Juno News - Statues, Funeral Crashers and Taxes

00:00:00.000 Welcome to Canada's Most Irreverent Talk Show.

00:00:06.680 This is The Andrew Lawton Show, brought to you by True North.

00:00:12.880 Coming up, why vandalism is the language of 2020 to the left,

00:00:17.100 how government always screws up a good thing,

00:00:19.500 and why your taxes are just too darn high.

00:00:24.360 The Andrew Lawton Show starts right now.

00:00:30.000 We are back. This is another edition of The Andrew Lawton Show here on True North Wednesday, September 2nd.

00:00:37.300 Yes, I know. I remember just in March when the pandemic began and everything was locked down and shut down.

00:00:43.560 And it was only going to be for a couple of weeks to flatten the curve.

00:00:46.940 And now here we are in September. Can you believe it or not?

00:00:50.680 I tend to side on the or not aspect of things, but you may have a different experience.

00:00:55.660 I don't know for parents whose kids are going back to school as some of them are as many of them are

00:01:00.660 you may be very grateful September is finally upon us. I wonder where has 2020 gone but again I know

00:01:06.640 that's an unpopular view as most people just desperately want 2020 to be over so whatever

00:01:11.580 you may feel about this month this day this year thank you very much for spending a little bit of

00:01:16.140 time with me here on Canada's most irreverent talk show. I spoke on Monday at a fair bit of length

00:01:22.340 about the decapitation of John A. McDonald's statue in Montreal.

00:01:27.760 And I got a lot of really good feedback from that show.

00:01:30.400 And it's still a couple of days later,

00:01:33.520 and we have no arrests, no prosecution,

00:01:36.620 despite the condemnation from all of the leaders,

00:01:38.980 including Justin Trudeau and Francois Legault

00:01:41.920 and all of the other people involved, politicians.

00:01:44.680 We have condemnations from all of them about it.

00:01:47.340 They all say, oh, vandalism's wrong,

00:01:49.020 and this isn't how you express yourself and all of that.

00:01:52.340 But still, where's the arrest?

00:01:54.680 Where are the prosecutions?

00:01:56.060 Where is the, for lack of a better term, witch hunt for the statue vandals?

00:02:00.380 They were caught on video from numerous angles.

00:02:03.300 Lots of people there would be able to identify them, but no, nothing.

00:02:08.220 And it may be that they were really, really good, you know, when they were up there,

00:02:11.220 they may have been covering their faces and all that.

00:02:13.200 But I've seen how police can identify masked protesters with very little evidence.

00:02:19.040 How they managed to do it.

00:02:20.620 They put out the all call.

00:02:21.660 they put out the shots and say these are the people we're looking for and a lot of the times

00:02:26.060 they as the old saying goes for the RCMP they get their man but that hasn't happened here and it

00:02:32.880 isn't just the John A. Macdonald statue on the very same weekend there was and this is in many

00:02:38.020 respects worse but we'll say as bad at least there was a statue of the Virgin Mary decapitated

00:02:44.160 outside a Lebanese Christian church in Toronto the Our Lady of Lebanon parish on Queen Street

00:02:51.080 And this happened on Sunday. The statue that adorned the church's exterior of the Virgin Mary had its head removed.

00:02:59.100 Not only that, but taken away. No one even knows where the head is right now.

00:03:03.420 Police in this case have put out a surveillance still that's very grainy of someone they believe was the decapitator.

00:03:10.680 But no one is clear on where the head actually is or why.

00:03:14.200 why this small church in Toronto was targeted in this way in a manner that would be a hate crime

00:03:22.520 were it to happen to any other denomination any other religious institution and again when

00:03:28.380 Justin Trudeau has spoken out repeatedly upon vandalism of mosques and synagogues in the past

00:03:34.880 I have to wonder where is the formal big long production of a statement for this where is the

00:03:41.100 support for the people of this church. And that's the part that's really shameful here is that when

00:03:48.280 other religions and other religious groups are faced with these same sorts of acts, it is a

00:03:54.880 federal case, it's a national case, and everyone is to talk about it. Whereas when it happens to

00:03:59.540 a Christian church, even a Lebanese Christian church, by the way, no one is speaking up,

00:04:04.480 no one is sounding the alarm. And it's actually just been people who are in the conservative

00:04:10.000 parties of Canada that seem to be speaking up as far as elected politicians go. Why is supporting

00:04:16.000 religious institutions who have been vandalized, why is that something that's exclusive to the

