Canada isn't so detail-and-rule-obsessed, but their civil service is friendly and inefficient. I much prefer the kind and well-executed Dutch bureaucracy, even as an expat here. Filing my taxes, even in a year in which I bought a house, took less than an hour. Canadian taxes were comparatively byzantine!
The inefficiency of the Canadian government is nothing to be proud of though. It's insane how many people are employed there compared to doing something productive.
Yet the Canadian government provides services across Canada in huge areas with extremely low population densities. This is incredibly inefficient, which is the point.
I know the comparison is between the UK and Easy Germany, but the UK already has much higher taxes and much worse services than Canada where I live.
The problem probably isn’t money but rather something else, like low throughput, or too much work being absorbed by bureaucracy, or some other issue that is much harder to solve than simply levying more tax.
Canada’s per capita non-military expenditures are slightly lower than the US’s. They have somewhat higher taxes not because they spend more on welfare, but because they run a much smaller deficit.
Interesting. What do all of those clerks do in the Canadian system vs the US system? Would you say that the Canadian system is a paragon of efficiency?
Canada is a clear win. Set up a corporation in a single day. Fairly straightforward taxes (not the lowest around, but still fairly simple). Technical cities (Waterloo, Toronto, Vancouver, Ottawa). Zero corruption, unless you're in the construction industry, but effectively nothing. Easy employee termination (2 weeks pay without cause, 0 weeks pay with cause). Low occurrence of lawsuits, especially medical, and much smaller settlements (highest medical suit I've heard of in my personal circle was $100k, and it was clearly deserving). Technocratic politicians usually win elections. Only about 1% of GDP on the military (vs 2+% for most of the developed world, and 5% for the US). Easy access to American products and markets.
This part of the article was a bit silly -- Canada is nothing like this. I feel like he tied his own experiences with late-soviet bureaucracy to his frustrations with conservative Canadian business climate; but the two are not analogous really.
Canada is a market economy with very low corporate taxes and when compared to European economies regulation is actually very light. Our business norms and regulations are tied in most part very closely to the United States.
But the investment culture is very conservative and the economy is tied excessively to resource extraction.
And yes, there is a long history of a few families having strong dominance over everything, and of businesses/companies gaining monopolistic positions through regulation. An example of this is the wine industry in Ontario -- I could go on a long rant about that... but I'll restrain myself.
Why do you say that the CRA is the most competent organization in all of Canada? Not doubting that it could be or anything I was more wondering on what basis you made that claim.
That is another way of saying the same thing. The two countries spend about the same. Canada is actually balancing its budget. Therefore Canada needs to be collecting more in taxes.
Yeah that comments is bullshit. It’s very easy to establish a business in Canada. The bureaucracy is efficient by comparison to most developed countries including the US. The tax authority is not scary like the IRS and the rules are reasonable and easier to understand. The provinces have considerable control over economic policies and taxation, generating competition between regions.
I’ve run tech companies in Canada for over 20 years. It’s a perfectly fine place to do business.
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