One Comment About Taxation – A Package of Tax Measures Vs. True Tax Reform: Canada Needs True Tax Reform

A couple of weeks ago, a bear broke through the electric fence around my beehives and destroyed all three of them. Every colony, every frame, a season’s work gone. I was sad. I love working with and watching those amazing hard-working creatures.  And the honey is delicious!

 

If I ordered new bees in the spring and set them behind the same fence, I would be setting the hives up for a short life. Instead, I’ll figure out what a better fence system is and ensure it won’t fail again. I won’t skip that foundational step since I don’t want to give the bear another gourmet buffet.

 

British Columbia just got a new beekeeper. On October 24, voters gave the B.C. Conservatives a majority government. They rejected both the NDP’s plan to raise top tax rates and the Greens’ wealth tax. Good.

 

The Conservatives have promised to raise the provincial basic personal amount in 2027 from $13,216 to $32,000, cutting provincial income tax by about $1,000 for anyone who owes at least that much, and by $2,000 or more for a two-earner couple. Premier-designate Lorne Doerkson says it’s his first major bill.

 

The Conservatives have also promised to permanently cancel the NDP’s expansion of the provincial sales tax to professional services such as accounting, engineering and commercial real estate.

 

But the most important promise is the least flashy. The Conservative platform commits to appointing a “blue-ribbon panel” that will report within 180 days with a comprehensive plan to simplify B.C.’s tax system, make it more efficient and help to attract investment. Separately, an independent panel will review the province’s true fiscal position before the first budget is tabled.

 

Find out why the fence failed. Then restock. Novel. The devil will be in the details of the panels’ mandate, but I’m encouraged a government is willing to go down that path. There are caveats. The Conservatives’ fiscal plan leans on optimistic growth assumptions of 2.5, 2.8 and 3.2 per cent over the next three years, well above the NDP’s forecast of 1.9, 2.1 and 2.1 per cent. But finding out why the fence failed can turn up nasty surprises, and a $13.8-billion deficit is already one of them.

 

Now consider the federal government, which tables its budget on Thursday.

 

Last week, government sources said tax reform will be a key pillar of “a growth and competition budget.” The same report describes the budget as prioritizing tax measures to spur innovation and competitiveness. That smells a lot to me like selling a package of sexy tax measures as tax reform. I’ve never been a fan of budget leaks. Canadians should mourn the lost art of budget secrecy. Leaks let a government sell the label before anyone reads the fine print.

 

One big tax measure is already public. The Productivity Mega Deduction, announced on September 15, expands immediate expensing of capital assets and makes it permanent. It’s a good measure for capital-intensive businesses but it is hardly tax reform.

 

Thursday may bring more. Incentives for startups? Personal and corporate tax rate reductions? Capital gains deferral measures? I’ll welcome many of them.

 

But, again, a package of attractive tax measures, however welcome, isn’t tax reform.

 

Reform asks how the whole system fits together: rates and base, personal, corporate and GST, what to remove as well as what to add. It’s slow, unglamorous work done by independent experts with a clear mandate, a deadline and a public report. Canada has done it before, with the Royal Commission on Taxation in the 1960s, Michael Wilson’s tax reform in the 1980s and the Mintz Technical Committee on Business Taxation in the 1990s. We know how to fix a failing system but we have avoided doing the right thing for quite some time. Instead, we keep repairing individual pieces of a tax system without asking whether the system itself is fit for purpose.

 

And not all repairs are equal. A targeted tax incentive at least leaves the decision with the business owner.  A government cheque doesn’t. As policy economist Charles Lammam wrote last week, we’re in a real crisis when the entrepreneurial class believes handouts from government, such as equity stakes and venture capital money, are the win. A confident entrepreneurial class, he argues, demands a clearer road, while one losing confidence settles for a government cheque. I agree. We don’t need handouts. We simply need the garden to be fertile. Bees thrive on what’s blooming around them, not on what’s poured into a feeder.

 

During the 2025 federal election campaign, the Liberals promised an “expert review” of the corporate tax system but it has never materialized. Some economists expect it to resurface Thursday. If it does, here’s the test: Is the review independent? Does it cover the whole system? Does it have a deadline? Will the report be public? Anything less is new bees behind the same fence.

 

Why should Canadians care? Because every patch or sexy new tax measure changes the rules you plan around and adds another layer of complexity: when to buy equipment, how to pay yourself from your company, when to sell a business or the family cottage, even whether to accept that new job offer. Stable rules let you plan. Rules rewritten budget by budget, leak by leak, don’t. Scottish economist Adam Smith understood this 250 years ago: “The tax which each individual is bound to pay ought to be certain, and not arbitrary.” Certainty is one of his four maxims of a good tax system. Canada keeps failing it.

 

On Thursday, we’ll see whether the federal government has finally asked why the fence failed or simply ordered more bees. My money is on the bees.

 

A bear that finds an easy meal keeps coming back. Lose your hives often enough and you either stop keeping bees or move them somewhere safer. Too many Canadians, from young people starting out to the successful ones we can least afford to lose, are already making that choice.