00:04:20.160 right? It certainly shouldn't be. And in many respects, this is unsurprising because the

00:04:26.280 culture that's created or that has been created, the climate that's been created by the left

00:04:30.300 is one that says decapitation of a statue is the way you express yourself. This is all

00:04:34.800 just a legitimate form of protest. And it's unsurprising because this is the culture we're

00:04:41.380 in now where the way you express yourself is by damaging things, by destroying things, by

00:04:45.820 vandalizing things. That is just political protest now. That's not vandalism. Take a look at an

00:04:51.400 interview that appeared in NPR last week. It's an interview in the Code Switch series with an

00:04:57.520 author named Vicky Osterweil or Osterweil who wrote a book called In Defense of Looting. Now

00:05:04.040 this book just came out. Osterweil is a self-described writer, editor, and agitator

00:05:10.400 who's been writing about and participating in protests for years, the interview write-up says.

00:05:16.060 And this book says that vandalism and looting is basically your God-given right if you are

00:05:22.600 protesting, that the rioters who smash windows and take items from the stores are engaging in

00:05:27.520 a powerful tactic that questions the justice of law and order and the distribution of property

00:05:34.740 and wealth in an unequal society. And if you look through this, I mean, there's a lot in this that

00:05:41.460 just makes it very difficult to stomach your way through it without just smashing your head into a

00:05:46.120 wall 19 times. So I'm giving you a fair warning or perhaps even a trigger warning there. But when

00:05:51.220 you look at the interview what she says is that looting is all about resisting the whiteness of

00:05:58.440 law and order basically because it's white supremacy and whiteness that's all happening 0.60

00:06:03.140 and that's why the black uprising is important and looting is the way that you accomplish that 0.94

00:06:08.380 and when you ask her as the interviewer did well what do you say to people who are concerned about

00:06:14.340 essential places like grocery stores or pharmacies being attacked and then she says well you know

00:06:20.920 they're not providing worker protections. It's a Republican myth that small business owners need 1.00

00:06:25.860 to be respected. That's a right-wing myth. So this is, again, one book from one radical. And I would

00:06:31.460 encourage you to actually look through this interview if you can manage to do it with keeping

00:06:36.720 your sanity in check. The reason is that this is, despite being just one book, a mindset. A mindset

00:06:44.140 that needs to be revealed here to be understood, if it can be understood, which is that when we

00:06:49.180 say, well, you can't vandalize because it's wrong. We're speaking a totally different language

00:06:54.300 than that of the rioters and the vandals who think that this statue is a monument to white

00:07:00.020 supremacy and who think that property rights are a monument to white supremacy and who think that

00:07:04.840 respecting the rule of law and public order is a monument to white supremacy, because that's the

00:07:10.060 problem. So none of the arguments that we're using are working on them, which is why I criticize

00:07:15.760 Justin Trudeau's line on this from the other day, which is that, well, vandalism's wrong and we

00:07:21.620 shouldn't take things out this way and there are proper channels and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah,

00:07:25.480 because I said that is not going to do anything to the protesters because he's not actually

00:07:29.900 addressing the very root concern, which is the historic revisionism and the malignment of

00:07:36.660 historic figures and of Canada's history and of Canada itself. So this is what you're up against

00:07:42.900 here. And I want to read another point where she says, you know, there's a reason that Trump has

00:07:48.900 embraced the white anarchist line so intensely. She said there, even when you're criticizing the

00:07:55.120 protesters, if you point out that most of the so-called Black Lives Matters protesters are

00:07:59.080 white, you're actually making the black people who are in the movement invisible. So she wants

00:08:04.140 more credit to the black looters, I guess, even though most of the videos and pictures I've seen 1.00

00:08:08.760 of looting is actually from white anarchists, not people who are genuinely speaking out 0.97

00:08:13.740 on anything about racial injustice. And I mean, a lot of people are jumping on NPR for allowing

00:08:20.940 this interview to be published and for having its writer go through the process and doing it.

00:08:26.040 I'm generally of the mindset that showcasing a perspective should not be seen as endorsing it.

00:08:32.160 I mean, in this case, NPR really does seem to be trying to give a red carpet treatment to this view that looting is something to be defended and something to be protected.

00:08:44.360 And that is, I think, a big danger because now all of a sudden there's like a moral justification.

00:08:49.300 If you want to go and burn buildings and destroy things, there's a moral justification to do that.

00:08:54.840 And that is just plain wrong.

