True Patriot Love - Capital Gains Tax SHUT DOWN — How Taxpayers Beat the Government

00:00:00.000 Branko Terrizano is suing the federal government I know you like the sound of that it's over its

00:00:09.940 attempt to implement a higher capital gains tax rate before the parliament even passed the law

00:00:15.780 a very strange approach the lawsuit argues the government through the CRA was effectively telling

00:00:21.200 Canadians to follow and potentially pay a tax that did not yet legally exist it claims that

00:00:27.340 this undermines the rule of law and asked the court to stop the government from enforcing or

00:00:32.520 pressuring compliance with an unapproved tax change. Franco Terrazano, how much of that did

00:00:38.380 I get right? Yeah, I mean, you got you got pretty much all of it right. Like you'll remember under

00:00:44.080 under Trudeau and Freeland, I think it was budget 2024. They brought in or they said they're going

00:00:49.500 to hike capital gains taxes. OK, so that would have been an absolute sucker punch for people who

00:00:55.220 save their entire lives, to grow a business, you know, to fund their own retirement because they

00:01:00.860 worked in the private sector. They're not a government employee with a pension, right? For

00:01:04.920 many people, like this was their retirement. This was their hard work to put people in our

00:01:10.760 communities to work, right? So this was a financial soccer punch. It was going to hurt

00:01:15.560 Canada's economy. So we fought this right away. But then something interesting happened, okay?

00:01:21.700 So the government under Trudeau and Freeland, they split out the budget bill.

00:01:27.180 And what they were trying to do is they're trying to use it as a political wedge against

00:01:30.600 the conservatives.

00:01:32.020 But in doing so, the federal government failed to introduce legislation, debate legislation,

00:01:38.720 pass legislation, or even proclaim legislation into law.

00:01:43.360 Okay.

00:01:43.820 And then the CRA was going to act as if the government had passed the tax.

00:01:50.100 So the CRA, these unelected bureaucrats, were going to take billions of dollars from Canadians

00:01:55.980 in both an undemocratic way, but also in an illegal way.

00:02:01.480 So us at the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, we're like, no way, we're not going to let

00:02:04.820 these unelected bureaucrats put their grubby paws on one cent illegally from taxpayers. 1.00

00:02:10.620 So we launched this court fight.

00:02:12.300 And let me tell you, exactly one week after we launched our court fight, exactly one week

00:02:18.320 to the day, the government backed down. They said they would delay the hike and then the government

00:02:23.600 eventually got rid of the hike. Okay. But we're still in court because we're arguing that no

00:02:30.480 taxation without representation is not just a catchy slogan. It's enshrined in the constitution

00:02:36.920 of Canada. So we're in the courts right now to set this important precedent that you can't just have

00:02:42.720 these unelected bureaucrats taking money from Canadians in this undemocratic and illegal way.

00:02:48.320 It felt to me like, okay, we're getting to the end of, I mean, it was getting obvious that we were going to have a new prime minister soon by the time that this started to really take effect.

00:02:58.480 And maybe I'm wrong about this, but the suspicion mounts inside of me and the conspiracy theorist apparently comes alive when I think about this because, okay, we're going to have a new head of the Liberal Party going out there and to try and win an election.

00:03:14.780 and in the end there's a lot of money out of whack in the balance we had spent so much money

00:03:21.000 on covid there had been so much money spent we were in such a deficit position and this might

00:03:28.200 have felt like a tax grab at the moment that might have offset a little bit of that uh that huge

00:03:34.480 expenditure that had been unaccounted for really yeah i i see it as two ways and i agree with you

00:03:42.220 but I also see it as another way as well. So let me just say where I think it's added as I just

00:03:47.000 think it was just pure partisan gimmicky politics, right? Where the liberals, they were just flailing

00:03:54.380 in the polls, right? They were so far behind. They were just grasping at straws. And I think

00:03:59.400 they were trying to wedge the conservatives. But what they failed to recognize, and we released

00:04:05.080 some polling showing this, is that Canadians were just fed up with any tax, right? Canadians felt

00:04:11.860 like no this government doesn't deserve a single penny from any canadian regardless of who it is

00:04:17.780 and and canadians were so upset with the economic deterioration that our country has gone through

