18.700 The answer is Canada is not communist,

00:14:21.700 but it's clear that the country is slipping closer and closer towards socialism

00:14:25.700 and the inevitable social and economic malaise that has historically accompanied it.

00:14:30.700 So where's our proof?

00:14:31.700 Growth in the size of government,

00:14:33.700 growth in the amount of taxation,

00:14:35.700 growing government debt,

00:14:36.700 and the growing costs of our socialised programs that perform worse and worse,

00:14:40.700 the more money we dump into them.

00:14:42.700 So here's a reality check for those of you who have increasingly rosy views of socialism

00:14:46.700 and negative views of capitalism in Canada.

00:14:49.700 It's capitalism that pays for the programs that you enjoy.

00:14:52.700 Canada is already spending beyond its means.

00:14:54.700 Justin Trudeau has doubled the national debt

00:14:57.700 and no amount of increased taxation is going to get us out of this.

00:15:00.700 We're already taxed at exorbitant rates in this country,

00:15:03.700 nearing 50% for the average family.

00:15:05.700 Even a brief look at history would show you how time and time again,

00:15:08.700 socialism has failed everywhere it's been tried.

00:15:10.700 But don't take it from me.

00:15:12.700 Take it from the iron lady. 0.67

00:15:13.700 And socialist governments traditionally do make a financial mess.

00:15:16.700 They always run out of other people's money.

00:15:18.700 That's our show for this week.

00:15:20.700 Thanks so much for listening.

00:15:21.700 And don't forget to tune in next Wednesday to a new episode of reality check.

00:15:25.700 And if you like the content that we put out here at true north,

00:15:28.700 please consider making a donation.

00:15:30.700 You can do so at donate.tnc.news.

00:15:33.700 I'm Jasmine Moulton and this has been reality check.

Juno News - September 21, 2022

How Socialist is Canada？

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