00:08:57.360 But the reason I share this is, again,

00:08:59.900 to instill why we are going to see so much more

00:09:02.940 of what happened to John A. MacDonald,

00:09:04.840 what happened at the Lebanese Christian parish,

00:09:07.100 what happened at all of these statue sites

00:09:10.220 across the United States and several in Canada as well,

00:09:13.660 and what will continue because this is now the norm.

00:09:18.160 This is now the norm.

00:09:19.240 These protesters are no longer outliers.

00:09:21.540 This is, in many cases, a roadmap

00:09:23.720 for how they're going to view every single thing

00:09:25.940 they don't like take a look at this one story and this is actually predating the john a mcdonald

00:09:32.060 statue in montreal by a couple of weeks the john a mcdonald hall at queen's university

00:09:38.400 queen university being in kingston where john a mcdonald once served as the member of parliament

00:09:43.740 and in the next few weeks an advisory committee is deliberating on whether to rename the faculty

00:09:50.480 of law building from Sir John A. Macdonald Hall to some other name. And the rationale is, as you

00:09:57.000 guessed it, because there are questions about Macdonald's legacy. Well, there are no real

00:10:02.100 questions about Macdonald's legacy. There are activists and, you know, shrieking, shrill

00:10:06.580 protesters that are screaming about it. No one is actually concerned about Macdonald's legacy in any

00:10:12.980 substantive way. But oh no, because you have to capitulate to the mob and bend the knee.

00:10:17.440 Now John A. MacDonald's hall at Queen's University is now under the microscope and probably not

00:10:23.940 going to survive, even though the people of Kingston were once represented by this guy.

00:10:28.340 He helped create the country and he himself was a lawyer.

00:10:32.880 So this is now the norm.

00:10:35.160 Nothing is safe from the scourge.

00:10:36.980 And at the end of the day, everything's going to be just named with a number.

00:10:39.940 You know, this is going to be building 9247.

00:10:42.340 This is going to be building 3192.

00:10:44.340 And this is just going to be the way things go.

00:10:47.440 I mean, if you do a full complete top to bottom, east to west, north to south audit of street names in most Canadian cities, you're probably going to find that a lot of the people after whom these streets have been named are problematic, as they say, especially all of those streets named after English dukes and earls like, you know, Wellington, York and Trafalgar and all of these other ones.

00:11:09.280 so this is a Trafalgar is not a duke but you know what I mean so this is going to be where

00:11:14.840 this goes and we need people who are going to be strong leaders to stand up against it

00:11:20.720 and push back and in the case of the John A. Macdonald statue I said on Monday this is an

00:11:27.500 attack on history itself you look at the Our Lady of Lebanon parish and it's an attack on the people 0.99

00:11:33.960 of that church. It's an attack on people of faith, but the impetus behind it is the same, which is

00:11:42.060 that we now have a generation of people that feel this is the way you express yourself, and that

00:11:48.040 isn't to say they're victims of their culture because they're still making a choice. They should

00:11:51.960 be knowing better. They're old enough to know better, but they are themselves part and parcel

00:11:57.940 of this cultural shift that says

00:12:01.180 we no longer talk about our differences.

00:12:04.400 We no longer discuss our differences.

00:12:06.280 We no longer have disagreements.

00:12:07.800 If I don't like you, I destroy something.

00:12:10.200 And that is that.

00:12:10.880 And I have the right.

00:12:11.660 And if you try to stop me from doing that, 0.99

00:12:13.880 oh, you're just a white supremacist. 0.99

00:12:16.680 We've got to take a break. 0.99

00:12:17.760 When we come back,

00:12:18.400 more of The Andrew Lawton Show here on True North.

00:12:22.240 You're tuned in to The Andrew Lawton Show.

00:12:24.860 you know there are a few certainties in the world of the few one of them is that government will

00:12:31.860 always choose the least convenient most nonsensical and most indefensible position whenever given the

00:12:38.500 option in this particular case it is Toronto's ban on what are called secondary suites forcing

00:12:44.660 a man to kick his father out of his home essentially if you look at this story it's

00:12:51.280 actually just one that makes you shake your head for many many reasons. It involves Rod Wilson

00:12:56.780 who decided he would do the right thing and be very kind and very nice and Rod Wilson had his

00:13:04.460 father come live with him at a little building on his property. Now I'm going to show you some

00:13:11.240 pictures of this because I think that this is very relevant to the story here but the rationale

00:13:15.800 now behind it is that Bill Wilson was two years ago losing his wife and daughter in a very short

00:13:22.600 period of time and Rod Wilson had a home in Toronto and said hey you know what why don't you come live

00:13:27.800 with me dad and it was a match made in heaven everyone was happy the reason is because Rod had

00:13:32.700 in his backyard something that from the outside looks like a barn of sorts but on the inside is

00:13:39.160 actually quite beautiful it has a kitchen it has a living room it has a bathroom it has two stories

00:13:45.040 So this is like a fully furnished loft in Toronto, which is very rare and very hard to come by.