00:04:23.300 that canadians were just fed up they're overtaxed they said no way but here's where i do so i do

00:04:28.820 think it was like some just pure partisan politics and just gimmicky right just gimmicky brutal policy

00:04:35.300 but where i do agree with you is like look the government is so in debt borrowing 80 billion

00:04:41.060 dollars this year the trudeau government doubled the debt in 10 years alone which is mind-boggling

00:04:46.500 that you now have the government trying to flip over the couch cushions looking for you know money

00:04:52.180 wherever it can find it that's what it felt like to me uh and and of course you raise a good point

00:04:58.980 this is a tax against people who made a difference over the last 25 years you know it's interesting

00:05:05.780 Franco, you know, I hear from my dad. He's so happy with the pension that he got working at

00:05:10.700 Ontario Hydro for all of those years and how, you know, they made good moves and made the right

00:05:15.880 decisions. And I have to explain to him, well, that's all gone now. There is no such thing as

00:05:21.560 a pension fund. Most of the people that take jobs are being are taking these jobs on a taxed

00:05:26.620 basis that is contract or a limited in many options. Those jobs that came with the pensions

00:05:34.240 that help you retire have quickly disappeared what remains is what you can put in the bank

00:05:40.960 making an effort as a capitalist as an average canadian in business and this taxes them so hard

00:05:48.160 what was the the rate of tax that we were talking about at that moment it was shocking to me yeah

00:05:52.720 the inclusion rate was like gonna go up to like two-thirds or something like that which is which

00:05:57.120 is nuts and let me just build on what you said here because like look like if you're a politician

00:06:02.880 right in parliament hill or you're a federal bureaucrat or another government employee across

00:06:07.680 canada like you have a taxpayer funded pension right the majority of them do but if you're not

00:06:12.640 in government you don't and you can see the data showing that like a pension in the private sector

00:06:19.200 has has gone away right and and look so i'm in my um i'm in my early 30s i i guess you could say

00:06:24.960 most of my friends are anywhere from like mid to late 20s to about 40 right like that's the circle

00:06:30.480 that i that i tend to run it and for for the vast majority of my friends for essentially all of my

00:06:35.760 friends who are not in the government having a pension is like non-existent right nobody even

00:06:42.640 thinks about it so to your point like the people who are going to get punished with this capital

00:06:46.960 gains tax increase those are the people who you know save their entire lives who either start a

00:06:52.160 business right which put people to work created great jobs economic benefit for the community

00:06:57.440 or it was just people who who saved and invested so they had a golden who hey they had that nest egg

00:07:03.440 for their golden years and they were the ones being punished by the way it was doctors who

00:07:08.880 who were going to get punished by this right you you you saw doctors outrage uh you saw the tech

00:07:14.160 sector what the government was essentially going to do is you know that young graduate from like

00:07:19.360 waterloo who wants to start the next google right here in canada the government was punishing them

00:07:24.720 telling them to hey go look for greener pastures yeah don't do that here don't do that in canada

00:07:29.440 it's just going to cost you in the end that was the one thing that i took away from this is we

00:07:33.360 talk about brain drain not just to the us but to other parts of the world now out of canada where

00:07:38.240 we provide people an amazing education often uh you know leading edge and they're gonna go if if

00:07:45.440 the difference is you know i've got to be uh i have to start my business within the framework

00:07:50.240 work of a country that wants to tax me in this way it's a non-starter and like why why would

00:07:58.000 our own government want to punish uh people who are trying to be successful here right like like

00:08:03.680 everyone like i truly do believe that like the vast majority of people they want to work hard

00:08:07.760 they want to be successful they want to be able to take their kids on vacation right like that's

00:08:11.280 like the dream right they want to own their own home but like governments are punishing that they

00:08:15.920 They really are. And, and, you know, let me go back to this because I almost forgot this,

00:08:20.200 this political gimmicks of it, right? So Freeland, Trudeau, the government,

00:08:24.560 they wanted to make it out. Like it was just the monopoly man that was going to pay the capital

00:08:29.660 gains tax increase. But, you know, fortunately there's an economics professor, Jack Mintz,

00:08:34.880 and he wrote for the C.D. How Institute, a very respectable think tank. And, and his number showed

00:08:40.760 like, Hey, this is not the monopoly man who's getting hurt by this capital gains tax increase.

