The Biggest Lie Canadians Believe About Taxes (Canada: Explained)

Hinzugefügt: 2026-05-23

[00:00:01]So yeah, apparently after my last couple videos about taxes, my comment sections have basically become a support group for people emotionally devastated by their paychecks.

[00:00:14]And one of the most hilarious things I've been reading is the people screaming that Canada is the highest tax country in the world. Folks, Canada doesn't even crack the top 10. And then there's the people whining that taxes were only supposed to be temporary.

[00:00:33]Yeah. And then we discovered we kind of like things like roads, running water, fire departments, and not dying of chalera. So, we need to have a talk about that because one of the biggest myths I keep seeing is this idea that Canada is some uniquely overt taxed nightmare where the government steals half your income while cackling in a cave made of gold bars.

[00:00:58]Canada is not even close to the highest tax country in the world.

[00:01:03]Denmark, France, Belgium, Sweden, Finland, Austria, and Norway all carry higher overall tax burdens than Canada, which is ironic because Alberta separatists like to point to countries like Finland and Norway as shining examples Alberta could model itself after. Seriously. And yet every time taxes come up, people are acting like Canada's one step away from Soviet breadlines.

[00:01:35]Now listen, are taxes annoying? Sure, nobody wakes up excited to pay them. But it turns out folks do really like things like paved roads and public schools, fire departments and libraries, public hospitals, and electricity.

[00:01:51]Crazy, right? A lot of people talk about taxes like the government's just throwing their money into a furnace for fun. So, let's do a little thought experiment. You say you don't want taxes. Cool. Cool. Let's imagine a world without them. You wake up in the morning, turn on the taps. Except, whoops, no municipal water system. So, have fun digging a well by hand. And I hope you enjoy hauling buckets of water into your house because there's no public infrastructure pumping clean potable water into your kitchen. And you better learn how septic systems work real fast. Otherwise, congratulations on your exciting new outhouse experience in February in Edmonton.

[00:02:34]Here's some food for thought. Before public sanitation, human waste was dumped into streets and into rivers.

[00:02:42]Chalera outbreaks were routine and typhoids spread through contaminated wells. Modern sewer systems are arguably one of the greatest public health achievements in human history. But you go on and tell us about how taxes are theft, huh? Yeah. Oh, but you already live on well and septic. Cool. Cool.

[00:03:03]Want to take a guess as to how high your electricity bill gets to pump that well water into your house? Because electricity isn't magically cheap. In many provinces, people pay part of the cost on their bill and part of it through their taxes. Electricity is often subsidized through your taxes. So, the real cost doesn't disappear, just changes columns. Current averageish household electricity bills in Canada run between 150 and 250 a month. Without those major rebates or tax offsets you currently enjoy, the bill goes to $200 to $350 a month. And if you want to go somewhere, better saddle up your horse because paved roads are expensive, bridges are expensive, snow removal's expensive. Turns out civilization is overhead costs. Wild, eh? And folks, people romanticize about the old days way too much. Those good old days were mostly hard labor, disease, dead children, unsafe drinking water, farm injuries, and dying from infections we now cure with antibiotics.

[00:04:10]Before public taxation, many roads were dirt, trails, private toll roads were common, and roads were often seasonally unusable. Even in cities, you had mud, horse waste, flooding, and disease.

[00:04:25]Historically, many bridges charged tolls. private bridge companies existed and dangerous fairies remain common where bridges were unprofitable.

[00:04:34]See people say they want lower taxes until somebody gets appendicitis. Then suddenly everybody becomes very passionate about public health care, don't they? So let's talk about those emergency services for a second. People scream taxation is theft right up until their house catches fire. Then suddenly they become enormous fans of things like fire hydrants and publicly funded firefighters arriving in big red trucks.

[00:05:01]Yeah. Back before taxation, you paid to protect your life and your family through insurance companies who each had their own private fire brigades who often raced one another to fire scenes to be there first so they could get paid. Many times they spent more time trying to stop another engine company from getting there first than actually trying to get there as fast as they could. Apparently getting paid was more important than human life and property destruction.

[00:05:31]Fun fact, society works better when firefighters race against the fire instead of against each other. And you don't even want to know what you'd pay out of pocket for that fire protection if taxes didn't pay for it. So, if you think private everything would magically be cheaper, oh boy, look at healthcare in the United States. The average American family pays enormous amounts through insurance premiums, deductibles, co-pays, prescriptions, and out-ofpocket for uncovered services. Medical bankruptcy remains the leading cause of bankruptcy there. That's not freedom.

[00:06:12]That's financial Russian roulette with an ambulance bill. And let's talk about education for a hot minute. In the good old days, communities physically built the school houses themselves. So get your hammer ready. They're having a school raising bee in Calgary next week.

[00:06:30]Oh, and better clean out that spare room because teachers were frequently boarded by local families before taxes existed.

[00:06:40]Hope you put an extra $20 in the collection p plate at church next Sunday because that's where school funding came from back in those days. Local property levies, church funding, and subscription fees paid by parents. Meaning if you couldn't pay, your kid might not attend school consistently.

[00:07:01]In some areas, school terms were shortened because towns ran out of money. Teachers were paid only seasonally. Girls often received less education and rural education quality was dramatically worse than in urban areas.

[00:07:18]Universal taxf funded public education materialized because governments slowly realized that literate populations improve economies. Education reduces poverty and crime. Industrial societies require educated workers. And democracy works poorly when half the population can't read.

[00:07:40]Relatedly, people forget that libraries were considered radical. Before public libraries, books were luxury items.

[00:07:48]Literacy gaps exploded and knowledge stayed with the elites.

[00:07:54]Public libraries democratized access to knowledge.

[00:07:58]It seems to me that a lot of people have completely lost sight of what taxes are.

[00:08:04]Taxes are not just money disappearing into the void. They are pulled societal infrastructure. Modern civilization is basically a subscription service. And honestly, most people are getting a lot more out of that subscription than they realize.

[00:08:21]Because if every road, bridge, hospital, fire department, sewer line, public school, and library had to be individually paid out of pocket, most ordinary people would go bankrupt trying to survive. And here's the part I think that really matters. I said it in my last video, too. I get that people are angry because life genuinely is expensive right now. But I think a lot of ordinary people have been convinced to blame the wrong things. Because while workers fight each other online over taxes, immigrants, and culture war nonsense, corporations are posting record profits. Billionaires are accumulating historic levels of wealth.

[00:09:03]And massive companies often pay lower effective tax rates than ordinary workers. That's the conversation we should be having, not whether libraries and clean water are communist plots.

[00:09:15]Because folks, you don't actually hate taxes. You hate feeling like you're carrying the burden while the ultra rich keep slipping out the back door. And honestly, that frustration's fair. Let's just place it. Let's just place the blame where it belongs. Not on taxes, not on immigrants, not on treaties, and not on those struggling to make ends meet. In upcoming videos in this series, we're going to talk more about that. So stay tuned. Make sure to smash that bell to subscribe with notifications on. And if you're passionate about these topics and want to support my work here, please consider upgrading to becoming a channel member. Peace out.