The one thing I would agree with you on is that these interventions are reactive. That is why they will ultimately fail. They are not based on any conventional quantitative data or even any conventional theory. They are indicative of a political class responding to very very loud and misguided people expressing their feelings (all of which are negative) about yes, big and successful firms.
One thing we never got to dig into via public debate around the design of the tax is whether the 'place of establishment' element of tax law was the core challenge. And why the tax was so carefully calibrated for firms of a particular size, you know?
Someone was asked, "how should we calibrate the DST for smaller firms"? Someone thought about that and said, "we should exclude firms no matter how colossal world wide they are in terms of revenues, if they are in an embryonic phase in Canada". It has to apply to both domestic and ahem, U.S. firms and other global behemoths and sadly, we can't exempt Shopify specifically. Literally, it would have been something viewed internally as clever like that.
Vass is entirely correct in arguing that Canada needs to build out its own digital infrastructure.
In addition to the $2 billion AI Compute strategy, the Carney government has committed to increasing existing defence spending by $9.3 billion for the 2025–26 fiscal year to meet NATO’s 2% GDP target. That additional spending will be replicated in budgets in the years following.
So, in addition to using a good part of the AI Compute money to build out the Canadian digital infrastructure, we should use a portion of the billions in increased defence spending to do the same.
Quebec's digital id is so far an expensive, humiliating disaster. Random link [1] How do people waste a *billion* dollars and blame it on no one paying attention?
Better to look to the leading work from BC. Network-relative digital id, for people and things, is the important factor in all this, deserving deep study. There are very relevant standards coming out now, being developed for good and bad reasons inside and outside government.
ThinkOn talks in terms of products, not standards. That can be just another trap that leads to mickey mouse solutions.
Solid writing Vass. Very insightful and helpful in understanding the full context and potential home-grown options. Keep up the excellent work.
The one thing I would agree with you on is that these interventions are reactive. That is why they will ultimately fail. They are not based on any conventional quantitative data or even any conventional theory. They are indicative of a political class responding to very very loud and misguided people expressing their feelings (all of which are negative) about yes, big and successful firms.
One thing we never got to dig into via public debate around the design of the tax is whether the 'place of establishment' element of tax law was the core challenge. And why the tax was so carefully calibrated for firms of a particular size, you know?
Someone was asked, "how should we calibrate the DST for smaller firms"? Someone thought about that and said, "we should exclude firms no matter how colossal world wide they are in terms of revenues, if they are in an embryonic phase in Canada". It has to apply to both domestic and ahem, U.S. firms and other global behemoths and sadly, we can't exempt Shopify specifically. Literally, it would have been something viewed internally as clever like that.
Vass is entirely correct in arguing that Canada needs to build out its own digital infrastructure.
In addition to the $2 billion AI Compute strategy, the Carney government has committed to increasing existing defence spending by $9.3 billion for the 2025–26 fiscal year to meet NATO’s 2% GDP target. That additional spending will be replicated in budgets in the years following.
So, in addition to using a good part of the AI Compute money to build out the Canadian digital infrastructure, we should use a portion of the billions in increased defence spending to do the same.
Quebec's digital id is so far an expensive, humiliating disaster. Random link [1] How do people waste a *billion* dollars and blame it on no one paying attention?
Better to look to the leading work from BC. Network-relative digital id, for people and things, is the important factor in all this, deserving deep study. There are very relevant standards coming out now, being developed for good and bad reasons inside and outside government.
ThinkOn talks in terms of products, not standards. That can be just another trap that leads to mickey mouse solutions.
1. https://qcna.qc.ca/saaqclic-fiasco/
Thank you for reminding me about BC's work and flagging!
"heavily lobbied", is that supposed to be a serious explanation of something?
"heavily lobbied", is that supposed to be a serious explanation of something?
No just like a super fast way to say the debates were pretty ferocious!