00:13:52.160 It had electricity, it had heating, it had all the things you'd need, and his father was going to live there and he was going to be a good son and that was that.

00:14:00.260 But oh no, then the NIMBYs come around and the busybodies come around and someone in the neighborhood complained to the city who did an investigation and found that this is illegal because you can't have a separate living space on your property.

00:14:14.720 unless it backs onto a public laneway.

00:14:18.460 And given that this was in the backyard,

00:14:20.220 that would not meet the criteria

00:14:22.080 because the backyard is not a public laneway.

00:14:24.860 So this is one of these things

00:14:26.420 that actually does not make any sense at all.

00:14:30.060 This comes after the city of Toronto

00:14:31.800 had amended a zoning bylaw to allow for laneway suites.

00:14:35.880 So it used to be that the laneway wasn't even allowed.

00:14:38.540 But right now, anything in the garden, a backyard,

00:14:41.420 a tiny home that you might wanna plop in the backyard,

00:14:44.720 not allowed under the rules in Toronto.

00:14:48.040 And in a city that is one of the most expensive

00:14:50.660 real estate markets in Canada,

00:14:52.840 the idea that you are turning down someone

00:14:55.300 who is solving a housing problem for someone 0.99

00:14:58.080 and saying this is illegal is absolutely asinine. 0.98

00:15:01.880 Shame on the neighbor that ratted out the Wilsons, 1.00

00:15:04.420 by the way.

00:15:04.860 It just goes to show you how snitch culture

00:15:06.560 is alive and well all over the place.

00:15:08.780 But I'm looking at this and I'm like,

00:15:10.360 I realize that yes,

00:15:11.500 you don't want something turning into like a clown car.

00:15:13.740 You don't want, you know, your little quiet, idyllic Rosedale backyard to be something

00:15:17.800 that ends up having like 19 RVs shoved into it because everyone's living there.

00:15:22.260 Even then, I don't know if RVs are banned or not because they're on wheels.

00:15:26.520 But the point is that I get you don't want to be turning into a portable apartment complex

00:15:31.420 like for the old school portables.

00:15:33.680 But this is where you have to look at, as I said at the beginning of this, government

00:15:37.280 screwing it up for absolutely no reason.

00:15:39.560 There is zero rationale for this guy not being able to live in this little barn, which looks

00:15:45.580 nicer than a lot of people's houses, certainly in Toronto. No excuse for that at all. And this has

00:15:51.380 been an ongoing problem. Secondary suites or garden suites and laneway suites, I've heard

00:15:56.820 them all before. And every time they're discussed, the resistance to it is always completely

00:16:02.200 nonsensical. The resistance to it never makes any sense, but still nothing changes. And I don't know

00:16:07.900 who the lobbyists are that are keeping politicians from doing the most painfully obvious thing

00:16:13.060 when it comes to letting someone allow an aging relative to stay with them but regardless it is

00:16:19.180 just something that everyone needs to push back against and you know like we said at the COVID

00:16:24.000 lockdown beginning of the crisis when people were ratting out their neighbors and everyone else on

00:16:29.760 the street for playing at this park and going to this facility it's like just get a life get a life

00:16:35.780 If this is what you think passes for justice every time you see the most minor infraction

00:16:40.680 that doesn't affect you calling the authorities, you've seriously got to give your head a

00:16:44.980 shake.

00:16:46.020 I wanted to just talk about this story here, which I find amusing more than anything else.

00:16:51.040 Bill Edgar is an Australian guy who has managed to make himself a little career that is

00:16:57.300 unconventional, but I think is certainly deserving of entrepreneurial awards.

00:17:02.140 For $10,000, he will go to your funeral or graveside and reveal the secrets that you wanted your loved ones to know once you've died.

00:17:14.300 So Bill Edgar has no respect for the living.

00:17:16.700 He says his loyalty is to newly departed clients who hire him as a coffin confessor to carry out their wishes from beyond the grave.

00:17:26.800 And he said, you know, the departed need to have a voice.

