What history tells us about tax, trouble and the top one per cent
By Shirley Tillotson, Professor of history at Dalhousie University; expert advisor at the Canadian Tax Observatory | A version of this piece was originally published in the Halifax Examiner, February 25, 2026
Tax havens cost Canada some $15 billion a year in revenue. Is Ottawa’s crackdown working?
Canadian parliamentarians are taking a crack at squeezing out more government revenue from tax havens, and we wish them all the luck and stamina. Tucked away from the Conservative-to-Liberal floor-crossings and the nail-biting confidence-vote drama that have dominated this Parliament, MPs on the House of Commons finance committee were contemplating all the places where corporations put their profits.
Gasp! A contest on how to fund Vancouver transit improvements was won with three shocking words — sales tax hike
We seem to have lost the plot when it comes to the link between the taxes we pay and the services we get. But not these three UBC students! In a contest to tackle a challenging public transit funding problem, they found themselves advocating for a bespoke (very small) tax hike.