National
Asylum seekers spreading from largest cities into the rest of Canada

Federal failures broke Canada’s asylum system
From the MacDonald Laurier Institute
By Michael Barutciski
Our quiet asylum crisis is largely a self-inflicted wound.
Introducing the problem
Recently released statistics indicate over 144,000 migrants claimed asylum in Canada during 2023. This is the highest year on record and is several times higher than any year before the Liberals formed government in 2015. Until a decade ago, Canada was receiving on average less than 25,000 asylum claims per year.
In the days following the publication of the latest numbers Canada’s English-speaking media barely covered this story, despite extensive reporting from Quebec media. Perhaps this is not surprising given that almost half the asylum claims were made in Quebec, prompting premier François Legault to send a formal letter to prime minister Justin Trudeau requesting financial help and measures to stem the flow. However, a comparable number of claims were made in Ontario, which explains why Toronto’s municipal authorities have also been asking for federal money to help with the overwhelmed local services.
Why have there been so many asylum claims in 2023 despite the closing of Roxham Road almost a year ago? After several years of use by asylum seekers, the infamous rural crossing between Quebec and upstate New York was closed. Activists and academics warned that illegal entries along the U.S. land border would increase but this did not happen. Entering illegally was simply not necessary because Ottawa also loosened legal requirements for entry to Canada; the easiest way to eliminate so-called “irregular” migration is to “regularize” it.
The explosion in asylum claims post-Roxham is the result of two simultaneous policy decisions: (1) loosening the criteria for visa issuance and (2) allowing visa-free travel for potential asylum seekers. In other words, our quiet asylum crisis is largely a self-inflicted problem.
The only logical explanation for these striking policy decisions is wide-spread ideological conviction that Canada must be as open as possible. But this conviction is now posing a long-term threat to the asylum system. The country has suffered from a lack of debate and viewpoint diversity that allowed this simplistic ethic to flourish unopposed throughout our political and media establishment.
The good news is that Canadians are finally having a genuine debate about immigration policy. It is encouraging that this debate is also happening within an atmosphere that remains decidedly pro-immigration. No serious analyst is blaming the actual migrants; the blame is instead directed at administrative policies that have allowed the proliferation of incoherence and even abuse in our system.
However, within this new debate on immigration policy, we need to keep in mind that asylum is a distinct issue that carries its own important legal and moral obligations. Our liberal democratic principles are subverted if we do not treat those who seek asylum humanely and with dignity.
We also need to make sure that the principles undergirding our asylum system are coherent. The justification for who we decide to grant asylum to, as well as who is denied protection and removed from Canada should be plain to the public. Distortion or abuse of these principles can undermine public confidence and support for the generosity that has long characterized Canada’s international image.
The federal government’s laxness in sticking to and articulating a principled policy created the current problem. Canada is once again faced with an asylum predicament, while the country’s fiscal position limits the policy options. Any Canadian concerned with the well-being of individuals seeking asylum should be concerned that Canada may be forced to turn away from our historically humanitarian approach as a corrective to a crisis created by near-sighted and careless policy.
Contextualizing the asylum numbers globally and domestically
Examining comparable western liberal democracies reveals an important context.
The broken asylum system in the U.S. is yet again playing a role in the upcoming presidential election as Americans watch uninvited migrants flow through their southern border with Mexico to claim asylum. In the meantime, president Biden has resumed construction of the border wall he stopped early in his mandate.
As the European country with the most asylum seekers, Germany has received a similar number of asylum seekers per capita compared to Canada. A key distinction is that Germany’s progressive leaders have been acknowledging there is a crisis. The United Kingdom is still trying to enact draconian legislation to stop asylum seekers from crossing the Channel and to establish an offshore processing scheme in faraway countries such as Rwanda. Likewise, Italy has announced it will intercept ‘boat people’ crossing the Mediterranean and transfer them to Albania for processing. Austria and Denmark are exploring a similar approach. More extreme Dutch politicians recently won an election in the Netherlands on migration-related problems and they are now trying to form a government.