00:08:45.920 These are severely normal Canadians who might get a windfall in capital gains in one year,

00:08:53.100 but they aren't making like bags and bags of money.

00:08:56.640 These are like severely normal Canadians who would be impacted by this capital gains tax increase.

00:09:03.300 Let's put this in perspective.

00:09:04.800 How many layers of tax do we have to pay? 0.90

00:09:07.360 You've put aside a million dollars in your RRSP, let's say, for your retirement.

00:09:13.040 Now, there comes a time where you have to cash in on your RSP.

00:09:16.380 At that time, what happens?

00:09:18.700 Capital gains tax.

00:09:19.820 Now, you've been taxed on all that money all along.

00:09:22.120 You've invested it.

00:09:23.440 You've made a slight gain on it or maybe a significant gain on your original investment.

00:09:28.200 You're going to pay tax again at that moment.

00:09:30.620 It doesn't mean that you've got $50 million in the bank.

00:09:34.600 It really is the money that you put aside.

00:09:36.940 but based on inflation based on you know maybe the success of your business yes one time as you

00:09:44.420 make that retirement withdrawal to go and buy that home in florida or you know set yourself up

00:09:49.900 a huge amount of that money gets taken away at that moment and you're left in a more

00:09:54.920 destitute potentially scenario for your retirement well and i don't need and i don't need to tell you

00:10:01.500 right like you wouldn't you would know this just as well as i do but like how many um how many

00:10:05.880 entrepreneurs out there just absolutely take it on the chin year after year after year who aren't

00:10:13.660 taking money out of their business they're reinvesting that money so that they can create

00:10:17.440 more jobs right so that they can you know pay the taxes to government to fund health care fund

00:10:22.580 education fix the roads all that kind of stuff but you know for so many entrepreneurs especially like

00:10:28.160 you know mom and pop shops you know these these young uh even just young people out of school

00:10:33.080 who are just grinding away hour after hour after hour uh many of them and they're not paying

00:10:39.000 themselves handsomely right they're trying to reinvest in their community and so what they go

00:10:43.800 and sell their business finally trying to live off some of the fruits of their labor and the

00:10:48.040 government clobbers them like what does the government do for all that money right and

00:10:53.240 i'll tell you what they did was they took a huge portion of it along the way like you say

00:10:57.000 they made the struggle they made the corporate tax increases that these companies had to face

00:11:01.320 these entrepreneurs had to face they changed the tax laws for how these entrepreneurs can be paid

00:11:06.200 all of that was you're right the hurdles that they had to get over time and time again only to find

00:11:10.840 this franco i love that you're doing this what's even more important is the point that you made at

00:11:15.000 the very end talking about the lawsuit that you're still in court because it's important that we make

00:11:20.120 it known and pressed upon the court system uh indelibly that this should not happen again in

00:11:26.120 the future certainly in the tax realm uh we should not see this happen i think it was shocking to

00:11:31.640 canadians to see that go down at the time and i think frankly it should have cost the election it

00:11:36.680 did not and you know um i do think it's very important for us to still be in the courts doing

00:11:43.880 this to set that precedent you know and as i mentioned uh no taxation without representation

00:11:49.160 it's not just a catchy slogan it's also not just an american slogan right i've heard some people

00:11:55.000 say that no no isn't the the principle of no taxation without representation is enshrined in

00:12:01.160 the canadian constitution where we're taxing powers are supposed to lie in parliament right i.e uh

00:12:08.280 politicians are supposed to be the ones voting on the tax increase before these unelected bureaucrats 1.00

00:12:14.920 take money from people right so that's why we're and that's why we're still fighting this to set

00:12:19.560 that important precedent that you can't just have these unelected bureaucrats uh taking extra money 1.00

00:12:24.840 from people when the legislation was never even passed let alone introduced the legislation for

00:12:30.840 the capital gains tax increase it's not like it wasn't just passed it was never even introduced

00:12:36.360 let alone debated on in committee uh franco before i tell people how they can support you

00:12:41.480 and keep an eye on going um hold on a second just a little bit of liberal water

00:12:48.440 i don't know if yesterday you were watching tv at all maybe you saw i was i did yeah what i saw

00:12:54.680 was our Prime Minister, the Premier of Ontario,

00:12:58.460 and the Mayor of Toronto standing in front of a construction site

00:13:02.880 that apparently had no construction going on at all,

00:13:05.640 telling us that they're going to throw $18 billion

00:13:08.240 at the opportunity for us to build some million-dollar homes.

