Many people wish for lower tax bills and more money in their bank accounts. But a group of young, rich Canadians want the federal government to tax them more.
About 200 wealthy people aged 18 to 40 belong to Resource Movement, an activist group that is expanding across Canada. Their mission is to reduce inequality between Canada’s wealthiest people and the rest of the population.
Its members are advocating for the creation of two new taxes that would have a direct impact on their own bank accounts and those of their parents: a “wealth tax” on the richest 10 per cent of Canadians, and an inheritance tax on the top 10 per cent of estates.
“A wealth tax will have no impact on my life. So, why not?” Montrealer Claire Trottier said in an interview with Radio-Canada. “No one’s going to cry for me if I have to give part of my inheritance.”
The group says it has redistributed more than $450,000 to social justice groups and, more recently, grassroots COVID-19 aid measures through its fundraising efforts since it was founded in 2015.
‘Tax my inheritance. Tax my fortune’
Trottier, a 40-year-old microbiology and immunology professor at McGill University in Montreal, grew up rich.
Her father, Lorne Trottier, co-founded Matrox, a high-tech company, and was ranked 38th wealthiest Canadian in the late ’90s when she was attending a private high school.
“I knew I was very, very lucky,” she said.
Resource Movement members hold signs asking the government to tax them more. They are pushing for less inequality in Canada. (Submitted by Resource Movement)
“I never had to worry. If I had trouble making rent, for example. I always had a safety cushion to rely on. It helped me make life choices that are difficult for other people.”
In 2000, her family created the Trottier Family Foundation, a charitable foundation that gives out grants every year. In 2018 alone, it donated close to $10 million to environment, health and education projects.
But Trottier said philanthropy is not enough.
“Our family made a conscious choice to give part of its wealth to society. There are many families like ours who do not make this choice,” Trottier said.
“A wealth tax is a way to make sure everyone does their fair share.”
Leading up to what would have been the March federal budget earlier this year — which was cancelled because of the pandemic — Resource Movement prepared a campaign taking aim at Canada’s tax system.
In a video produced for the group’s website and social media channels, members ask the government to “tax my fortune” and “tax my inheritance.”
A federal report found the top 10 per cent of Canada’s richest families have about 56.7 per cent of Canada’s wealth — more than $6.6 trillion, according to the report, which was published in June by the office of Canada’s parliamentary budget officer.
In contrast, the bottom 40 per cent are estimated to have 1.1 per cent of the wealth, about $132 billion.
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Resource Movement’s members say a wealth tax alone would bring in $9 billion annually and could help finance affordable housing, a national drug benefit program and access to dental care.
“As people who come from wealth, we know there’s a ton of wealth in this country that is just not being accessed by the state right now, but we need it and we can use it more productively,” said member Daniel Hoyer, a 38-year-old college instructor based in Toronto. His father was a chef and restaurant owner; his mother was an accountant.
He believes a wealth tax is the way to recover the money that currently eludes public coffers by taxing all assets.
How to balance the scales
But one expert said rebalancing the scales is easier said than done. Patrick Leblond, a professor with the University of Ottawa’s Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, is doubtful.
“‘We’ll tax the rich’ sounds good, but is it the most effective way of getting more money in government’s coffers?” he said.
“Government would have to hire people to try to measure all this, to run all over the world because, of course, the richer people are, the more they’re able to hide their assets.”
Chrystia Freeland delivered a TED talk in 2013 on the rise of the new ‘global super-rich.’ A statement from her office said ‘there is still more to do to ensure every Canadian has a fair chance at success.’ (Ted Talks via Flikr)
He suggested other measures could be more easily put in place, such as treating all personal revenue the same way — starting with capital gains.
Right now, if a person sells shares or properties, for instance, only half the profit, called a capital gain, is taxable. People’s wages, on the other hand, are almost all taxable.
Leblond said taxing capital gains less than salaries is “a fiscal advantage for the rich.”
While some experts don’t agree on the measures needed, others in power recognize there is a problem.
The new federal finance minister appears to be one of them.
In 2012, right before going into politics, Chrystia Freeland published Plutocrats: The Rise of the New Global Super-Rich and the Fall of Everyone Else, a book on the inequalities between the very rich and the rest of the population.
