National
Trudeau must prove he won’t tax our homes
From the Canadian Taxpayers Federation
Author: Franco Terrazzano
Actions speak louder the words. That’s especially true when those words come from a politician with a track record of breaking promises and hiking taxes.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says he won’t send the taxman after Canadians’ homes. But if Trudeau wants Canadians to believe he won’t impose a home equity tax, there’s one thing he must do: end the CRA’s home reporting requirement.
In 2016, the Trudeau government made it mandatory for Canadians to report the sale of their primary residence even though it’s tax-exempt. If you sell your home, the CRA wants to know how much money you received from that sale. But if the taxman isn’t taxing it, why is the taxman asking that question? Is the CRA just curious?
Official Opposition Leader Pierre Poilievre confirmed to the Canadian Taxpayers Federation he would remove this reporting requirement if he forms government.
Trudeau must do the same. Otherwise, Canadians should worry a home equity tax is right around the corner. As Toronto Sun Columnist Brian Lilley recently wrote, “For Justin Trudeau and his Liberal Party, taxing your primary residence is a bad idea they just can’t quit.”
On June 25, Trudeau attended “a private town hall about generational fairness,” hosted by Generation Squeeze, a group advocating for home taxes.
What do you notice about the theme of that town hall? The government recently used the cloak of generational fairness to impose its capital gains tax hike.
The Trudeau government also spent hundreds of thousands funding and promoting a report from Generation Squeeze that complained of the “housing wealth windfalls gained by many home owners while they sleep and watch TV.”
The report recommended charging a tax on the value of homes above $1 million. The tax would cost Canadians up to $5.8 billion every year, and it would hit many normal Canadians. In British Columbia and Toronto, the typical home price is above $1 million.
Trying to improve affordability with tax hikes is like trying to boil water with your freezer. Higher taxes won’t make homes affordable. Consider this insight 50 pages into the report.
“Owners of homes valued over $1 million that include informal rental suites may try to recover the surtax by passing some of its cost on to renters,” reads the report.
It turns out higher taxes can make things cost more.
The head of Generation Squeeze was invited to a cabinet ministers’ retreat in Charlottetown last summer.
Documents uncovered by the CTF show staff in the prime minister’s office met twice with the head of Generation Squeeze, which included “a briefing about the tax policy recommendation.”
Trudeau has an appetite for taxing people’s homes. His recent capital gains tax hike will impact Canadians who sell secondary residences and cottages. He imposed a so-called anti-flipping home tax. And Trudeau taxes homes the government deems “underused.”
With Trudeau scrounging through the couch cushions looking for more money to paper over his deficits, Canadians should worry a home equity tax is next.
A home equity tax would come with a big bill for a young couple looking to upgrade to a family home or for grandparents who rely on the equity in their home to fund their golden years.
As an example, Canadians that bought their Toronto home for $250,000 in 1980 and sold it for $1.2 million today would pay between $50,000 and $190,000, depending on the type of home equity tax.
The Trudeau government has repeatedly flirted with home equity taxes. The only way for Trudeau to put Canadians’ minds at ease is to act and remove the requirement for taxpayers to report the sale of their home to the CRA.
Bruce Dowbiggin
Hunting Poilievre Covers For Upcoming Demographic Collapse After Boomers
For those not familiar with hunting seasons in Canada it may come as a surprise that the nation has a year-round hunting season. That would be the targeting of Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre by the massed army of Liberals, their bots and the richly endowed media pack. Forget he’s never held power. He’s to blame for the ills in Canadian society.
It has been a good hunt. After floor-crossing by dissident CPC, the Liberals are one seat from the majority that Canadian voters denied them in the spring. (They’ll likely get the majority soon.) MPs who a day earlier were at Conservative Xmas parties suddenly sang the praises of Carney. MPs in ridings targeted by the Chinese suddenly joined Team Elbow Up.
All the while the media corps landed blows from their perch. Robert Benzie: “I know that Premier [Danielle] Smith is very unhappy privately with Pierre Poilievre because she thinks that [MOU motion] is undermining this [pipeline] project.” The nadir of the media dog pile was formerly eminent scribe Robert Fife who sniped, “Conservatives persist with cute legislative tricks, while the government tries to run a country.” Run a country. That’s rich.
From his lips to Liberal brains, however. “.@CBCNews and @AlJazeeraWorld viewers consider themselves uniquely informed, says @ElectionsCan_E report. The two TV networks were named by self-described “informed” voters when asked where they got their news. “
It is, seemingly, a great time to be a Liberal. Or not. While Operation Poilievre was gathering steam for Xmas polling revealed that Liberals and Conservatives remain locked in a tie, and Canadians continue to express ambivalence about the country’s direction, mixed feelings about their leaders, and sharp divides by generation, region, and policy concern. These generational discrepancies continue to be buried.