00:17:29.640 he lends his voice for them. For a flat fee of $10,000, he will share juicy secrets. And he has

00:17:35.600 so far made, it sounds like $220,000, having crashed funerals and graveside services for 22

00:17:42.680 clients. Now he is a private investigator. This is on top of this. He said the idea came when he

00:17:48.420 was working on a case for a terminally ill man. And the guy had said, well, you know, there's

00:17:54.140 something I'd like you to do. And it ultimately ended up where he was crashing the guy's funeral

00:17:59.480 at his request. And now he has done 22 of them. Now, I'd like to know what the secrets are.

00:18:06.300 He said that he dresses in tailored pants and vest. He blends in with the mourners. He sits

00:18:12.380 in the middle. He sits with friends and family. And in one case with the first client, he was

00:18:17.140 instructed to interrupt the man's best friend when he was delivering the eulogy. I was to tell

00:18:23.140 the best mate to sit down and shut up. He said he knew that the best mate had been trying to have

00:18:29.080 an affair with his wife so in this case it got a little bit messy the client didn't want people

00:18:35.680 at the funeral so this guy was forced to for 10 grand discharge his duties and cause all the people

00:18:42.380 that were problematic to leave and this is the best line he said despite the confronting nature

00:18:48.600 of the job once you get the crowd on your side you're pretty right because mourners were always

00:18:53.380 keen to know what was left unsaid so this is like uh the wedding crashers sequel funeral crashers

00:18:59.480 although not in the way that will ferrell was in wedding crashers but in a new way and i don't know

00:19:03.820 who's going to change them play them in the movie maybe owen wilson can but hey you know what if

00:19:08.520 there is a market that is being unserved and untapped and you're able to find your way in

00:19:13.180 there and fulfill that void and fill that niche then power to you i don't know what 10 000

00:19:18.100 australian dollars is in canadian dollars i think it's a little bit uh i think it's a little bit less

00:19:22.340 But either way, I could look it up, but, you know, it's easier just to go on not caring.

00:19:27.100 So good on Mr. Edgar for coming up with a winning business proposal.

00:19:31.800 I hope he gets many awards for this contribution.

00:19:35.040 The anti-business mentality from government, though, is now extending to celebrity photo ops,

00:19:40.940 where one member of parliament, Dr. Luke Evans, is introducing a bill or proposing a bill

00:19:46.940 that requires anyone to advertise with a disclaimer

00:19:52.420 if they've posted a photo or an image that has been retouched.

00:19:56.880 The bill would do this,

00:19:58.300 quote, require advertisers, broadcasters, and publishers

00:20:01.460 to display a logo in cases where an image of a human body or body part

00:20:05.980 has been digitally altered in its proportions.

00:20:10.320 Now, this was torqued a little bit out of control by the Daily Mail

00:20:14.120 that said an MP is proposing a ban

00:20:16.620 on airbrushing Instagram photos or whatever

00:20:20.300 that it was going after Instagram influencers

00:20:22.380 and celebrities creating a warped view of beauty. 0.99

00:20:25.940 They aren't actually banning it.

00:20:27.420 They're just forcing disclaimers to be posted

00:20:29.580 if someone's, you know, thigh gap has been enhanced

00:20:32.960 or their ankles been shrunk or in my case,

00:20:35.620 I mean, who knows how much retouching we'd need to do

00:20:37.460 to get me presentable.

00:20:39.120 But he's saying that, no, no, no, it's not a ban.

00:20:41.360 It's just a disclaimer.

00:20:42.620 However, the rationale behind it is something he very much stands behind,

00:20:47.220 that the airbrushing and Photoshopping is creating a warped sense of beauty

00:20:51.360 that no one else is able to uphold.

00:20:54.240 And I'm thinking, wasn't this battle like 20 years ago

00:20:57.220 before people knew about Photoshop and how ubiquitous it was?

00:21:00.240 I feel like you're a little bit behind the curve now.

00:21:02.720 I think everyone understands that people on TV

00:21:04.820 are creating an unreasonable standard of beauty.

00:21:07.360 Again, in my case, I just don't even try, and that's how I'm confident.

