Business
Federal government’s capital gains tax hike is worse than you think

From the Fraser Institute
By Jake Fuss and Grady Munro
Following the recent plunge in Canadian and U.S. stock markets, many Canadians likely saw a sharp decline in the value of their investments. Yet as Canadians reckon with this sudden change, other factors help reduce the return on their investments—namely, higher capital gains taxes.
When an investor sells a capital asset (i.e. stocks) for a higher price than they originally bought it, they realize a capital gain. Prior to this year, investors would pay tax on 50 per cent of any gain (based on their highest marginal personal income tax rate), but the Trudeau government recently increased that inclusion rate to 66.7 per cent for capital gains above $250,000.
This increase will cause economic damage and increase taxes for many middle-class Canadians—despite being framed by the government as a tax increase on the wealthy. And the effect is even more harmful than it first appears because capital gains taxes don’t adjust for inflation.
Inflation, the general rise in the prices of goods and services in the economy, erodes the purchasing power of money. For example, if a basket of goods costs $100 in Year 1, and annual inflation is 4 per cent, that exact same basket would cost $104 in Year 2. The Bank of Canada maintains a target inflation rate of 2 per cent per year, but in recent years the rate has well-exceeded that target.
From 2021 to 2023, Canada experienced an average annual inflation rate of 4.7 per cent. And though inflation is easing and fell to 2.5 per cent last month, by the end of this year prices are still expected to be 17.5 per cent higher than they were in 2020. For comparison, prices increased 6.7 per cent from 2016 to 2020.
While inflation erodes the purchasing power of one dollar, it also erodes the returns people receive from their investments. If an asset increases in value by 5 per cent over one year, but inflation is 4 per cent, the asset’s real value has increased by just 1 percentage point. In other words, of the total 5 per cent gain, 4 percentage points are the “inflationary” gain while 1 percentage point is the “real” gain.
Which takes us back to the Trudeau government’s tax hike on capital gains. Unlike income thresholds for federal personal income taxes, which are adjusted to account for inflation, capital gains taxes don’t distinguish between “inflationary” and “real” gains. Therefore, even if a realized capital gain is solely inflationary—meaning there’s no increase in real wealth—the federal government will still levy the same amount of tax as it would if there was no inflation at all.
This is what’s happening right now. After years of high inflation, inflationary gains represent a significant share of the capital gains Canadians are currently realizing. For example, from the beginning of 2020 to the end of 2023, the S&P/TSX Composite Index (Canada’s benchmark stock market index) increased 22.6 per cent. However, after adjusting for inflation (a cumulative 14.7 per cent), that 22.6 per cent represents a real gain of less than 8.0 per cent. As such, a large portion of revenue the Trudeau government expects to generate from raising capital gains taxes will originate from inflationary gains rather than actual increases in asset values.
As Canadians struggle with a weak economy, the Trudeau government’s recent capital gains tax hike will only add to the problem. But after years of high inflation, the effect is even worse than you might think.
Authors:
Alberta
COWBOY UP! Pierre Poilievre Promises to Fight for Oil and Gas, a Stronger Military and the Interests of Western Canada

Fr0m Energy Now
As Calgarians take a break from the incessant news of tariff threat deadlines and global economic challenges to celebrate the annual Stampede, Conservative party leader Pierre Poilievre gave them even more to celebrate.
Poilievre returned to Calgary, his hometown, to outline his plan to amplify the legitimate demands of Western Canada and not only fight for oil and gas, but also fight for the interests of farmers, for low taxes, for decentralization, a stronger military and a smaller federal government.
Speaking at the annual Conservative party BBQ at Heritage Park in Calgary (a place Poilievre often visited on school trips growing up), he was reminded of the challenges his family experienced during the years when Trudeau senior was Prime Minister and the disastrous effect of his economic policies.
“I was born in ’79,” Poilievre said. “and only a few years later, Pierre Elliott Trudeau would attack our province with the National Energy Program. There are still a few that remember it. At the same time, he hammered the entire country with money printing deficits that gave us the worst inflation and interest rates in our history. Our family actually lost our home, and we had to scrimp and save and get help from extended family in order to get our little place in Shaughnessy, which my mother still lives in.”
This very personal story resonated with many in the crowd who are now experiencing an affordability crisis that leaves families struggling and young adults unable to afford their first house or condo. Poilievre said that the experience was a powerful motivator for his entry into politics. He wasted no time in proposing a solution – build alliances with other provinces with mutual interests, and he emphasized the importance of advocating for provincial needs.
“Let’s build an alliance with British Columbians who want to ship liquefied natural gas out of the Pacific Coast to Asia, and with Saskatchewanians, Newfoundlanders and Labradorians who want to develop their oil and gas and aren’t interested in having anyone in Ottawa cap how much they can produce. Let’s build alliances with Manitobans who want to ship oil in the port of Churchill… with Quebec and other provinces that want to decentralize our country and get Ottawa out of our business so that provinces and people can make their own decisions.”
Poilievre heavily criticized the federal government’s spending and policies of the last decade, including the increase in government costs, and he highlighted the negative impact of those policies on economic stability and warned of the dangers of high inflation and debt. He advocated strongly for a free-market economy, advocating for less government intervention, where businesses compete to impress customers rather than impress politicians. He also addressed the decade-long practice of blocking and then subsidizing certain industries. Poilievre referred to a famous quote from Ronald Reagan as the modus operandi of the current federal regime.
“The Government’s view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases. If anything moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.”
The practice of blocking and then subsidizing is merely a ploy to grab power, according to Poilievre, making industry far too reliant on government control.
“By blocking you from doing something and then making you ask the government to help you do it, it makes you reliant. It puts them at the center of all power, and that is their mission…a full government takeover of our economy. There’s a core difference between an economy controlled by the government and one controlled by the free market. Businesses have to clamour to please politicians and bureaucrats. In a free market (which we favour), businesses clamour to impress customers. The idea is to put people in charge of their economic lives by letting them have free exchange of work for wages, product for payment and investment for interest.”
Poilievre also said he plans to oppose any ban on gas-powered vehicles, saying, “You should be in the driver’s seat and have the freedom to decide.” This is in reference to the Trudeau-era plan to ban the sale of gas-powered cars by 2035, which the Carney government has said they have no intention to change, even though automakers are indicating that the targets cannot be met. He also intends to oppose the Industrial Carbon tax, Bill C-69 the Impact Assessment Act, Bill C-48 the Oil tanker ban, the proposed emissions cap which will cap energy production, as well as the single-use plastics ban and Bill C-11, also known as the Online Streaming Act and the proposed “Online Harms Act,” also known as Bill C-63. Poilievre closed with rallying thoughts that had a distinctive Western flavour.
“Fighting for these values is never easy. Change, as we’ve seen, is not easy. Nothing worth doing is easy… Making Alberta was hard. Making Canada, the country we love, was even harder. But we don’t back down, and we don’t run away. When things get hard, we dust ourselves off, we get back in the saddle, and we gallop forward to the fight.”
Cowboy up, Mr. Poilievre.
Maureen McCall is an energy professional who writes on issues affecting the energy industry.
Business
Carney’s new agenda faces old Canadian problems