Patrick Leblond, a professor with the University of Ottawa’s Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, suggested treating all personal revenue the same way might be a more effective way of taxing the rich. (Simon Lasalle/Radio Canada)
But she would not comment on the proposed taxes on the wealth and the inheritance of the richest Canadians.
Finance minister previously denounced inequality
In an email, her office noted the Trudeau government had introduced higher personal income taxes for the wealthiest Canadians, lowered those of the middle class and put the Canada Child Benefit in place. But her office recognized that “there is still more to do to ensure every Canadian has a fair chance at success.”
Trottier said the next speech from the throne, scheduled for Sept. 23, is the opportunity for the Trudeau government to do more.
The pandemic has laid bare who’s most deserving in Canada — the front-line workers whose salaries are often on the low end of the scale, she said.
“I think the inequalities in our society became obvious to a lot more people during the pandemic,” she said. “And we realized who are the people doing the essential work. We have lists now. It’s very clear who is doing the essential work.”
NEW YORK (AP) — Teen smoking hit an all-time low in the U.S. this year, part of a big drop in the youth use of tobacco overall, the government reported Thursday.
There was a 20% drop in the estimated number of middle and high school students who recently used at least one tobacco product, including cigarettes, electronic cigarettes, nicotine pouches and hookahs. The number went from 2.8 million last year to 2.25 million this year — the lowest since the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s key survey began in 1999.
“Reaching a 25-year low for youth tobacco product use is an extraordinary milestone for public health,” said Deirdre Lawrence Kittner, director of CDC’s Office on Smoking and Health, in a statement. However, “our mission is far from complete.”
A previously reported drop in vaping largely explains the overall decline in tobacco use from 10% to about 8% of students, health officials said.
The youth e-cigarette rate fell to under 6% this year, down from 7.7% last year — the lowest at any point in the last decade. E-cigarettes are the most commonly used tobacco products among teens, followed by nicotine pouches.
Use of other products has been dropping, too.
Twenty-five years ago, nearly 30% of high school students smoked. This year, it was just 1.7%, down from the 1.9%. That one-year decline is so small it is not considered statistically significant, but marks the lowest since the survey began 25 years ago. The middle school rate also is at its lowest mark.
Recent use of hookahs also dropped, from 1.1% to 0.7%.
The results come from an annual CDC survey, which included nearly 30,000 middle and high school students at 283 schools. The response rate this year was about 33%.
Officials attribute the declines to a number of measures, ranging from price increases and public health education campaigns to age restrictions and more aggressive enforcement against retailers and manufacturers selling products to kids.
Among high school students, use of any tobacco product dropped to 10%, from nearly 13% and e-cigarette use dipped under 8%, from 10%. But there was no change reported for middle school students, who less commonly vape or smoke or use other products,
Current use of tobacco fell among girls and Hispanic students, but rose among American Indian or Alaska Native students. And current use of nicotine pouches increased among white kids.
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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
WASHINGTON (AP) — An Alabama man was arrested Thursday for his alleged role in the January hack of a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission social media account that led the price of bitcoin to spike, the Justice Department said.
Eric Council Jr., 25, of Athens, is accused of helping to break into the SEC’s account on X, formerly known as Twitter, allowing the hackers to prematurely announce the approval of long-awaited bitcoin exchange-traded funds.
The price of bitcoin briefly spiked more than $1,000 after the post claimed “The SEC grants approval for #Bitcoin ETFs for listing on all registered national securities exchanges.”
But soon after the initial post appeared, SEC Chairman Gary Gensler said on his personal account that the SEC’s account was compromised. “The SEC has not approved the listing and trading of spot bitcoin exchange-traded products,” Gensler wrote, calling the post unauthorized without providing further explanation.
Authorities say Council carried out what’s known as a “SIM swap,” using a fake ID to impersonate someone with access to the SEC’s X account and convince a cellphone store to give him a SIM card linked to the person’s phone. Council was able to take over the person’s cellphone number and get access codes to the SEC’s X account, which he shared with others who broke into the account and sent the post, the Justice Department says.
Prosecutors say after Council returned the iPhone he used for the SIM swap, his online searches included: “What are the signs that you are under investigation by law enforcement or the FBI even if you have not been contacted by them.”
