[kEiThZ]

Ah yes, securing the jobs of Canadians until he throws another tantrum, and demands something else. You can't appease these Tin Pot dictators Neville... err kEiThZ.

Not once did I suggest appeasement.

You should read what was written.

 

[kEiThZ]

While there are ~600,000 jobs in Canada related in some way to the Auto Industry, there are ~240,000 related to the production of film and television which this tax is designed to fund.

Setting aside the number of jobs, quality matters too. Auto manufacturing pays more and depends less on government subsidy and/or forced taxes. If those auto jobs go, so will Ontario's economy. I don't even want to imagine what this does to our national economy and politics when Ontario becomes like Ohio overnight.

 

[UtakataNoAnnex]

On the side...

I am at the point now that if Trump offered Canadians to exchange our dollars for American dollars at par if we become the 51st state, I am ready to say "Deal!"

....there is no price tag on our civil liberties that will be all stripped away if ever a "deal" like this was to go through (it won't), IMO.

But if you really feel that strongly about this, then you should move over there. Hopefully things will work out for you then as long as you don't have a run in with ICE.

 

[Mihairokov]

Auto manufacturing pays more and depends less on government subsidy and/or forced taxes.

We bailed out GM and Chrysler in 2008 for $14B.

Think the film industry getting some funding is fine in the short-term, but like any industry they're threatened by automation.

 

[lenaitch]

I never cease to be amazed and angered by the stupidity of our "leaders". Why did the Liberal government under Trudeau introduce this 3% DST? Why didn't our genius central banker PM scrap this tax when he was sworn in?

A DST was not agreed to when the USMCA was negotiated in 2018. The USMCA forbids implementation of such taxes, so Canada's implementation of a 3% DST, which primarily affects American companies since they dominate the online world, is an abrogation of the USMCA treaty by Canada, which gives Trump the excuse he needed to tear up the USMCA agreement. When the DST was first being discussed by the Trudeau government, there were warnings that it would lead to a trade war.

As much as I hate Trump - and I hate him with every fiber of my being I can't blame Trump for saying he is not going to negotiate further on a trade agreement.

Stop and think how stupid Trudeau was to pass this DST tax and how stupid it was of Carney to not scrap it immediately. The DST is expected to bring in $7 billion over 5 years, so about $1.4 billion in tax revenue a year. Compare that to the auto industry, which this DST tax now imperils. The Canadian auto industry employs 125,000 Canadians directly and 460,000 Canadians indirectly. It is estimated that the tax revenue from income tax alone is close to $10 billion a year. How many jobs in Canada will this DST tax create? Do Alphabet, Meta, Amazon, etc. employ half a million in Canada? Will this tax incentivize them to employ half a million Canadians?

I would hope that Carney will pick up the phone on Monday and tell Trump that Canada will drop the DST tax if Trump agrees to honor the USCMA agreement that he signed, including lifting all tariffs on Canadian goods and pledging to stop poaching Canadian automotive jobs. I am not holding out hope that that will happen. We are too far down this road.

Ever since Trump stated that Canada only works as the 51st state seven months ago, after Trudeau's disastrous visit to Mar-A-Lago, I have been waging an email campaign trying to alert our leaders in Ottawa and Queen's Park what Trump was going to do to Canada and how they needed to fight back but for seven our leaders have done nothing. I had high hopes that Harvard-educated central banker Carney would be so much better than Trudeau, but he has been nothing but a big disappointment so far. I will never forget Carney's visit to the Oval Office, where he sat silent next to Trump as Trump humiliated, taunted, and threatened Canadians. Carney just sat with a smile on his face as Trump declared he "did not want cars" and relished at the thought of the imminent demise of our auto industry because it was "overly reliant on the United States".

I am at the point now that if Trump offered Canadians to exchange our dollars for American dollars at par if we become the 51st state, I am ready to say "Deal!"

It must be disappointing when you are the smartest person in the room and nobody recognizes it.

As NL points out, I'm not aware that the trade agreement prohibited one of the sovereign signators from introducing a specific piece of financial legislation. Even if it did, and one of the parties felt it was discriminatory and violated the agreement, there is a dispute mechanism built into the agreement. An agreement he signed by the way as the greatest negotiator of all time.

Taking your dolls and dishes and stomping out of the room is the response of a petulant narcissist, particularly after imposing blanket tariffs.

I suspect this is in response to Canada signing a defence agreement with Europe. Either that or somebody whispered something in his ear since he is prone to react to the last voice he hears. Has he raised a concern with the digital tax at any point in the past? I doubt he knew it even existed.

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

It must be disappointing when you are the smartest person in the room and nobody recognizes it.

As NL points out, I'm not aware that the trade agreement prohibited one of the sovereign signators from introducing a specific piece of financial legislation. Even if it did, and one of the parties felt it was discriminatory and violated the agreement, there is a dispute mechanism built into the agreement. An agreement he signed by the way as the greatest negotiator of all time.

Taking your dolls and dishes and stomping out of the room is the response of a petulant narcissist, particularly after imposing blanket tariffs.