Across the world political leaders, ranging from U.S. Democrats to Germany’s coalition Social Democrat and Green partners, are realizing that current approaches to asylum are undermining their democracies and stoking reactionist anti-immigrant rhetoric. By constantly emphasizing their openness to migration and refusing to acknowledge problems, the Trudeau’s Liberals appear as a global outlier even among progressive (typically pro-immigration) governments.
The Canadian problem is not as dramatic as the situation on some parts of the Mexico-U.S. border or the Mediterranean sea routes in Europe. The issue in Canada, however, is still breaking a system which has traditionally relied on strong public confidence in our borders and controlled migration flows.
To understand the latest Canadian asylum statistics, we also need to distinguish asylum numbers from the numbers concerning another category: the refugee resettlement program that selects and resettles vulnerable people from overseas. As Prime Minister Trudeau has said, Canada should be proud that it is a world leader for this distinct category which is part of the annual intake of permanent residents.
The refugee resettlement program is an example of controlled migration. The incoming numbers can be adjusted at any moment because government authorization for entry under this category is ultimately a discretionary act. It also does not raise policy challenges comparable to sudden flows of uninvited asylum seekers. The government can only try to dissuade uncontrolled migration through measures such as strict visa controls and interstate cooperation, along with airline sanctions for undocumented travelers. Canada was known for decades as a model country regarding this type of migration control.
To suggest that Canada’s recent spike in asylum claims is related to a global displacement crisis, as repeated by the federal government and others trying to downplay the situation, is to ignore the distinct demographics of the Canadian inflow. The global statistics mostly reflect displaced people who remain within their countries of origin, along with those fleeing specific conflict situations (e.g. Syria, Afghanistan, Ukraine); by and large these are not the migrants claiming asylum in Canada.
Mexico remains the top source country for asylum claims in Canada, yet the federal government continues to allow Mexicans to enter the country without visas. Second place is currently held by citizens of India, which is also a top source country for accepted temporary residents. The unusual situation has been highlighted by Quebec media that reported on the high number of international students claiming asylum.
According to Radio-Canada, immigration authorities also quietly implemented a new policy to expedite temporary visa processing, including removing the need for proof that applicants will leave Canada at the end of their stay. This has reportedly made it easier for people who would normally have difficulty obtaining tourist visas to enter and then claim asylum upon arrival. This stands in contrasts to a policy held for decades characterized by restrictive visa rules. Unsurprisingly, the international airports in Montreal and Toronto have become magnets for asylum claims.
Another argument used by those downplaying the situation is that Canada is simply taking its fair share when we make global comparisons. While it is true that the vast majority of displaced persons are stuck in poor countries of the global south, this argument is somewhat misleading. Canada is a modern, rich country that offers unparalleled treatment to asylum seekers including generous benefits and almost automatic citizenship to those granted asylum. In many other regions asylum seekers often struggle to receive adequate food and shelter and are given a precarious status from unstable host governments. Suggesting Canada is hosting only a small fraction of these vulnerable migrants is to compare apples with oranges.
Compounding the issues with asylum seekers, the recent boom in government-authorized temporary residents includes migrants who intend to stay permanently; it is reasonable to expect that the inevitable failure of many to secure permanent status will lead to problems of visa overstaying and even abusive asylum claims.
A final piece of context for understanding just how out of control Canada’s asylum numbers have become is the reality of undocumented individuals already living in Canada. Immigration Minister Marc Miller said that Canada now has a significant population of undocumented migrants, possibly over half a million. After decades of resisting American mistakes, we have imported the problem that has contributed to a broken immigration system in the U.S. The immigration minister is presently preparing an amnesty program that would provide a pathway to permanent residence for some of these undocumented migrants. But this presents a moral dilemma; we cannot simply dismiss the unlawful nature of their presence in Canada.