From the Fraser Institute
In his June speech announcing a major buildup of Canada’s military, Prime Minister Mark Carney repeated his belief that this country faces a “hinge moment” of the sort the allied countries confronted after the Second World War.
A better comparison might be with the beginning of the war itself.
Then, the Allies found themselves at war with an autocratic state bent on their defeat and possible destruction. Now, Carney faces an antagonistic American president bent on annexing Canada through economic warfare.
Then, Canada rose to the challenge, creating the world’s third-largest navy and landing an army at Normandy on D-Day. Now, Carney has announced the most aggressive reorienting of Canada’s economic, foreign and defence policies in generations.
Polls show strong support among Canadians for this new agenda. But the old Canada is still there. It will fight back. It may yet win.
The situation certainly would have been more encouraging had Carney not inherited Justin Trudeau’s legacy of severe economic and environmental restrictions—picking economic winners and losers rather than letting the market decide—and chronic deficits. The new prime minister would do well to dismantle as much of that legacy as he can.
Some advocate a return to the more laissez-faire approach of Stephen Harper’s government. But Harper didn’t confront a belligerent president hoping to annex Canada through the “economic force” of tariff walls.
The prime minister succeeded in getting Bill C-5, which is intended to weaken at least some of the restrictions on resource development and infrastructure, passed into law. He and the premiers pledge to finally dismantle generations of internal trade and labour mobility barriers. If we must trade less with the Americans, we can at least learn to trade with ourselves.
And the prime minister deserves high praise for reversing decades of military decline through increased spending and efforts to improve procurement. If Carney accomplishes nothing more than restoring Canada’s defences, especially in the Arctic, he will be well remembered.
That said, major challenges confront the Carney agenda.
There’s much talk about a new national energy corridor. But what does that mean? One KPMG executive defined it as a “dedicated, streamlined pathway for the energy, electricity, decarbonization, transportation and digital infrastructure.”
Yes, but what does that mean?
Whatever it means, some First Nations will oppose it tooth-and-nail. Not all of them, mind you. The First Nations Major Project Coalition is dedicated to assisting First Nations in working with government and the private sector for the benefit of all. But many First Nations people consider resource development further exploitation of their ancestral lands by a colonizing power. At the first major proposal to which they do not buy in, they will take the government to court.
What investor will be willing to commit to a project that could be blocked for years as First Nations and Ottawa fight it out all the way to the Supreme Court?
The prime minister, formerly a fervent advocate of combatting climate change, now talks about developing “conventional energy,” which means oil and gas pipelines. But environmental activists will fiercely oppose those pipelines.
There is so much that could go wrong. Sweep away those internal trade barriers? Some premiers will resist. Accelerate housing development? Some mayors will resist. Expand exports to Europe and Asia? Some businesses and entrepreneurs will say it’s not worth the risk.
As for the massive increase in defence spending, where will the money come from? What will be next year’s deficit? What will be the deficit’s impact on inflation, interest rates and sovereign creditworthiness? The obstacles are high enough to make anyone wonder how much, if any, of the government’s platform will be realized. But other factors are at work as well, factors that were also present in 1939.
To execute his mandate, Carney is surrounding himself with what, back in the Second World War, were called “dollar a year men”—executives who came to Ottawa from the private sector to mobilize the economy for wartime.
In Carney’s case he has brought in Marc-André Blanchard as chief of staff and Michael Sabia as clerk of the privy council. Both are highly experienced in government and the private sector. Both are taking very large pay cuts because, presumably, they understand the gravity of the times and believe in the prime minister’s plans.
Most important, Carney’s agenda has broad support from a public that fears for the country’s future and will have little patience toward any group seeking to block the prime minister’s agenda.
Millions of Canadians want this government’s reform efforts to succeed. Those who would put it at risk of failing will have to contend with public anger. That gives Carney a shot at making real change.
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