00:13:14.180 I was screaming at the television.

00:13:16.700 I don't know what you were doing at that moment.

00:13:20.260 But it occurs to me that we just heard them talk about spending

00:13:23.800 another $18 billion that at a time we probably could be using that money to offset the mistakes

00:13:32.980 we're making with our own resources and maybe put it toward putting gas in the tanks of people

00:13:38.060 trying to get to work right now. Imagine that we put that $18 billion to offset fuel prices or 0.95

00:13:44.740 food prices or anything. But what I heard yesterday was, here's another opportunity

00:13:49.820 for developers to build $1 million homes in Ontario.

00:13:54.220 What do we do?

00:13:54.580 Yeah, so I don't know.

00:13:55.880 Maybe I see it a little bit of nuance, right?

00:13:59.880 I don't want to be like,

00:14:00.500 oh, there's nuance, blah, blah, blah.

00:14:01.980 But I broadly think getting rid of the HST

00:14:05.660 off of home building is a good idea.

00:14:09.540 It's not novel.

00:14:10.820 It's not novel.

00:14:11.800 It's been par for the course before.

00:14:14.340 I can live with that one.

00:14:15.440 And look, so I say getting rid of HST off new homes

00:14:19.340 yeah okay good i mean you look at some of the you know just the exorbitant amount of fees and taxes

00:14:25.680 and regulations like adding in in some jurisdictions hundreds of thousands of dollars

00:14:31.120 onto the price of a new home right and when we live in a housing affordability crisis if i can

00:14:36.720 use that word yeah i do think the government should get out of the way so i'm making it so

00:14:41.100 hard and expensive to build now the problem that i see in this is like okay so i think reducing

00:14:47.160 development fees would be a way to at least help get homes built. However, why are taxpayers

00:14:55.340 funding that? I don't understand why we have to offset money to developers. It's a great business

00:15:02.280 if you can make the model work. Sorry, if the municipal governments, they should be cutting

00:15:10.600 development fees, but they should be doing that by going into their own bloated budgets. And we all

00:15:15.380 know these municipalities across Toronto are so bloated they should be doing that by reducing

00:15:19.780 spending in their own municipal budgets not like relying on federal tax dollars essentially coming

00:15:24.840 from Alberta to essentially subsidize wasteful spending in Ontario municipalities. Yeah that's

00:15:32.340 wild to me the other thing that you and you you pointed out municipally we then understand where

00:15:38.700 communities are actually going to be built right now it feels a bit nebulous where the developers

00:15:42.980 think it's going to be best to build. That's where the houses will be. It may not be that

00:15:47.600 we need housing in the places that make sense for the developers. I do think that municipalities

00:15:53.700 saying, come here, develop here, would have been a way better approach than just saying, okay,

00:15:59.340 municipalities, stand by. One of you is going to hit the lottery.

00:16:02.880 And why I would like the onus to be on the municipalities is that so then you could

00:16:06.940 actually have tax competition going on between the municipalities, right? Where now you're

00:16:11.240 actually forcing the municipalities to look inside themselves, to coin a phrase, right? To actually

00:16:17.680 compete, to make their own municipalities more efficient so that they can appeal to attract not

00:16:22.940 just like housing development, but just economic development writ large, right? So if you keep the

00:16:28.000 focus on the municipalities where I think it should be, then you actually force some tax

00:16:31.880 competition. And, you know, tax competition isn't this like chalkboard idea. All you have to do to

00:16:37.480 understand tax competition is look to lloydminster so lloydminster is this border town half the town

00:16:43.680 is in alberta half the town is in saskatchewan and if you can go back long enough um a lot of

00:16:49.280 people from that community will remind you that because alberta's portion had lower taxes they

00:16:55.320 were actually attracting uh so much business into the alberta section and actually forced the

00:17:00.400 saskatchewan section to become more competitive as well more competitive lay down reduce the tax