Distinguishing between false and realistic solutions
Many of the so-called solutions typically suggested by activists and academics are unrealistic. The most common proposal is getting the federal government to simply provide more funding at the local level. Premier Legault is seeking financial help for Quebec, just as Mayor Olivia Chow is for Toronto. Her city’s budget chief refers to a “global crisis in mass migration” and an “existential crisis” in her public appeals to pressure the federal government, while a Liberal MP from Toronto complains of what he perceives to be a “shakedown”.
Another common proposal is to implement a burden or responsibility sharing scheme across the federation so that the bulk of the asylum seekers are not hosted in Quebec and Ontario’s biggest cities. Even in the unlikely situation that the Trudeau Liberals were to accept the mandatory nature of these transfers, it would ultimately be little more than a band-aid in that similar tensions and requests for funding would inevitably arise in other provinces. Likewise, many commentators are urging the federal government to deliver work permits more quickly so that fewer asylum seekers have to rely on social assistance from provincial governments but this too skirts around the core of the problem.
The number of asylum seekers is simply too large and resources at all levels are too small. It is not realistic to expect massive new spending from any level of government during a cost-of-living and housing crisis.
However, there are concrete actions that the federal government can and should take.
Given the influx of Mexican asylum seekers, imposing visas on Mexicans is one measure any responsible government should take. More than 22,000 Mexicans claimed asylum in Canada in the first eleven months of 2023. The Harper government imposed visas on Mexicans in 2009 in the same way that all western countries impose visas on source countries when the number of asylum claims rises significantly. The Trudeau Liberals removed these visa requirements in 2016. We are now well beyond the numbers that previously triggered the imposition of visa requirements and the government will be forced to reverse its decision.
There is also an important security factor that has barely been reported in English-speaking Canada: criminal elements associated with this particular inflow of Mexican asylum seekers have attracted Washington’s attention. Given that the U.S. imposes visa requirements on Mexicans, it is not surprising that it has asked Canada to reinstate them to prevent clandestine entry from its northern border.
The other measure the federal government should take to regain public trust is to tighten recently relaxed visitor visa issuance. This major policy shift is likely related to the new client-focused attitude, a focus on shorter wait times so that visa applicants are satisfied, spreading within the immigration department. Although understandable to some extent, an unqualified shift in this direction appears misplaced for any bureaucratic service that participates in the important state function of border control.
It is astonishing that such an important change to visa issuance was made during the last year despite internal warnings that it would lead to a jump in asylum claims. Unfortunately, decision-making at the ministerial level seems to be driven by ideological commitments rather than by the empirical evidence of Canada’s needs and capacity.
Explaining these self-imposed problems
It is difficult to know precisely what motivated this policy shift because little information was made public. The only apparent explanation is the desire for virtue signaling and the appearance of compassionate policy from the PM and his various immigration ministers.
The Trudeau Liberals apparently hold the moral conviction that Canada should take an abstract and ill-defined “fair share” regardless of how this affects the overall integrity of the system. They also believe that their progressive university-educated urban constituencies are onboard with an ideological worldview that encourages open borders.
This is partly related to the longstanding politicization of universities. By overcompensating in their attempts not to appear anti-immigrant, Canada’s political and media class are reinforcing the failure of the country’s universities to promote a diversity of analysis concerning the asylum dilemma. Border control and the legitimacy of borders is routinely questioned in universities and there is generally dogmatic refusal to accept enforcement via removals to maintain the system’s integrity.
It is a clear reflection of bias that Canada’s responsibility-sharing treaty with the US, the Safe Third Country Agreement (STCA), was uniformly denounced in Canada’s publicly funded law journals and academic publications. It took our Supreme Court to clarify, in an unanimous judgment last year, that the US is indeed safe for asylum seekers as stated in the STCA. Publicly funded research should not be so obviously one-sided in addressing complex border issues, especially when credible outside voices (including the Supreme Court) clearly take an opposing view of the law in question.
The concerns raised by the activist academics in this field are not always illegitimate, but the absence of any debate on the larger policy issues creates an echo-chamber in which opposing ideas are rejected out of hand. As a consequence, it is difficult for students to succeed without embracing a social justice agenda.
