When Chrystia Freeland proposed raising taxes on capital gains last April, she pitched the change — and related promises to invest in dental care, school food programs and housing — in starkly moral terms.
“Before they complain too bitterly, I would like Canada’s one per cent — Canada’s 0.1 per cent — to consider this: What kind of Canada do you want to live in?” she asked in what would turn out to be her last budget speech. “Do you want to live in a country where those at the very top live lives of luxury — but must do so in gated communities, behind ever higher fences, using private health care and airplanes, because the public sphere is so degraded and the wrath of the vast majority of their less privileged compatriots burns so hot?”
Eight months later, Freeland has apparently decided that increasing the inclusion rate for capital gains …