As was the case in the spring, the Liberals are supported only by the Boomer generation that swallowed Elbows Up nostalgia like a fat man on a donut. The under 60s demo at every level shows the current Carney agenda is a loser for them. In the segment of house-rich Boomers the Libs lead 50-31 over CPC. But in every other category it’s “how can I get out of here faster?”
The 45-59 demo it’s 46-36 Conservatives; 30-44 it’s a whopping 48-31 CPC; 18-29 it’s 40-39 CPC. A healthy chunk of Liberal supporting from the collapse of NDP vote. Where they used to poll in the 20s, the highest demo shows 11 percent support. Otherwise Poilievere would be PM.
Meanwhile, research now finds that 54 percent of Canadians say the growing number of newcomers to the country threatens our traditional customs and values— an increase of sixteen points since 2020. Over the same period, the share of Canadians who say immigration strengthens our society fell thirteen points to 35%
In short, the Carney Circus of marrying Canada to China and the EU is a card trick that will be exposed shortly. But where do we see the Ottawa press corps attention to this impending demographic snow plow? As we wrote in March “It’s not hard to see the (under 60s) looking at the Mike Myers obsession with a long-gone Canada and saying let’s get out of here.
Recently former TVOntario host Steve Pakin attended two convocations. The first at the former Ryerson University, (switched to Toronto Metropolitan University in a fit of settler colonizer guilt.) The second at Queens University, traditionally one of the elite schools in the nation. Here’s what he saw.
“At the end of the (TMU) convocation, when Charles Falzon, on his final day as dean of TMU’s Creative School, asked students to stand and sing the national anthem, many refused. They remained seated. Then, when the singing began, it was abundantly noticeable that almost none of the students sang along. And it wasn’t because they didn’t know the words, which were projected on a big screen. The unhappy looks on their faces clearly indicated a different, more political, explanation.
“I asked some of the TMU staff about it after the ceremony was over, and they confirmed what I saw happens all the time at convocations. Then I texted the president of another Ontario university who agreed: this is a common phenomenon among this generation at post-secondary institutions.”
At Queens, where Canadian flags were almost non-existent, O Canada was sung, but the message of unrest was clear: “Convocation sends a message of social stability,” Queen’s principal Patrick Deane began in his speech. “It is a ceremony shaped in history. You should value your connection to the past, but question that inheritance. Focus on the kind of society you’d like to inhabit.”
You can bet Deane is not telling them to question climate change and trans rights. As Paikin observes, “if we fail to create a more perfect union, we shouldn’t be surprised when a vast swath of young people don’t sing our anthem the way so many of the rest of us do.” So why are the best and brightest so reluctant to see as future in becoming the new professional class that runs society?
In the Free Press River Page searched the source of their discontent. “If the Great Recession, Covid-19, and the spectre of an artificial intelligence-assisted ‘white collar bloodbath’ has taught the professional class anything, it is that their credentials cannot save them. This insecurity, compounded by the outrageous cost of living in many large cities, has pushed the PMC’s anxieties to the breaking point.

“Add that to the triumph of identity politics in professional class institutions like universities, corporate C-suites, non-governmental organizations, and media—itself a byproduct of inter-elite competition as many have observed—and what you have is the modern left.
“… they’ve already come to the baffling conclusion that there’s no difference between class struggle and child sex changes. More to the point, the socialist mantra “From each according to his ability, to each according to his need” has only ever stood the test of time in Anabaptist sects. It requires a religious devotion to self-sacrifice that is not characteristic of this anxious and hyper-competitive class—as many actual socialists have spent the last decade warning.”
The tsunami over immigration has caused severe dislocations— as PM Steven Harper predicted in the 2015 election debate. He was shouted down by the dopey dauphin Justin Trudeau who opened the sluice gates to every kind of progressive nonsense. Which is now evident.
Like all people addicted, CDN Boomers don’t want the truth. They want performance theatre, T-shirts and hockey games. They blame Trump for their predicament, caught between grim realities. Will they take the 12 steps? Or will their kids have to tell them the facts as they escort them to the home?” We’re now seeing the likely answer to that question everywhere in Canadian society.