I suspect this is in response to Canada signing a defence agreement with Europe. Either that or somebody whispered something in his ear since he is prone to react to the last voice he hears. Has he raised a concern with the digital tax at any point in the past? I doubt he knew it even existed.

The TechBros had been making noises about it - so I am sure it is on the radar. In any case, it's an internal tax that is applicable to all businesses above a certain size, and frankly tech is a service, so why should it be exempt from taxation? Frankly I wanted to see far more radical steps to extricate ourselves and enact policies that ensure our digital sovereignty - because do you *really* trust Elon, Bezos, Zuckerberg, Nadella, Thiel et al?

In any case, if EBT wanted to be consistent - I am sure the sudden application of tariffs to Canada by the US - despite the presence of a long-standing free-trade agreement, constituted a rather egregious breach that pales in comparison to the DST.

AoD

 

[lenaitch]

The TechBros had been making noises about it - so I am sure it is on the radar. In any case, it's an internal tax that is applicable to all businesses above a certain size, and frankly tech is a service, so why should it be exempt from taxation? Frankly I wanted to see far more radical steps to extricate ourselves and enact policies that ensure our digital sovereignty - because do you *really* trust Elon, Bezos, Zuckerberg, Nadella, Thiel et al?

In any case, if EBT wanted to be consistent - I am sure the sudden application of tariffs to Canada by the US - despite the presence of a long-standing free-trade agreement, constituted a rather egregious breach that pales in comparison to the DST.

AoD

I read the President being quoted somewhere that only America has the authority to tax American companies, which is a rather odd take for companies that operate worldwide.

 

[Monarch Butterfly]

I read the President being quoted somewhere that only America has the authority to tax American companies, which is a rather odd take for companies that operate worldwide.

American citizens living abroad are required to continue to pay taxes in the US on their worldwide income.

 

[EBT]

It absolutely did not. No such clause appears anywhere in the text, nor has the U.S. ever asserted otherwise.

It asserted (when filing dispute solution under the USMCA) that the Digital Services Tax violated the agreement on the basis that it discriminated against U.S. companies in a general sense, which is precluded under the Treaty.

Canada's defense is that the tax does not in fact single out U.S. based digital services, the tax applies to all digital services with annual revenues exceeding 750M.

You are making my argument for me. The United States would not be seeking USMCA dispute resolution if it did not feel that Canada's imposition of a DST violated the terms of the USMCA agreement. It may well be that the text of the agreement does not expressly forbid the imposition of a DST, but the fact is that the United States believes Canada violated the agreement, and that is all that matters.

If Canada had a population of 340 million - the same as the US - we could get away with this stuff, but the fact is, at 1/10th the population, we are at the mercy of the Americans, and therefore it was stupid of Trudeau to introduce such an irritant into the relationship.

The reality is that the only trade relationship that works between Canada and the US is a free trade relationship. Canada is 1/10th the size of the US, and once the Americans start putting tariffs on our manufactured goods, it is only a matter of time before Canada has no manufacturing left.

The Americans will always be happy to buy crucial commodities they need from Canada, like potash and minerals, but as far as Trump and a lot of Americans are concerned, why should they buy manufactured goods from Canada that they can make at home? It's a lot harder to poach manufacturing jobs from China or Mexico, so Canada has become the preferred target for Trump to reshore manufacturing jobs. And our elected leaders have done nothing to stop the plundering of Canadian jobs. Notice you never hear Trump griping about Mexico "stealing all the jobs from Detroit"? There is a reason for that.

 

[EBT]

In any case, if EBT wanted to be consistent - I am sure the sudden application of tariffs to Canada by the US - despite the presence of a long-standing free-trade agreement, constituted a rather egregious breach that pales in comparison to the DST.

AoD

I have been consistent but until this past Friday, I had no idea that the Trudeau government had imposed a Digital Service Tax that overwhelmingly affects American tech companies, nor did I know that the Americans were looking for USMCA dispute resolution of the matter, i.e., the Americans considered the imposition of the DST a violation of the USMCA agreement.

Up to that time, I had been sending email after email to PM Carney urging the Prime Minister to tell Trump that Canada expects him to honor the USMCA trade treaty that Trump negotiated and signed. I told the PM that he needed to tell Trump that if he would not honor the USMCA agreement he signed, then why would Canada or any other country in the world trust Trump to honor any agreement he signs? This DST matter weakened Canada's hand.

 

[UtakataNoAnnex]

^You are asking our PM to be subservient to Trump, where most would likely be reasonably begging for him to do the opposite...

 

[narduch]

We are subservient to Trump with respect to foreign policy

 

[kEiThZ]

American citizens living abroad are required to continue to pay taxes in the US on their worldwide income.

Which is offset by taxes they pay to their country of residence, when there is a tax treaty.

 

[picard102]

but the fact is that the United States believes Canada violated the agreement, and that is all that matters.

The US believes all sorts of stupid things. Doesn't make it so.

 

[UtakataNoAnnex]

We are subservient to Trump with respect to foreign policy

If you are saying that we have obligations to the US and other countries as they do with us, then yes we are all subservient to each other and to a degree. But to be clear though, that's not what I was saying.