Progressive media and politicians are promoting an ideology that espouses there is global injustice resulting from a supposed “birthright lottery”. The idea is that people from poor and unstable regions are unable to travel to western countries because they are not lucky enough to have been born somewhere that provides passports which allow visa-free travel. Contrary to western citizens who can easily travel to most countries, these losers in the “birthright lottery” are forced to take risky journeys to claim asylum if they want to escape their difficult conditions. This is the progressive liberal approach to the concept of asylum favoured on Canadian campuses.
There is no doubt that this view is attractive from a perspective which values maximal individual liberty but, while it is understandable to sympathize with reversing a perceived global injustice, it is foolish to manage migration with theoretical and ideological constructs devoid of data or real-world concerns. Progressive theorists would have us believe that the capacity for migrants to integrate into a society is limitless because it depends on political will, but in the real world there are both political and practical constraints.
Former German president Joachim Gauck, a leader who symbolizes moral clarity on humanitarian issues, recently gave this terse warning: “limiting migration is not something to be condemned”. It is this type of straight-shooting practical wisdom that is required to reform our liberal democracies that are overwhelmed by asylum seekers.
Concluding remarks
The humanitarian intentions manifested by the Trudeau Liberals are admirable. But good intentions alone are not enough for an effective and sustainable asylum policy. By pushing a well-intentioned but overly generous approach to asylum, inspired by a post-national ideology, the current government threatens the integrity of Canada’s immigration system. There is too much blind ideological conviction and not enough practical focus on how to protect Canada’s interests, make the most of limited resources, and maintain a compassionate immigration policy in the long-term.
The international asylum system was set up to protect limited numbers of individuals from political persecution. It was not set up to allow masses of people to migrate through back-channels and to be able to stay in host countries by claiming asylum. The goal of any Canadian government must be to avoid importing aspects of the broken U.S. asylum system. This is necessary to maintain a compassionate fair-minded and distinctly Canadian approach.
Realistic policymakers should make sure protection is limited to migrants fleeing individualized persecution (as intended by drafters of the 1951 Refugee Convention). This implies a willingness to enforce the rules to preserve the system’s credibility.
Prime Minister Trudeau has increasingly appeared as a moralist who seems more comfortable preaching his detached values and worldview than governing based on the realities of a situation at hand. Even for those who share many of Trudeau’s views on the importance of migration and diversity to Canadian identity and culture, his underlying attitude can appear patronizing to the extent that diverging opinions are unfairly painted as xenophobic or racist. As a political leader who contributes to setting the tone, this harms the level of debate in a country that depends on sophisticated and nuanced analysis of migration.
The Liberals came to power partly because of the humanitarian spirit they displayed during the Syrian refugee crisis. But now asylum issues may contribute to their downfall as Canadians become increasingly aware of how detached from reality their policies have become.
About the author
Michael Barutciski is a faculty member of York University’s Glendon College. He worked throughout the 1990s as fellow in law at Oxford University’s Refugee Studies Centre, as well as York’s Centre for Refugee Studies. He was later editor-in-chief of Refuge (Canada’s refugee studies journal).
Business
The Digital Services Tax Q&A: “It was going to be complicated and messy”

A tax expert on the departed Digital Services Tax, and the fiscal and policy holes it leaves behind
It’s fun, and fair, arguing whether Mark Carney “caved” in suspending the application of Canada’s Digital Services Tax to revive broader negotiations with the Trump administration. But I figure there are other dimensions to this issue besides tactics. So I got in touch with Allison Christians, a tax law professor at McGill University and the founding director of the Canadian Centre for Tax Policy.
In our talk, Christians discusses the policy landscape that led to the introduction of the DST; the pressure that contributed to its demise; and the ways other countries are addressing a central contradiction of the modern policy landscape: without some kind of digital tax, countries risk having to impose costs on their own digital industry that the overwhelmingly US-based multinationals can avoid.