00:21:10.320 but this just seems to be a little bit of the nanny state going a tad too far but hey let me

00:21:16.460 know what you think in the comments perhaps i'm in the wrong on this one we've got to take a quick

00:21:20.340 break when we come back more of the andrew lawton show here on true north you're tuned in to the

00:21:27.880 andrew lawton show welcome back to the andrew lawton show i know the most riveting subject

00:21:37.120 on the face of the earth is monetary and tax policy and I say that without sarcasm I actually

00:21:42.160 find that riveting and even if you don't like getting into the weeds on economics and the way

00:21:46.860 that the government taxes you it is certainly relevant when you learn exactly how much you're

00:21:51.780 being taxed a new Fraser Institute study says the average Canadian family spent 42.6 percent of its

00:21:58.400 income on taxes annually in 2020 that's more than housing food and clothing combined this is an

00:22:05.220 annual report that the Fraser Institute does. But even so, I mean, it tells a very stark portrait

00:22:10.340 every single year. Jake Fuss is an economist at the Fraser Institute and co-author of this year's

00:22:15.840 study, the Canadian Consumer Tax Index 2020. Jake, good to talk to you. Thanks very much for coming

00:22:20.900 on today. Thanks very much for having me on, Andrew. So let's talk about the number here,

00:22:25.700 because a lot of people, when they think of how much they're getting taxed, I don't think they

00:22:28.880 look at it all in one basket. They'll think, OK, my income tax rate is X or my property taxes are

00:22:34.520 this many dollars and when you combine it all is that where we're getting that 42.6 percent figure

00:22:40.340 from yeah absolutely like you said it can be extremely challenging for families to calculate

00:22:45.880 all the various taxes they pay you know we have things like sales taxes income taxes property

00:22:50.940 taxes liquor taxes fuel taxes and the list goes on so what we try to do every year is tabulate all

00:22:57.560 these different taxes that the average family pays and then what we come to is that the average

00:23:01.900 family actually pays about almost $39,000 in taxes every year, and that's almost 43% of their annual

00:23:09.500 income. And like you said, that's more than the basic necessities of food, clothing, and housing

00:23:13.740 combined. So it's quite a substantial expense. Is the result that you get from that simply that

00:23:20.400 the number is too high, or is there going to be a target in mind that you think that number should

00:23:25.080 be at? Yeah, I mean, that's a good question. Ultimately, it is up to individual Canadians

00:23:29.880 to decide if they're getting value for their tax dollars. But what we do see is that we're

00:23:34.540 uncompetitive with other OECD countries, particularly the United States, on things

00:23:38.820 like personal income tax rates. So we're uncompetitive at the levels like $50,000,

00:23:43.500 $75,000, and $150,000 of income. So we're kind of uncompetitive across the board on personal

00:23:49.820 income tax rates in particular. And then we also see a declining competitiveness on corporate

00:23:54.440 income tax rates as well with the United States. So these are certainly dregs on economic growth

00:23:59.240 and productivity in Canada, and that can certainly be harmful.

00:24:03.040 So, you know, we are seeing that tax rate increase over time in Canada.

00:24:07.240 We are becoming less competitive with other countries around the world.

00:24:10.660 And just to take it out of the percentage realm and put it in dollar figures,

00:24:13.940 the average family, according to this index, earned $91,535 last year,

00:24:19.780 and of that paid $38,963 in taxes.

00:24:24.680 So if someone just kind of takes that figure and digests it a bit,

00:24:28.100 That's nearly $40,000 paid to the government.

00:24:31.120 And I don't want to say it's for nothing because, yes, there are services that people avail themselves out of.

00:24:35.640 But did you get $40,000 out of value from the government as a family last year would be the question I'd ask a lot of people.

00:24:41.580 And I'm not sure the answer is going to be yes.

00:24:44.680 Yeah, I mean, ultimately, that decision is up to each person.

00:24:47.500 They can weigh how much they get in services and the quality of services versus how much they're actually paying.

00:24:52.740 But what we do see is, you know, just because you're spending a whole bunch of money doesn't necessarily mean that it's the most effective, efficient way to do that.

00:24:59.880 There is plenty of potential for government waste.

00:25:02.560 I mean, there can be handouts to corporations at the expense of taxpayers.

00:25:06.200 What we're seeing, you know, health care spending has increased a lot over time, but we're not necessarily seeing wait times come down.

00:25:11.820 In fact, Canada actually performs quite poorly compared to other universal health care countries around the world on wait times and on number of doctors and hospital beds and other categories like that.

00:25:22.340 So just because you're spending a whole bunch of money doesn't necessarily mean you're getting best results.

00:25:27.040 But ultimately, it is up to people to decide if they're getting good value for those tax dollars.

00:25:32.040 I know you mentioned the comparison between Canada and other OECD countries.

00:25:36.100 How has the track been in Canada historically?

00:25:38.920 Is this number staying relatively constant?

00:25:40.820 Are we seeing it going up or, dare I say, even down?

