Harry Shannon
This was written as a letter to the Toronto Star. It wasn’t published, but you can read it here.
Re Covid-19 costs. Time’s up: help cities, Editorial, July 16
The COVID-19 pandemic has played havoc with people’s finances, and governments have had to go into huge deficits to mitigate the impact on people who have lost their jobs and income. Your editorial emphasizes that even more must be spent to avoid drastic cuts to public services.
To pay for it we desperately need a wealth tax and a crackdown on tax loopholes and tax havens. Alas, neither the Liberals federally nor the Tories provincially have so far said they will implement these important and necessary measures.
Yet some very rich people, Millionaires for Humanity (some of them billionaires), are asking governments “to raise taxes on people like us. Immediately. Substantially. Permanently.” The group includes three Canadians; to their credit, Barbara Clayton, Claire Trottier, and Sylvie Trottier have signed on. Even the Conservative government in the UK is looking at increasing taxes on the rich.
Galen Weston is one of the wealthiest people in Canada, but he’s stopped paying the token $2 per hour wage increase to his company’s employees – the very people whose hard work has made his family so rich.
So governments must step in to remedy the growing inequality in Canada. This problem has been known for a long time, but the pandemic has made it much more acute.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Finance Minister Bill Morneau, and Ontario Premier Doug Ford are very wealthy. They and their families won’t suffer from pandemic fallout. They need to put aside their sense of entitlement, and start dealing with the debt by raising taxes on those who can well afford to pay more. Immediately. Substantially. Permanently.