I spoke to Christians on Friday. Her remarks are edited for length and clarity.
Paul Wells: I noticed in your social media that you express inordinate fondness for tax law.
Allison Christians: You will not find a more passionate adherent to the tax cult than me. Yes, I do. I love tax law. Of course I do. How could you not? How could you not love tax law?
PW: What’s to love about tax law?
Christians: Well, tax law is how we create our country. That’s how we build our society. That’s how we create the communities that we want to live in and the lifestyle that we want to share with our neighbours. That’s how: with tax law.
PW: I guess the goal [of tax policy] is to generate the largest amount of revenue with the smallest amount of grief? And to send social signals while you’re at it. Is that right?
Christians: I don’t think so. Tax is not about raising maximum revenue. Tax is about deciding what society you’re trying to build and what portions of that society need to be made public, and what can be left to private interests which then need to profit. So we have decided in Canada, as a country, that basic minimum healthcare cannot be a for-profit enterprise. It has to be a public enterprise in order to make sure that it works for everybody to a certain basic level. So tax is about making those decisions: are we going to privatize everything and everyone pays for their own health care, security, roads, insurance, fire department etc. And if they can’t pay, then too bad? Or are we going to have a certain minimum, and that minimum is going to be provided in a public way that harmonizes across the communities that we have. And that’s what tax is about. It’s not about extracting revenue at all. It’s about creating revenue. It’s about creating a market. It’s about investing in a community. So I just object to the whole idea that tax is about extracting something from me, because what tax is doing is creating a market for me to be able to thrive. Not just me, but all of my neighbours, as well.
PW: Let’s jump forward to the events of the past couple weeks. Were you surprised when the Prime Minister suspended the Digital Services Tax?
Christians: I think “surprise” is probably too strong of a word, because nothing any political leader does to cope with the volatility of the United States would surprise me. We are dealing with a major threat, a threat that is threatening to annex us, to take our resources, to take our sovereignty, to take our communities and rip them apart and turn them into a different way of being. And that’s a serious threat. So nothing would surprise me in response to that. Disappointed, of course. But not disappointed in our Canadian response. More disappointed in the juggernaut that Trump has been allowed to become by his base, and that they’re pulling the rug out from under everyone that’s cooperated with the US agenda for decades, including us.
PW: What’s your best understanding of what the Digital Services Tax was designed to accomplish? And is it unusual as taxes go?
Christians: So to understand this, you really have to be a policy wonk, which isn’t much fun. So I’m gonna give you an example that might make it clear from the perspective of Canada. Why we might have a Digital Service Tax or might want something like it.
I want to preface this by saying that the Digital Service Tax is by no means the only way to do the underlying things we want to accomplish. Certainly other countries have been collecting DSTs and have been collecting billions of dollars, and US companies have had reserves for paying that Digital Service Tax. So we just left money on the table. But let me try to explain why we want to do the thing without getting too “tax nerdy” on you.
So I’m sure you can come up with the one Canadian company that’s streaming content on television or on digital devices.
PW: Crave?
Christians: Yeah, that’s the one. Crave is owned by Bell Media and is a Canadian company. And Crave pays taxes in Canada. Crave has to compete against Netflix, which does not have to pay tax in Canada. Netflix just simply doesn’t have to pay the same way that Crave does unless we force them to pay. Crave has to compete with US and foreign content streamers. We may get to a point where we can get Netflix to collect some sales tax on the GST, for example. But if Netflix itself stays out of Canada, physically, but it’s still getting all those customers that otherwise Crave would have access to, then Crave is at a structural disadvantage.
Now tell me which Canadian provider competes with Google.
PW: I can’t think of one.
Christians: Exactly. There isn’t one. How are we supposed to get a homegrown competitor when our competition simply does not pay taxes, and any one we would grow here in Canada has to pay tax here? So we have to understand the Digital Service Tax as simply our response to the fact that we normally do not tax a company unless they are physically located in Canada. But now we’ve got to go into this digital space and say: you’re still here, even if we can’t see you and talk to you, you’re still here. You’re doing something in our market. And that’s what the Digital Service Tax was trying to deal with.
