Just lower taxes across the board.
Fraser Institute- The Cost of Business Subsidies in Canada: Updated Edition
Business subsidies delivered through government spending since 1961 came with significant costs to Canadian taxpayers.
In 2019, provincial business subsidies reached $27.0 billion ($2022). This represents the single largest year of provincial subsidies in Canadian history prior to COVID.
Federal business subsidies increased significantly as a result of COVID-related programs, reaching $88.5 billion in 2020 and $47.0 billion in 2021.
Although federal business subsidies declined in 2022, the new total ($11.2 billion) is nearly double the amount the federal government spent in the final pre-COVID year ($6.5 billion in 2019).
Picking winners is the only way to get grift and serve yourself. That’s why it’s not in the interest of the institutions to trim anything. Only solution is a ruthlessly small government.
H
Another cost of subsidies never mentioned, it leads to the misallocation of capital. “Green” energy is a prime example of this. Gov’ts propping up losers, with borrowed money, has chased capital away from the productive energy sector who has been suffering for decades from under investment.
Like they say, it’s a feature not a bug.
And it also has the knock-on effect of draining the consumers pocket. I know that $1,000.00/mo. PG&E … “New Green Energy” bills hamper my consumer habits.
The more the state interferes in the economy, the more moribund the business community and dependent on subsidies. The Canadian economy is now a fascist economy where the state is driving or attempting to drive virtually everything. Instead of the waring fascists of the last century, we are governed by happy-faced fascists dancing to the tune of global elites, cultural Marxists and death-cult NGOs.
Many more examples of governments mixing into worlds they don’t understand (with our money) here:
https://www.theaudit.ca/p/government-and-the-fine-art-of-chasing
I sat on the board of an Ontario Corporation that I sold my American company to. Everyone except for me was a pathetic money-grubbing cheapskate Liberal. Before I took on my Canadian partners, I had built my company up through robust and aggressive sales. Once I had my Canadian partners the company turned into a sniveling groveling subsidy and grant machine. It was awful. We lived and died by what sort of impression some nameless faceless bureaucrat had of us and whether they would toss us a subsidy/grant bone. Canada is and will always remain the place where foreign investment goes to die!
You are absolutely right. Time to leave this God forsaken country and find a new place. The entire “west” is on its way down the toilet.
Or flush the left down to toilet … vote them out … that is what is happening in the EU … There are about 40 federal elections in the world this year … the left is not doing well …. perhaps the folks are waking up.
Every subsidy represents a cost to the taxpayer, but only the taxpayers who actually produce anything and sell it for a profit. Government employees who pay “taxes” do not really pay taxes as they did not produce anything but debt as their salaries and other costs are paid by real taxpayers. A McDonald’s employee actually pays taxes, bureaucrats do not. Accounting sleight of hand does not alter that fact.
It also needs to be pointed out repeatedly, that corporations and companies do not pay taxes, they collect taxes from their customers on behalf of the government (including but not limited to: corporate taxes, excise taxes, sales taxes, and property taxes).
and every one of those taxes is paid with by money that has already been taxed by the government at least once.
Corporations are made up of people, those people pay the taxes with the money that the corporations generate, through the people that work for the corporation. A somewhat different circumstance than government.
Canada send $88 million to Haiti in 2021 (the last year CIDA has data on) in Foreign aid.
So which politician got rich out of it?
An axiom for the ages, often ignored, always perilous, partisan and pathetically ineffective:
Government is poor at picking winners but losers are good at picking government.
Another example:
““On behalf of the residents of Toronto and Council, I am delighted that Toronto has been chosen as a host city for FIFA World Cup 2026. There is no bigger sports tournament on the planet and it will be an opportunity to welcome the world and showcase all that our city has to offer to a global audience.”
– Mayor John Tory”
The cost of this Tory vanity project, is $300million and counting, paid for by taxpayers, the benefit to the people who are paying that $300 million, is -$174 into their pocket, but some venues owned by MLSE will get a whole bunch of benefits, allegedly.
One might ask why MLSE and Tory aren’t paying for it.
Communism by stealth.
Incrementalism will not work. Get over with that WW1 era abomination.
Government does not pick winners, it overwhelmingly pick loosers and tries to turn them into winners, by forcing them onto us as the sole source. It does this by eliminating the competition and artificially proping up their pick. Canada is virtually devoid of competition, if it wasn’t we’d have better (access to) choices.
The government makes it difficult for all non government people and businesses here, as a warning, to intelligent people that the government hates competition and that, if scrutinized, we would come to
the conclusion that we don’t need this level
of government intrusion in our lives..
To the rest of the people, not so equipped, they have ensured that they never find this out by making the populous needful, nay, DESPERATE for government control, because the government has made it so through media, ‘education’ and all the “free stuff”.. Hey, who doesn’t like free stuff, right? Except it’s not free, but hardly anyone has the introspection to figure that out.
In essence, turning us into
“Nothing but grabbastic pieces of amphibian $hit” -Drill Instructor Hartman
The government takes far to much of our money and then throws it away on other country’s wars and poverty.
Let us mind our own business, lower taxation across the board and bring back prosperity to this grossly mismanaged country.
Trudeau must go. We want an election NOW.
Government doesn’t pick winners and losers. Government picks whiners and hosers.
This will get picked up by the trade unions: “Stop picking winners and start picking scabs!”
Know the game.
Feds owe small businesses $2.5 billion in unpaid carbon tax rebates
https://tnc.news/2024/03/11/feds-owe-2-5-billion-unpaid-carbon-rebates/
There are three types of businesses.
1. Ticks that feed on taxpayer blood
2. Jealous, wannabe ticks
3. Proud, stand-aloners
Care to rate the percentage of each in Canada’s business community?