Bruce Dowbiggin @dowbboy is the editor of Not The Public Broadcaster A two-time winner of the Gemini Award as Canada’s top television sports broadcaster, his 2025 book Deal With It: The Trades That Stunned The NHL And Changed hockey is now available on Amazon. Inexact Science: The Six Most Compelling Draft Years In NHL History, his previous book with his son Evan, was voted the seventh-best professional hockey book of all time by bookauthority.org . His new poetry collection In Other Words is available via brucedowbigginbooks.ca and on Kindle books
Business
State of the Canadian Economy: Number of publicly listed companies in Canada down 32.7% since 2010
From the Fraser Institute
By Ben Cherniavsky and Jock Finlayson
Initial public offerings down 94% since 2010, reflecting country’s economic stagnation
Canadian equity markets are flashing red lights reflective of the larger stagnation, lack of productivity growth and lacklustre innovation of the
country’s economy, with the number of publicly listed companies down 32.7 per cent and initial public offerings down 92.5 per cent since 2010, finds a new report published Friday by the Fraser Institute, an independent, non-partisan Canadian public policy think-tank.
“Even though the value of the companies trading on Canada’s stock exchanges has risen substantially over time, there has been an alarming decrease in the number of companies listed on the exchanges as well as the number of companies choosing to go public,” said Ben Cherniavsky, co-author of Canada’s Shrinking Stock Market: Causes and Implications for Future Economic Growth.
The study finds that over the past 15 years, the number of companies listed on Canada’s two stock markets (the TSX and the TSXV) has fallen from 3,141 in 2010 to 2,114 in 2024—a 32.7 per cent decline.
Similarly, the number of new public stock listings (IPOs) on the two Canadian exchanges has also plummeted from 67 in 2010 to just four in 2024, and only three the year before.
Previous research has shown that well-functioning, diverse public stock markets are significant contributors to economic growth, higher productivity and innovation by supplying financing (i.e. money) to the business sector to enable growth and ongoing investments.
At the same time, the study also finds an explosion of investment in what’s known as private equity in Canada, increasing assets under management from $21.7 billion (US) in 2010 to over $93.1 billion (US) in 2024.
“The shift to private equity has enormous implications for average investors, since it’s difficult if not impossible for average investors to access private equity funds for their savings and investments,” explained Cherniavsky.
Crucially, the study makes several recommendations to revitalize Canada’s stagnant capital markets, including reforming Canada’s complicated regulatory regime for listed companies, scaling back corporate disclosure requirements, and pursuing policy changes geared to improving Canada’s lacklustre performance on business investment, productivity growth, and new business formation.
“Public equity markets play a vital role in raising capital for the business sector to expand, and they also provide an accessible and low-cost way for Canadians to invest in the commercial success of domestic businesses,” said Jock Finlayson, a senior fellow with the Fraser Institute and study co-author.
“Policymakers and all Canadians should be concerned by the alarming decline in the number of publicly traded companies in Canada, which risks economic stagnation and lower living standards ahead.”
Canada’s Shrinking Stock Market: Causes and Implications for Future Economic Growth
- Public equity markets are an important part of the wider financial system.
- Since the early 2000s, the number of public companies has fallen in many countries, including Canada. In 2008, for instance, Canada had 3,520 publicly traded companies on its two exchanges, compared to 2,114 in 2024.
- This trend reflects [1] the impact of mergers and acquisitions, [2] greater access to private capital, [3] increasing regulatory and governance costs facing publicly traded businesses, and [4] the growth of index investing.
- Canada’s poor business climate, including many years of lacklustre business investment and little or no productivity growth, has also contributed to the decline in stock exchange listings.
- The number of new public stock listings (IPOs) on Canadian exchanges has plummeted: between 2008 and 2013, the average was 47 per year, but this dropped to 16 between 2014 and 2024, with only 5 new listings recorded in 2024.
- At the same time, the value of private equity in Canada has skyrocketed from $12.8 billion in 2008 to $93.2 billion in 2024. These trends are concerning, as most Canadians cannot easily access private equity investment vehicles, so their domestic investment options are shrinking.
- The growth of index investing is contributing to the decline in public listings, particularly among smaller companies. In 2008, there were 1,232 listed companies on the TSX Composite and 84 exchange-traded funds; in 2024, there were only 709 listed companies on the TSX and 1,052 exchange-traded funds.
- The trends discussed in this study are also important because Canada has relied more heavily than other jurisdictions on public equity markets to finance domestic businesses.
- Revitalizing Canada’s stagnant stock markets requires policy reforms, particularly regulatory changes to reduce costs to issuers and policies to improve the conditions for private-sector investment and business growth.
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