This Substack is reader-supported. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
PW: Now, how are companies likely to respond to this Digital Services Tax? It seems to me the likeliest outcome would be that they would pass those costs on to their customers.
Christians: Yes, that is what companies have said they would do. Google talked about passing those costs on to the customers. And their customers obviously are advertisers. I want to point out that advertisers in Canada used to advertise in local newspapers and media. Now they advertise on Facebook, owned by an American-headquartered Company, Meta. Right now, they advertise on those foreign platforms, so we don’t have those advertising dollars here. Advertisers might have had to pay the Digital Service Tax if Google, or whoever, had passed it on to them. I think it’s fair to say, that Canadians advertising on those foreign platforms would have faced a gross-up to cover that tax.
PW: So, the net effect is that it just becomes more expensive for Canadian consumers. I’ve seen it argued that all this tax would have succeeded in doing is making Netflix more expensive.
Christians: Okay, that’s possible. I mean, that assumes the supply is totally elastic: you can increase the price of Netflix, and people will still pay it indefinitely. Right? So that’s the assumption in the short term. But the long-term assumption is that Crave becomes more competitive — because its competitors are paying the same tax that it is paying. The Crave subscription price may or may not respond, but if you put pressure on the foreign service providers in the same manner that’s on the Canadian providers, it might cost more, but we’re also getting the tax.
PW: I believe the Prime Minister, in an interview with the CBC said that he was thinking of getting rid of this thing, anyway. [The quote I’m reaching for here is: “Look, what we did this week is something that I think we were going to do anyways, in the end, for the deal.” At 1:07 in this video. — pw] Why do you think he would have been leaning in that direction? And do you think that absent a Truth Social post by President Trump, he actually would have gotten rid of the thing?
Christians: I can’t speculate too much about the politics of this, because I’m not talking to many of the people that make policy, but I know the complaints about the DST, and I don’t dispute them. It was going to be a complicated tax to collect and it was going to be messy in terms of compliance. There’s a lot of uncertainty around the tax and I know there’s always an enormous amount of pressure to reduce all taxes. There’s always going to be that segment of society that sees taxes being thrown down the drain and not as an investment in the society that we want to live in.
American companies are famous for investing their money on lobbying and not in taxes. They spend their money convincing us that it would be bad for us to tax them, and they can spend a much smaller percentage of their money on lobbying and get us to believe that narrative. And the narrative is that somehow, if we tax Google, Google will go away and we won’t be able to use it. That Google won’t innovate. It’s nonsense, but it’s a story that resonates nonetheless. Was Prime Minister Carney pressured to get rid of the DST? Undoubtedly. And maybe he personally thinks there’s a better way to tax these companies than with an excise tax. I don’t fault him for thinking that. I have even written that there are better ways for Canada to collect this tax than the Digital Services Tax.
PW: I’m going to want you to tell me about these other ways. But I assume that if a Canadian government attempts any of these other ways, then the companies we’re talking about know that all they have to do is hit the Trump button and the pressure will be right back on.
Christians: That’s correct. There are a couple of [alternatives to the DST]. We could, like some other countries have done, redefine the types of income that we subject to withholding taxes in Canada. It’s a complicated technical idea, but basically any payments that go from our advertisers to Google, we could impose a withholding tax simply by expanding a couple of definitions in the Income Tax Act that would then carry over into our treaty. Now, people will push back on that, and say that you’re changing a deal, and people will object to that. And we can have an argument about that, but that possibility exists. That withholding tax is the most straightforward way to do this and we should probably already be thinking about it.
Another one that’s kind of fun, which I really enjoyed learning about when I came to Canada, is Section 19 in the Income Tax Act. So, Canadian advertisers are paying Google now, instead of a Canadian newspaper. Well, Section 19 basically says that whenever someone makes a payment for advertising to a foreign, non-Canadian media, that payment’s not deductible.
