As Mark Carney Admits DST Was Dumb, Mainstream Media Rages At Decision

Mark Carney made comments suggesting that the DST was a dumb idea all along. This as mainstream media throws a fit over the decision.

Yesterday, we reported on the Digital Services Tax (DST) getting cancelled. For Canadians who have been paying attention, this decision was a long awaited one. When it was finally made, it was fantastic news because cash strapped Canadian’s won’t be faced with another massive tax being placed on all of their purchases and orders.

To be clear, the DST concept was at least as dumb of an idea when it was being bandied about the halls of government then as it was dumb now. It was likely subject to a court challenge, pissed off there American’s, and would ultimately end up costing Canadians big time. Yet, as the criticisms from knowledgeable people mounted, the Canadian government doubled down on their belligerence by giving the Americans the middle finger along with the effective message of “I do what I want” while accusing anyone who would dare criticize the approach as being little more than “shills for Big Tech”. The message was clear, Canada was going to punch itself in the face and no amount of logic, evidence, or reasoning was going to stop them.

Then Trump became president of the US and Carney became Prime Minister of Canada.

Trump not only continued to threaten Canada over the DST, but also threatened a whole bunch of ridiculous nonsense like his asinine “51st state” remarks along with a number of trade agreement violating tariffs. For Carney, this should have been a sign to try and quietly anything that was going to be problematic on the trade front. Examples include the Online Streaming Act, the Online News Act, and, of course, the DST. Yet, his ministers decided to go full steam ahead, suggesting that nothing was going to stop the DST from taking effect. Indeed, Canada punching itself in the face was simply destiny and Canadian’s should be freaking proud of the moment that they are going to see the country punch itself in the face.

Then, the fist connected squarely in the cheek as the US took full advantage of the idiocy on display and cut off negotiations with Canada. Talks continuing hinged on the cancelling of the DST. Embarrassingly, it was only then that Carney saw the light. Yes, punching yourself in the face really hurts. Carney cancelled the DST along with forthcoming legislation that would formally rescind it completely. Talks resumed and Canada was spared the tax.

Speaking to reporters, Carney admitted that the whole thing was pretty freaking stupid in the first place. This by using the political speak of ‘why put in place a tax for Canadians if you’re only going to remit those taxes back to Canadians?’

I mean, I guess that’s one way of putting it. After all, as Google pointed out earlier, the tax would ultimately get passed onto consumers in the end anyway. Like so many other taxes, it’s the end consumer – Canadians in this case – who pay for all of this.

Had Carney quietly rescinded this tax earlier in the face of the growing threats, this whole situation could’ve been avoided. Instead, he continued to push for this until it invariably blew up in his face. Conservative leader and insufferable loser, Pierre Poilievre, posted on famed Nazi bar, X/Twitter, that he is really upset that Carney axed the tax, saying “As recently as two days ago, the finance minister insisted the Digital Services Tax would proceed. Then the Prime Minister put his elbows down and cancelled the tax at the 11th hour.”

Poilievre had made it his campaign slogan to “Axe the Tax”. This while campaigning on supporting hate in this country by tackling “woke ideology” along with exacerbating the wildfires in Canada by nuking anything even remotely seen as fighting climate change. It’s probably for reasons like that that the guy not only blew a 20 point lead in the polls to lose the election, but also go so far as to lose his own seat in the process. Now, he has to bum a seat off of a fellow candidate just so that he can be let back in to the House of Commons through a bi-election so he can continue to be an embarrassment for the Conservative party on the national stage. The fact that he is upset at all that Carney axed the tax adds an incredibly thick layer of irony to the whole thing.

Of course, the other people that are upset about this whole situation is, of course, the mainstream media. Canada’s mainstream media has spent years nakedly lobbying for this tax in the first place. They were brazen enough to even push their cheap lobbying talking points right on their own front page and broadcasts along with pushing the government on this matter. For them, anything that hurts the online environment is good for them and the DST was going to hurt the online environment – er, Big Tech, yeah, that’s the ticket! Big Tech! This while pushing the idea that the tax would only be applied to the companies and not the end consumers, banking on Canadian’s being stupid enough to fall for this jive and not understanding how consumer taxes work.

