Canada Needs Courage, But Not From This Government

The word to me is courage. And I think what we need as a country is a lot more people to have the courage to make the right decisions. And unfortunately, we don't have that with this current government.

We've got Kim Moody, who is the founder of Moody's private client. He's a chartered accountant. He is an amazing individual. He's also one of my colleagues from the Strategic Coach organization. We love having great conversations with Kim because he brings so much value to the table with his knowledge.

What I've been trying to raise the alarm bell on is that money goes to bondholders, which doesn't benefit the average Canadian. I think we could turn this engine around, this train around is what I meant to say. Unfortunately, it's not going to happen with this government. If they cut social programs, that's when the average Canadian will wake up. What do you mean? I don't have my old age security. Do you know how much we collect in corporate tax revenues?

I don't.

Well, let me put this in perspective. And these numbers are from 2024, the fiscal year for the federal government ending 2024, the total amount of revenues, tax revenues, levies, et cetera, that were collected was $459.5 billion. That's all the revenues they collected. Now when you have GST being a only 50 billion of that, and then personal tax, by the way, was 217.7 billion. So it's about 47% of that 459 billion. So we very much rely on personal tax revenues as a country because it's so skewed to that. But then you have $55 billion growing to 76 billion and you've got 459.5 billion. Think about that. That's a material percentage of our costs against total revenues. It's more than 10%. Now, the average Canadian will go like this. What does that mean? It means nothing. Well, what I've been trying to raise the alarm bell on is that money goes to bondholders, which doesn't benefit the average Canadian, even mostly it goes out of the country. Well, from what I loosely understand, about 30% of it goes out of the country, foreign bondholders. But all that aside, which we could debate, that does every dollar of interest, like if we had a dollar that went to a bondholder as opposed to a dollar that went, you know, that was that we could ultimately use for some other purpose for the country, such as health transfers to the province or education transfers and maybe improve our shitty education system that we have in the provinces. You know, you've got young kids that are going through school. Thankfully mine are done. But I'll tell you, the education system, it's more about indoctrination than it is about providing good, good teaching these days, in my opinion. But so if we had actually some decent structural changes and that money that could go to education or to health care or to improving our roads, et cetera, et cetera, I think our country overall would benefit. But no, they go to bondholders instead, which doesn't benefit the average Canadian. And instead we're dealt with increasing pressures from the government and those pressures are going to have to be increasing taxes, cutting spending, and worst case, they're going to have to cut social programs because they're not going to be able to afford them. And that's when that, if they cut social programs, that's when the average Canadian will wake up. What do you mean I don't have my old age security? What do you mean?

But in the meantime, the old age part is still there. It's just the security part that we're taking away. It's interesting you mentioned. So Nelson Nash, my mentor who wrote Becoming your own banker, he used to say, and I remember being at an event with him and his wife Mary would often attend and they were, they were married for I believe close to 50 years. And she'd say, what, what is that you say, Mary? Every time the school bus goes by, she would pipe up, oh, there go the inmates. I always stuck with me. So your, your comments about the education system I thought was interesting. Okay, so you want to keep the wealth in the family. I get it, I hear you. Me too. That's why we wrote this book, don't spread the wealth. Everyone tells you that you want to spread the money, spread the we. No, no, no, you don't want to do that. You want to keep the money in the family with the people you love and care about, where it belongs for as many generations as possible. That's what we talk about in this book. In this book we have an incredible 15 page bonus you can download which instructs you on how to start the conversation with your family, on annual family banking meetings, how to host them, some sample exercises and a sample agenda. Tons of amazing, great benefits. Go ahead, get a copy right now. Head on over to don't spread Wealth. That's Don't Spread wealth dot com. Don't Spread wealth dot com. You're going to love it.

My personal opinion is that it's still at a situation and I'm, you know, I'm not an economist. I mean, I'm no dummy when it comes to studying economics, and I've studied it a lot and I continue to. But do I think we're at the point of, of no return? I. I think no. I think if we had the political will and the policy will, I think we could turn this engine around, this train around is what I meant to say. But unfortunately it's not going to happen with this government. You know, you've got a lot of big promises. You've got, oh, he's such a wonderful, smart businessman with no business experience. And frankly, you know, his track record as an economist is iffy at best. And so I don't see it happening with this government. And so then that leads to, will we see a government change? Well, that's up to the voters, right? And when you have a financially illiterate voter base and looking at how they voted in a new government, I'm not all that optimistic. But I think with people like you, you know, people like me that keep, you know, being blunt and saying that this is not acceptable, then, then great. You know, just as we were chatting, I see the parliamentary budget officer released a report on the budget. So, you know, after we finish this, I'm going to go and take a look and see what he says. But my editor for, my editor for the Financial Post, you know, just flashed on my screen here. It said, hey, this, you need to write about this. Okay, So I know what my next. I mean, I haven't even read what, because we've been chatting, but I suspect it's pretty blunt. And as you probably already know of, the government wants to release and replace this, this parliamentary budget officer because he is too blunt. So I'm sure this guy's getting in his final, final two sets before he's fired.

Well, he's, you know, heaven forbid he should actually do his job, which is, you know, identify where problems exist. And so kudos to him for, for stepping out to do that, because I don't imagine that it was easy for him to, you know, indicate some of the things that he's indicated because it. He, I'm sure he was well aware it might put his position at risk as.

Yeah, but good. You know, I admire people like that. Right. The. When you, when you say something at the risk, you know, of sacrificing your own advancement, you know that there's, there's a word for that. And the word to me is courage. And I think what we need as a country is a lot more people to take courage, you know, have the courage to make the right decisions. And unfortunately we don't have that with this current government. We have a lot of usual politics and pacifying to people that are going to preserve their power and their votes. And it would be nice for once, and I know it's wishful thinking to just see decisions that are being made for the betterment of Canada as a whole.

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