 

One Comment About Leadership – Before You Tear Down a Fence, Find Out Why It’s There

 

In 1929, English writer G.K. Chesterton offered a simple test for anyone eager to change things. Imagine a fence or gate erected across a road. One reformer / leader walks up to it and says, “I don’t see the use of this; let us clear it away.” A wiser reformer / leader tells him to go away and think, and to come back only when he can explain why the fence is there.

 

It’s become known as Chesterton’s fence. Nearly a century later, it remains some of the best leadership advice I know.

 

New leaders are especially vulnerable. A new CEO, a new partner, a new department head, a new government. Everyone is watching, and the pressure to look decisive is enormous. The quickest way to look decisive is to tear something down: the approval process that slows everything, the monthly meeting nobody likes, the policy that seems to exist only to annoy people.

 

Some of those fences should go. Plenty were built for problems that no longer exist. But some are keeping out a bear you haven’t encountered yet. That approval step may be there because someone once signed a contract that nearly sank the company. That monthly meeting may be the only place two departments actually talk. You won’t know the history, purpose and context until you ask. Or do some good research.

 

The opposite mistake is just as common. When something breaks, leaders rush to replace it without asking why it failed. A key hire quits, so you hire someone just like them. A project collapses, so you relaunch it with a bigger budget. Same fence, new bees.

 

Both mistakes come from the same place: acting before understanding.

 

A few practical habits help:

 

• Ask what problem the process was trying to solve. Before you cut a process, policy or role, find out who created it and why.

 

• Separate the symptom from the cause. Keep asking “why?” until you reach something you can actually fix.

 

• Listen before you act. In a new role, spend your first weeks asking questions, not announcing changes.

 

• Then act. Understanding isn’t an excuse for paralysis. Chesterton never said leave the fence up forever. He said come back when you know what it’s for.

 

Leaders – being decisive isn’t always about speed. It’s about knowing why before deciding what.

 

Understand the fence. Then decide.

 

One Comment About Economics / Politics  – Canada’s Economy Has Stalled. Ask Why Before Trying to Fix It.

 

On October 30, 2026 Statistics Canada reported that Canada’s real gross domestic product (GDP) was “essentially unchanged” in August. It was the second straight month of no growth. StatCan’s advance estimate for September is a decline of 0.1 per cent.

 

The economy still grew 0.3 per cent in the third quarter, so this isn’t a recession. But it is a stall.

 

Tomorrow, the federal government tables its budget. The temptation will be to treat a stall as a call for more: more programs, more credits, more spending to “kick-start” growth.

 

Before Ottawa writes any cheques, it should ask why the economy has stalled. StatCan offered a clue, tucked into its finance and insurance numbers. That sector grew in August, “driven by higher mutual funds activity and coinciding with increased gold purchases, as investors hedged against policy risks, trade uncertainties and geopolitical tensions.”

 

Read that again. Canada’s own statistical agency is recording that investors are buying gold as a hedge. And policy risk is on the list.

 

Gold doesn’t build a plant or hire a worker. It’s what people buy when they don’t trust what comes next.

 

Canada’s federal government can’t control what the United States does on trade or what happens in the rest of the world. But it can control its own policies. When the rules change every budget, when measures leak early and when new ones come out of nowhere, investors can’t plan. So, they hedge.

 

If uncertainty is a big part of the problem, more spending won’t fix it. A government cheque can’t buy confidence. Stable, simple and predictable rules can.

 

So, when the budget lands, ask one question of every measure: does it make the rules clearer and more predictable, or does it add another layer?

 

A flat economy is the symptom. Find the cause before reaching for the cure.

 

Bonus Comment – From G.K. Chesterton –  English Writer – About Reform

 

“If you don’t see the use of it, I certainly won’t let you clear it away. Go away and think. Then, when you can come back and tell me that you do see the use of it, I may allow you to destroy it.”

 

Agree. Tearing something down is easy. Knowing what you’re tearing down is the job.

 

I hope today’s newsletter has been thought-provoking for you.

 

As many of you know, I’m passionate about helping people make better decisions – whether in tax, leadership, or business. If you’d like to go deeper on those topics, my recently released book, Making Life Less Taxing Version Two is now available and expands on many of the practical ideas I’ve written about over the years.

 

I’m also putting the finishing touches on my next book, Leadership Compounds: How Small Decisions Build Culture, Credibility, and Legacy. It explores a simple but powerful idea: leadership isn’t about grand gestures – it’s about the small, consistent decisions that compound over time.

 

For those interested in a more hands-on approach, I’ll soon be announcing a bespoke consulting initiative – The Acorn Growth Program – designed to help leaders and organizations grow intentionally, one small (but important) decision at a time. Feel free to reach out to me directly for more information.

 

And if you’re not already on my mailing list, feel free to sign up for my In the Mood Network newsletters to receive more content. No fluff – just practical insights on tax, leadership, and economic policy.

 

Thanks for reading. As always, I welcome your thoughts and feedback.

 

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