An email seeking comment was sent Thursday to an attorney for Council, who is charged in Washington’s federal court with conspiracy to commit aggravated identity theft and access device fraud.
The price of bitcoin swung from about $46,730 to just below $48,000 after the unauthorized post hit on Jan. 9 and then dropped to around $45,200 after the SEC’s denial. The SEC officially approved the first exchange-traded funds that hold bitcoin the following day.
Google, Meta and TikTok have removed social media accounts belonging to an industrial plant in Russia’s Tatarstan region aimed at recruiting young foreign women to make drones for Moscow’s war in Ukraine.
Posts on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram and TikTok were taken down following an investigation by The Associated Press published Oct. 10 that detailed working conditions in the drone factory in the Alabuga Special Economic Zone, which is under U.S. and British sanctions.
Videos and other posts on the social media platforms promised the young women, who are largely from Africa, a free plane ticket to Russia and a salary of more than $500 a month following their recruitment via the program called “Alabuga Start.”
But instead of a work-study program in areas like hospitality and catering, some of them said they learned only arriving in the Tatarstan region that they would be toiling in a factory to make weapons of war, assembling thousands of Iranian-designed attack drones to be launched into Ukraine.
In interviews with AP, some of the women who worked in the complex complained of long hours under constant surveillance, of broken promises about wages and areas of study, and of working with caustic chemicals that left their skin pockmarked and itching. AP did not identify them by name or nationality out of concern for their safety.
The tech companies also removed accounts for Alabuga Polytechnic, a vocational boarding school for Russians aged 16-18 and Central Asians aged 18-22 that bills its graduates as experts in drone production.
The accounts collectively had at least 158,344 followers while one page on TikTok had more than a million likes.
In a statement, YouTube said its parent company Google is committed to sanctions and trade compliance and “after review and consistent with our policies, we terminated channels associated with Alabuga Special Economic Zone.”
Meta said it removed accounts on Facebook and Instagram that “violate our policies.” The company said it was committed to complying with sanctions laws and said it recognized that human exploitation is a serious problem which required a multifaceted approach, including at Meta.
It said it had teams dedicated to anti-trafficking efforts and aimed to remove those seeking to abuse its platforms.
TikTok said it removed videos and accounts which violated its community guidelines, which state it does not allow content that is used for the recruitment of victims, coordination of their transport, and their exploitation using force, fraud, coercion, or deception.
The women aged 18-22 were recruited to fill an urgent labor shortage in wartime Russia. They are from places like Uganda, Rwanda, Kenya, South Sudan, Sierra Leone and Nigeria, as well as the South Asian country of Sri Lanka. The drive also is expanding to elsewhere in Asia as well as Latin America.
Accounts affiliated to Alabuga with tens of thousands of followers are still accessible on Telegram, which did not reply to a request for comment. The plant’s management also did not respond to AP.
The Alabuga Start recruiting drive used a robust social media campaign of slickly edited videos with upbeat music that show African women smiling while cleaning floors, wearing hard hats while directing cranes, and donning protective equipment to apply paint or chemicals.
Videos also showed them enjoying Tatarstan’s cultural sites or playing sports. None of the videos made it clear the women would be working in a drone manufacturing complex.
Online, Alabuga promoted visits to the industrial area by foreign dignitaries, including some from Brazil, Sri Lanka and Burkina Faso.
In a since-deleted Instagram post, a Turkish diplomat who visited the plant had compared Alabuga Polytechnic to colleges in Turkey and pronounced it “much more developed and high-tech.”
According to Russian investigative outlets Protokol and Razvorot, some pupils at Alabuga Polytechnic are as young as 15 and have complained of poor working conditions.
Videos previously on the platforms showed the vocational school students in team-building exercises such as “military-patriotic” paintball matches and recreating historic Soviet battles while wearing camouflage.
Last month, Alabuga Start said on Telegram its “audience has grown significantly!”
That could be due to its hiring of influencers, who promoted the site on TikTok and Instagram as an easy way for young women to make money after leaving school.
TikTok removed two videos promoting Alabuga after publication of the AP investigation.
Experts told AP that about 90% of the women recruited via the Alabuga Start program work in drone manufacturing.