So, you can very easily imagine their reaction when years of lobbying the government just got flushed down the toilet. In short, they are pissed. CBC reporters over the weekend lamented on air about how the Canadian government left billions in revenues on the table (even though that would’ve come largely from consumers, but they naturally left that part out). Another “journalist” spent today rage blogging on the Globe and Mail, seemingly in a pit of despair that Carney backed off:

So much for elbows up.

Here’s the thing: Mr. Carney was wrong to cave to Mr. Trump, for there is nothing wrong with the DST. American tech giants that provide digital services in Canada – such as Amazon.com Inc., Uber Technologies Inc., Airbnb Inc., Google and X Corp. (formerly Twitter) – have arguably never been taxed properly, and the DST was intended to both update the tax code as much as generate tax revenue from exceptionally profitable businesses that were given a tax break for far too long.

Let’s be clear: We’re subsidizing American tech giants that have been undermining Canada’s economy as much as our sovereignty for many years. Amazon has decimated Main Street. Airbnb eliminated cheap rental housing. Google destroyed the ad revenue that funded journalism. Facebook and Twitter are our number one sources of hate speech and misinformation. Even with retroactive taxation and an estimated $7-billion in new revenue over five years, the DST was supposed to provide far too little in benefit compared to the economic and social destruction wrought by American tech giants.

These important considerations notwithstanding, consider as well that Mr. Carney’s capitulation to Mr. Trump effectively granted the American President a de facto veto power over Parliament. If we thought advocating for our sovereignty was hard as the junior partner of an integrated continental economy and defence pact, it will certainly be harder now that the man who consistently threatens us with annexation knows that throwing a fit and storming out of the room is all that’s needed to get our Prime Minister to unilaterally cancel legislation already passed by Parliament.

To summarize, “WAAAAAAHHHH!!! (breath) WAAAAAAAAHHH!!!”

Most of what the “journalist” said was either not even related to the DST, is factually incorrect, or both. Though, this is hardly surprising since modern Canadian mainstream journalism, at least in the realm of tech policy, has become little more than obvious blatant propaganda. The above is a shining example of that, though hardly unique.

Of course, petulant toddler, Donald Trump, wasted no time gloating over this. Through a spokesperson, Trump hereby declared that Canada “caved” to Trump, thank you for your attention to this matter. From CNBC:

The White House claimed Monday that Canada “caved” to President Donald Trump by hastily rescinding its digital services tax after the president threatened to shut down trade negotiations between the two major trading partners.

“It’s very simple: Prime Minister [Mark] Carney and Canada caved to President Trump and the United States of America,” press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters at a briefing.

“It was a mistake for Canada to vow to implement that tax that would have our tech companies,” Leavitt said.

Carney, she added, called Trump Sunday night to “let the president know that he would be dropping that tax, which is a big victory for our tech companies and our American workers.”

As eye-rolling as the remarks are, it’s worth pointing out that this whole situation was entirely avoidable. So, Carney really only has himself to blame for this humiliation. If I was an advisor to Carney, I would straight up tell him that he had his moment of burning his hand on the hot skillet, now he needs to look at any other policy that Canada has that is a weakness. Two great examples are the Online News Act and Online Streaming Act. Both target American firms. Maybe he should, at minimum, hold off on collecting on those taxes as well until at least this whole thing blows over.

The problem there is that this would be common sense. The Liberal party is generally allergic to said common sense and tend to react very negatively to it when exposed. So, in all likelihood, one or the other (or even both) will blow up in Carney’s face at a later time. Then, this cycle of this blowing up in Carney’s face, Carney backing off, and Carney getting humiliated by a toddler can repeat itself again. Then, I can sit here, once again, with yet another “I told you so” post afterwards. Believe me, I’ve gotten used to being ignored for articulating accurate predictions of the future – so much so that “Drew Wilson was right” is now basically a Freezenet meme at this point.

At any rate, there is good news to be had here. For one, the DST is gone. For another, trade talks are continuing. It’s not the chain of events I would’ve liked to have seen that led to the DST being cancelled, but it’s the chain of events that got us there.

Drew Wilson on Mastodon, Twitter and Facebook.