00:17:05.840 uh that's a very uh that's a great example franco and and so i think that uh you're right the

00:17:12.460 municipalities didn't really get represented there in that fashion they got passed over good for them

00:17:18.060 uh do you think that this will have an impact on housing in any way in canada tough to say

00:17:24.600 tough to say i i do think um like i said before i do think the hst like just taking the sales tax

00:17:29.620 off i i think that'll help um i don't think it's you know i think it's gonna help i think it's

00:17:35.940 that's good is it gonna be a silver bullet like i i think to actually make homes more affordable

00:17:41.140 there's a couple things right we really have to cut the regulations red tape that make it almost

00:17:46.180 impossible to to build homes at a profitable way um but i also think you gotta ease up on the easy

00:17:51.940 money that we've been living off of right for how long have has canada's economy economy sorry been

00:17:58.660 living off of just easy money in the printing press yeah yeah we we continue to print money

00:18:04.020 uh to our own detriment uh just to keep afloat i mean the other thing that i wanted to touch on and

00:18:08.900 maybe you can uh just kind of look to the future a little bit uh your group is always on the watch

00:18:14.340 you're the watchdog in my mind that canadians have uh on their tax dollars is there anything

00:18:20.820 that we're missing on the horizon right now that you just think okay i need to plant a seed with

00:18:25.220 people to keep an eye on this what do you what's on the horizon that uh you've got your watch on

00:18:30.660 yeah and i'm just pulling up my notes right now because i want to get this right so i know you

00:18:34.900 were talking about gas prices right obviously gas prices are soaring i'm just looking at some

00:18:40.020 some of the prices right now i mean in ottawa where i am uh all of the taxes that you pay so

00:18:46.340 look you have federal gas tax provincial gas tax you have hidden carbon taxes you even then have

00:18:53.060 federal and the provincial government imposing sales taxes on top of the taxes uh the gas taxes

00:18:58.980 are costing about 45 cents per liter of gas in ottawa and so one thing i want to point out is

00:19:04.100 that you've already started to see countries around the world start to cut gas taxes in response

00:19:09.780 right so we've already seen italy australia spain ireland portugal we've seen slovenia we've seen

00:19:16.420 serbia they have already started to cut gas taxes uh so that's one thing to keep an eye on i bet

00:19:22.180 you it's a very good bet that many more countries will start to cut gas taxes to provide a little

00:19:27.140 bit of relief um so we should be seeing that same type of relief here in canada okay well look let's

00:19:33.540 let's make some noise about that i hope that that's on the agenda for our government if not i'm sure

00:19:38.180 that they're going to hear about it from franco uh and the uh the uh amazing folks at the federation

00:19:45.300 uh listen i want people to be able to get behind what you're doing how do you recommend they do

00:19:49.860 that if people want to support you uh sign up and follow along please help us do that well the best

00:19:56.740 place to go and first i really appreciate uh you i appreciate that and i appreciate this conversation

00:20:01.700 um the best place to go like our real central web is our website and it's taxpayer.com

00:20:06.900 uh all the information is right there it's taxpayer.com you can also follow along on pretty

00:20:11.860 much every social media channel just type in canadian taxpayers federation and we're pretty

00:20:16.340 active on social media i have a lot of fun uh posting on x or twitter uh you can follow me

00:20:20.980 there at franco underscore nomics but best place is taxpayer.com you raise a good point your social

00:20:27.380 media gets a lot of very cool conversations going uh between canadians so uh enjoy the post but

00:20:33.700 certainly make your way down to the comments franco terrazzano thank you so much for being here hey

00:20:38.500 Thank you.

00:20:46.500 Patriotic means looking up for each other and fixing things together.

00:20:50.500 True patriotism is being in the country you love, surrounded by people you love and great weather.

00:20:56.500 Being a patriot is being a part of your community and caring for it.

00:20:59.500 It doesn't matter who you are or where you're from, patriotism is the one thing we all share.

00:21:04.500 it's okay to be critical of government and still be a patriot it's gratitude to

00:21:10.080 your country of course I'm a patriot I'm Canadian it's my home well actually

00:21:14.880 true patriot love is the mission

True Patriot Love - April 02, 2026

Capital Gains Tax SHUT DOWN — How Taxpayers Beat the Government

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