Now that provision seems to violate Free Trade rules because it changes, depending on who you make the payment to. But it’s a provision in law. The US objected to it when we adopted it by imposing a reciprocal tax on US advertisers paying Canadian outlets, which doesn’t seem to bother anybody.
PW: But the application of that will be very asymmetrical, right?
Christians: Yes, for sure. And I’ll tell you what the Canadian media noticed when we started paying for digital newspapers online: that they’re not subject to Section 19 — only print and traditional media are subject to this denial of deduction — and Canadian media advocated for this denial of deduction for online publications as well.
All you have to do is look at the wording of Section 19 — and you don’t even have to change the words — and all of a sudden all those payments to Google are not deductible. But if the payments were to Crave, they would be deductible, and if they are to the Globe and Mail, or other Canadian companies, they would be deductible. That is a different kind of advantage for the Canadian competitor that’s a little less susceptible to Trump’s understanding, and a little less susceptible to the politics that surround the Digital Services Tax. But it’s technical. You have to explain it to people, and they don’t believe you. It’s hard to understand it.
PW: Theoretically a two-time central-bank governor could wrap his head around it.
Christians: Yes, I think he could fully understand it, for sure. You’re absolutely right. Will he want to do it, though? I just don’t know.
PW: You said that there are other jurisdictions that continue, today, to successfully tax the web giants. Who are you thinking of?
Christians: Well, Austria’s been doing the Digital Service Tax since the beginning. The UK has the Diverted Profits Tax that they’ve been using. Australia has one that’s been enforced. Austria stands out because I think it was 2017, in Trump’s 1st term, and it was part of a group that Trump threatened to retaliate against, but they just quietly kept going and they’re still collecting it. Part of the narrative is that we, Canada, came too late to the DST party. We just weren’t part of that initial negotiation. We came in too late, and then it was too obvious, and people were able to isolate us from the pack.
PW: My understanding is we’re looking at a hypothetical $7.2 billion in revenue over 5 years. And that represents a shortfall that’s going to have to be found either in other revenue sources or in spending cuts, or in greater debt. Aside from the DST, do you think Canada could use a general overhaul of its tax code?
Christians: Always. Yes, absolutely! Taxes are funny, right? Because they come into every single political battle, and what ends up happening is that politicians treat the Tax Act and the tax system as a present-giving machinery, and not as a clear policy deliverance system.
I am, every day, surprised at how complicated the Canadian tax system is. It’s way too complicated. You can’t even fill out your own tax return in this country. You’re going to make mistakes because it’s just too ridiculously written. It’s too confusing. It’s too messy. So it’s time to take another look. But you need a commission [like the 1962 Carter royal commission on taxation]. You need to be bipartisan. You need to spend money on that. You need to think that the things that you do have long-term effects, and this takes political courage. And basically it requires upsetting a bunch of people and resetting things, and we just might not be at the right time politically to be doing that because people feel vulnerable to volatility from abroad. So it may not be the time to push that.
Invite your friends and earn rewards
Energy
If Canada Wants to be the World’s Energy Partner, We Need to Act Like It

Photo by David Bloom / Postmedia file
From Energy Now
By Gary Mar
With the Trans Mountain Expansion online, we have new access to Pacific markets and Asia has responded, with China now a top buyer of Canadian crude.
The world is short on reliable energy and long on instability. Tankers edge through choke points like the Strait of Hormuz. Wars threaten pipelines and power grids. Markets flinch with every headline. As authoritarian regimes rattle sabres and weaponize supply chains, the global appetite for energy from stable, democratic, responsible producers has never been greater.
Canada checks every box: vast reserves, rigorous environmental standards, rule of law and a commitment to Indigenous partnership. We should be leading the race, but instead we’ve effectively tied our own shoelaces together.