00:25:44.380 Yeah, so for the tax rates for Canada, so we go back all the way to 1961 in our report.

00:25:49.960 That's when the data was first available from Statistics Canada.

00:25:54.040 And what we saw at that time is that the tax rate was at about 33.5% for the average family back in 1961.

00:26:01.000 And basic necessities actually amounted to over half of your income for the average family.

00:26:06.380 But that's remarkably shift over time now.

00:26:09.400 So now we see basic necessities taking up about a third of your income at about 36%, whereas the tax rate now is at about 42.6% for average families.

00:26:18.880 So the tax rate has generally been increasing over time.

00:26:22.340 So that has been a remarkable shift that we've seen, particularly in recent years.

00:26:26.900 We've seen things like payroll taxes and the elimination of certain tax credits, and that's certainly increased the tax rate for average Canadian families.

00:26:34.420 And that's something that we'll keep our eye on moving forward as well.

00:26:37.580 And you mentioned tax credits.

00:26:38.960 These are these credits are historically factored into these numbers, because I know that can make it in many cases even more complicated to try to calculate.

00:26:46.800 Yeah, tax rates, tax credits, things like that, they're all incorporated into our calculation.

00:26:53.680 Like I said, you know, we have a whole bunch of different categories like income tax rates,

00:26:58.080 corporate income tax rates, property taxes, and so on.

00:27:00.820 So we do calculate, you know, various things into those calculations every year.

00:27:05.680 I know there have been a number of policies in the last few years that have forced there

00:27:09.260 to be more transparency on credit card bills, on phone bills, on hydro bills.

00:27:13.720 A part of me thinks when I look at this, the Canadians could benefit from a breakdown of exactly how much they're spending in taxes every time they do something.

00:27:20.640 Because certainly it seems like just given the total sum here, the individual places where people are being taxed would probably shock a lot of people.

00:27:28.740 Yeah, and that's ultimately what this report aims to do.

00:27:31.920 I mean, when we look at housing costs, for example, we look at that in the study, you know, amounts to about $20,000 per year or about 22% of your annual income for the average family.

00:27:42.420 but when you actually consider how much taxes amount to it's nearly double what actually is

00:27:47.500 in housing so you know as a lot of canadians are concerned about paying their rent or paying their

00:27:51.900 mortgage right now they should also consider you know how much they're actually paying in taxes

00:27:55.660 it's the single largest expense for canadian families right now and that's certainly a big 1.00

00:28:00.040 consideration for them when they're considering their budgets every year what are the areas if

00:28:05.980 any where people might not realize they're getting taxed or where the number might be higher because

00:28:11.920 I know that I mentioned at the top of the interview here, your personal income tax, your sales tax.

00:28:17.400 I mean, these are things that people see a lot more.

00:28:19.640 You must be factoring some numbers here that people might not realize are there or might not realize are as high as they are.

00:28:26.500 Yeah, that's a great question.

00:28:27.480 You know, I think a couple of things here.

00:28:29.360 Corporate income tax rates is not something that people necessarily think of being taxed to themselves.

00:28:34.780 And same with payroll taxes.

00:28:36.400 But what we actually see with corporate income taxes and payroll taxes is that a lot of this, the burden is actually passed on to employees in the form of lower wages.

00:28:45.500 So it's not necessarily something that people will think of.

00:28:48.880 They think it's kind of just a burden on the employer, for example.

00:28:52.240 But we do see that there are results for lower wages for employees.

00:28:56.700 And it can also have higher unemployment effects as well because you're increasing the costs for businesses and they're going to pass on that cost to employees.

00:29:04.000 So that's something that we see out in the empirical research, that this can be passed on to employees, and it usually is.

00:29:11.260 I know predictions are always tough, especially when you're talking about a study that's really data-focused,

00:29:16.720 but when you do this for 2020, looking at some of the changes that we've seen in the economy this year,

00:29:24.660 do you think when you do the next version, looking back, it's going to be a bit more challenging,

00:29:28.080 just given all of the factors that I think Canadian families are dealing with with job losses?

00:29:34.000 Certainly. I mean, one thing that we're thinking about going forward, you know, is right now we're running a federal deficit of about $343 billion.

00:29:41.360 So we're having a lot of today's spending that's not necessarily being financed by today's taxes.

00:29:47.080 So we're likely to see deferred taxation into the future where, you know, tax rates are likely to increase in the future.

00:29:53.400 So, you know, going forward, we could actually see the tax rates in this study start to increase more.

