One Comment About Taxation – Tax Branding: A Dangerous Replacement for Financial Literacy   Recently, my sister and I took my 82-year-old French Mom to Northern France for a two-week vacation. We booked several short-term rental accommodations, all of which were excellent – with one exception. That unit turned out to be a three-storey property…

One Comment About Taxation – Canada’s Attempt at Automatic Tax Filing – Does it Make the Grade?   As a tax professional, I suppose I’m expected to defend the annual ritual of tax return filing. But I don’t.   The annual pilgrimage – especially with a shortage of accountants and increased complexity – has become a necessary…

One Comment About Taxation – Taxation Myths….They’re Not Good For You and For Society   I’ve never been to Portugal, but I’ve heard good things – the culture, the towns, the history, the food and wine. My wife and I are planning a trip later this year.   When I mention it in conversation, a…

One Comment About Taxation – Capital Outflows From California and New York Are Not Coming To Canada   Walter Wriston, the former Citicorp CEO, once observed that “capital goes where it’s welcome and stays where it’s well treated.” The line has become tax-policy wallpaper. It is, nevertheless, the most useful sentence in English for thinking…

One Comment About Taxation – Canadians Need to Treat Their Tax Affairs and Financial Literacy Better   Guy Lafleur, who passed in 2022, was my childhood hero. Watching the Flower fly down the wing for the Montreal Canadiens – that mane of blond hair, the goals that made you leap off the couch – was as…

One Comment About Taxation – The April 28, 2026 “Spring Economic Update” –  It’s Ugly   I spent the day of Canada’s Spring Economic Update standing in the Cathédrale Saint-Vincent in St. Malo, France, with my 82-year-old French mother and my sister. The cathedral holds the tomb of Jacques Cartier. A plaque over the tomb, in translation, reads:…

One Comment About Taxation – Canada Doesn’t Need More “Tax Coupons”   *note – I wrote this section before the April 28, 2028 “Spring Update” – you can find my comments on the Spring Update in the Economics section below.   When I was a young boy, I would watch my Mom diligently read the…

One Comment About Taxation – Canada’s Budget Process is Not Cool   There’s a scene in the 1988 comedy The Naked Gun where Leslie Nielsen’s Lt. Frank Drebin waves his arms in front of a fireworks factory that has just exploded and calmly tells the horrified crowd: “Nothing to see here, please disperse.”   I’ve often thought…

One Comment About Taxation – Canada Doesn’t Need to Build Traps to Keep its Successful People and its Youth in Canada   I’m not claustrophobic but put me somewhere with no exit route or way back and something shifts. In my youth, if the job I had was a dead end, I left it. Underwater cave diving…