In 2024, Canada set new records for oil production and exports. Alberta alone pumped nearly 1.5 billion barrels, a 4.5 per cent increase over 2023. With the Trans Mountain Expansion (TMX) online, we have new access to Pacific markets and Asia has responded, with China now a top buyer of Canadian crude.
The bad news is that we’re limiting where energy can leave the country. Bill C-48, the so-called tanker ban, prohibits tankers carrying over 12,500 tons of crude oil from stopping or unloading crude at ports or marine installations along B.C.’s northern coast. That includes Kitimat and Prince Rupert, two ports with strategic access to Indo-Pacific markets. Yes, we must do all we can to mitigate risks to Canada’s coastlines, but this should be balanced against a need to reduce our reliance on trade with the U.S. and increase our access to global markets.
Add to that the Impact Assessment Act (IAA) which was designed in part to shorten approval times and add certainty about how long the process would take. It has not had that effect and it’s scaring off investment. Business confidence in Canada has dropped to pandemic-era lows, due in part to unpredictable rules.
At a time when Canada is facing a modest recession and needs to attract private capital, we’ve made building trade infrastructure feel like trying to drive a snowplow through molasses.
What’s needed isn’t revolutionary, just practical. A start would be to maximize the amount of crude transported through the Trans Mountain Expansion pipeline, which ran at 77 per cent capacity in 2024. Under-utilization is attributed to a variety of factors, one of which is higher tolls being charged to producers.
Canada also needs to overhaul the IAA and create a review system that’s fast, clear and focused on accountability, not red tape. Investors need to know where the goalposts are. And, while we are making recommendations, strategic ports like Prince Rupert should be able to participate in global energy trade under the same high safety standards used elsewhere in Canada.
Canada needs a national approach to energy exporting. A 10-year projects and partnerships plan would give governments, Indigenous nations and industry a common direction. This could be coupled with the development of a category of “strategic export infrastructure” to prioritize trade-enabling projects and move them through approvals faster.
Of course, none of this can take place without bringing Indigenous partners into the planning process. A dedicated federal mechanism should be put in place to streamline and strengthen Indigenous consultation for major trade infrastructure, ensuring the process is both faster and fairer and that Indigenous equity options are built in from the start.
None of this is about blocking the energy transition. It’s about bridging it. Until we invent, build and scale the clean technologies of tomorrow, responsibly produced oil and gas will remain part of the mix. The only question is who will supply it.
Canada is the most stable of the world’s top oil producers, but we are a puzzle to the rest of the world, which doesn’t understand why we can’t get more of our oil and natural gas to market. In recent years, Norway and the U.S. have increased crude oil production. Notably, the U.S. also increased its natural gas exports through the construction of new LNG export terminals, which have helped supply European allies seeking to reduce their reliance on Russian natural gas.
Canada could be the bridge between demand and security, but if we want to be the world’s go-to energy partner, we need to act like it. That means building faster, regulating smarter and treating trade infrastructure like the strategic asset it is.
The world is watching. The opportunity is now. Let’s not waste it.
Gary Mar is president and CEO of the Canada West Foundation
-
Business21 hours ago
RFK Jr. says Hep B vaccine is linked to 1,135% higher autism rate
-
Alberta1 day ago
Alberta Independence Seekers Take First Step: Citizen Initiative Application Approved, Notice of Initiative Petition Issued
-
Crime1 day ago
National Health Care Fraud Takedown Results in 324 Defendants Charged in Connection with Over $14.6 Billion in Alleged Fraud
-
Health1 day ago
RFK Jr. Unloads Disturbing Vaccine Secrets on Tucker—And Surprises Everyone on Trump
-
Censorship Industrial Complex1 day ago
Global media alliance colluded with foreign nations to crush free speech in America: House report
-
Bruce Dowbiggin2 days ago
The Game That Let Canadians Forgive The Liberals — Again
-
Alberta7 hours ago
Alberta Provincial Police – New chief of Independent Agency Police Service
-
Alberta8 hours ago
Pierre Poilievre – Per Capita, Hardisty, Alberta Is the Most Important Little Town In Canada