I think the companies are the only ones who hate the DST. That and their puppet politicians.

This seems really premature. I dislike Carney’s policies for a bunch of reasons, but it’s premature to shit on him for this. We don’t know what the final trade agreement will be.

The last time Trump threw one of these tantrums, NAFTA morphed into USMCA without much of a hit to our economy (afaiu). If our government can repeat that success while we’re diversifying our economy away from the US then that’s a win.

Canada’s implementation is different from other countries’:

• It’s retroactive to 2022 - so the corps in question would have to drop a big payout in the first year.
• It’s slightly higher than the UK tax that the yanks didn’t call out. (3% vs. 2%)

I don’t know if I would call it stupid, but that retroactive thing seems odd. I don’t know much about corporate tax law, so maybe that’s a thing? I dunno.

Yeah, I think that’s been missing from most of the conversation. Our DST was retroactive and higher than the one in the UK (which Trump&co didn’t bitch about). If this version of the tax dies and we can replace it later, but we still gain something by this move then we’re coming out ahead.

We’ll see what happens.

You’re right. There’s no “done” here. There’s a tonne of work to be done to diversify our economy and trading partners - it’ll be an ongoing burden because we don’t have any other adjacent markets.

Anyhow. My perspective isn’t as gloomy as other commenters. There were international rules around digital services taxes being negotiated before Trump came along. AFAIU they stalled, but this crap seems like a good reason to get them started again.

From what I’ve seen, Canada’s agriculture sectors have had a rough time over the past few decades: production is consolidating into a handful of players, profit margins are sinking, while those further up the supply chain seem to be enjoying most of the profits (and prices for the consumer aren’t improving). Dairy farmers have done really well compared to their peers in other sectors. I’m okay paying a bit more for dairy if it keeps them doing well.

I guess we’ll find out in a few weeks.

That original strategy was a good one - I think it was used to strong effect during the first Trump presidency. I hope these tariffs are equally effective, but I haven’t heard too much since they were implemented.

There was a lot of talk about elbows up, but I’m unclear what is being taxed and how. There’s a list, but I don’t know what that represents in terms of financial cost to Canadian buyers and US producers.

Like, is it a tiny bit of posturing for the home crowd, or is it something that will hurt US industries (and Canadian buyers)? I don’t know.

I’m not too familiar with the NAFTA negotiations, but it seems on-brand.

Fair enough. There’s a push and pull in negotiations that we (generally) don’t see. I’m trying to read the tea leaves to figure out why Carney would ditch the DST, and this is a possible reason. I can’t know if it’s the reason. But it’s interesting to think about.

We aren’t unique in having a tax like this,

I think we’re unique in that we made our tax retroactive.

and the US has no place saying it’s unfair when it’s not even only foreign companies paying.

Generally, I agree that the US has no place dictating our tax policy, but they are within their rights to control their trade with us. 90% of the companies paying are US tech companies (I think that’s in the Globe explainer), so I can see why poking us to see what they can get. I don’t like it, but that’s (sadly) irrelevant.

Nothing beyond the link in the post. It’s consistent with what I’ve heard in other media, the Bloc’s supply management trade bill, and Maxime Bernier’s recent political success (🤣).

I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s a push poll from the dairy industry, but it represents the goals of notable Quebec constituency.

I suspect the PM doesn’t want to alienate other voting blocks by saying it out loud. Just like he really didn’t want to piss off older Canadians by saying his policies would lower house prices.

I agree with you, but he’s smart enough to know that an embarrassing sound bite will play forever in CPC ads, along with a scary voice over like “he’s willing to screw over Canadian businesses for dirty yucky Quebec, so why won’t he bend over for Alberta’s Big Beautiful fossil fuel producers?”

Supply management on dairy. The yanks have hated that for a while, but there’s a bunch of Quebecois dairy farmers who really like it. I’m guessing that Carney is giving up the DST since it doesn’t have a constituency - if that allows him to keep supply management on dairy, it’ll be easier to keep Quebec’s support during the next election.

I’m guessing the reason is supply management on dairy.

There’s a large rural Quebecois voting block that really likes supply management. By dropping the DST, Carney can cede something to Trump without pissing them off. The DST doesn’t have the same constituency, so it’ll hurt the LPC less during the next election.

Last month, the U.S. and Britain announced a trade deal related to a range of products. But Britain’s 2-per-cent DST was not affected.

In a statement at the time, U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said the U.S. “is disappointed that Britain was unwilling to agree to fully address its discriminatory Digital Services Tax.”

Britain kept theirs. They’d probably argue that they aren’t European, but y’know.

Repetition repetition repetition

I feel like this is the default. Many of the people in my life don’t want to make decisions. They just want to do the simple things that bring immediate contentment and avoid everything else.

That’s a really weird way of looking at it.

That’s how I roll.

Without the database, there’s no central ledger to consult as to whether or not you’re legally a person.

We’re already seeing them do that without a database. 🤷‍♂️

Other countries are able to maintain internal databases without using them to screw over their own citizens (except when they do). The problem isn’t the database.