00:29:57.960 I mean, we could see a lot more challenges for Canadian families moving forward as well as we start to have that tax bill start to increase.

00:30:06.040 Yeah, and I just have to clarify, I think at the beginning, I may have messed up the year.

00:30:09.300 The study is 2020. The data in the study are from 2019.

00:30:13.100 So obviously, you're looking back to the data that are available, given this year's aren't in yet.

00:30:17.220 So I just wanted to clarify that for those listening.

00:30:19.800 And I do think to the point that you just brought up, a lot of the concerns that we may see if people are finding that, yes, their job losses are happening and income's going down, that the percentage people are spending on taxes, even if the dollar figure isn't higher, may actually be quite significantly inflated.

00:30:36.780 So perhaps there's going to be a bit more awareness when we look at these numbers.

00:30:40.300 Yeah, that's certainly an important consideration.

00:30:43.040 Ultimately, this study is about informing Canadians of how much their tax bill is.

00:30:46.880 And, you know, it has increased by over 2,000 percent since 1961.

00:30:51.840 Even when we account for inflation, it's about 169 percent increase.

00:30:55.840 But ultimately, that percentage of income number is probably the most important one.

00:31:00.020 Just seeing that general increase over time where we were at about 34 percent of income back in the 60s,

00:31:05.440 and we're now at about 43 percent of income.

00:31:07.500 And this is likely to increase as well in the future.

00:31:09.800 So that's certainly an important number that I think Canadians will be informed of.

00:31:15.320 Jake Fuss, economist with the Fraser Institute,

00:31:17.860 joining me on the line now.

00:31:18.940 The report, the Canadian Consumer Tax Index 2020.

00:31:22.240 Jake, thanks very much for your time.

00:31:23.360 Really appreciate it.

00:31:24.640 Thanks very much for having me on, Andrew.

00:31:26.460 Like I said earlier, I know nothing is as riveting

00:31:28.500 as talking about tax policy,

00:31:30.080 but there is a significant question there.

00:31:32.180 Anytime you're spending more for something,

00:31:33.740 you have to ask,

00:31:34.700 are you getting that much more value out of it?

00:31:37.360 And when he said that's gone up 2,000% over the 1960s,

00:31:40.880 I don't know how many of you listening

00:31:41.940 were around in the 60s,

00:31:43.000 But if you were, are you getting 2,000% more value from government now than you were then?

00:31:48.460 And you especially see this on property taxes because property tax bills will go up consistently

00:31:53.440 in most cities every year.

00:31:55.340 And maybe it's a couple of percent here and there, but it's like, well, hang on, you're

00:31:57.960 not picking up my garbage 2% faster.

00:32:00.240 You're not picking up my recycling 2% faster.

00:32:03.280 I know recycling is a bit different, but you're not doing any of these things better.

00:32:06.760 You're not giving me 2% more services.

00:32:08.600 You're just paying more.

00:32:09.860 and in many cases with property taxes you're getting a tax rate increase and also if the

00:32:15.640 value of your home is going up you're actually paying more for that reason as well same as

00:32:20.880 inflation the if the price of a widget goes up by a few percent your 13 or 5 or 8 sales tax

00:32:28.280 is actually going up as well and a lot of the time people do not realize just how buried a lot of

00:32:34.680 these taxes are if you do any air travel or anything like that you're paying taxes on taxes

00:32:40.620 or gas you're paying taxes on taxes a lot of the time and it is absolutely insane so these reports

00:32:46.240 are good transparency is key and again I know that Aaron O'Toole has just taken the helm of

00:32:51.060 the Conservative Party of Canada but it would be great if he could actually take this seriously

00:32:55.360 and start promising not just a reduction in taxes but a simplification and streamlining of them

00:33:01.160 That's my wish for the Conservative leader or any political leader moving forward.

00:33:05.200 I just don't think it's going to come from the Liberals.

00:33:08.320 My thanks again to Jake Fuss and to all of you for tuning in to The Andrew Lawton Show.

00:33:12.600 We've got to wrap things up, but we will be back next week with more of Canada's most irreverent talk show.

00:33:18.060 This is The Andrew Lawton Show on True North.

00:33:19.960 Thank you, God bless, and good day, Canada.

00:33:22.360 Thanks for listening to The Andrew Lawton Show.

00:33:24.480 Support the program by donating to True North at www.tnc.nones.

00:33:31.160 We'll see you next time.

00:34:01.160 Thank you.

Juno News - September 02, 2020

Statues, Funeral Crashers and Taxes

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