The capital gains tax is a tax on the very inflation that governments cause
$100 invested in 1984 without any increase in actual value would be worth $266 today, so sold at break+-even, the imaginary but taxable capital gain would be 2/3 x 166, or $111.
Therefore, even if you broke even -- the investment made zero -- you are being taxed on recovering $111 of your own pre-tax invested money.
https://www.inflationtool.com/canadian-dollar/1984-to-present-value?year2=2024&frequency=yearly
That version of history explains everything.
It explains the housing crisis. It explains the energy restrictions. It explains the immigration pressure. It explains the economic stagnation. It explains why a sitting Deputy Prime Minister stood in front of graduates at an American university and asked, out loud, whether capitalist democracy still works.
None of what is happening to Canada is an accident.
The Present Is the Evidence
To understand how Canada arrived at this moment, you first have to look honestly at what is happening right now.
Across Canadian media and social media, a coordinated narrative has been building around what is being called the problem of empty bedrooms. On the surface it sounds like a housing conversation. Look closer and it is something else entirely. The pressure being applied, particularly on elderly Canadians and grandparents who have lived in their homes for decades, is to downsize. To give up their multi-bedroom homes. To turn their large homes into apartment blocks. ...
