Canada

I’m getting increasingly uncomfortable with François-Philippe Champagne’s record... There may not be proof of personal corruption, but there are enough conflict-of-interest and oversight concerns that people should be paying closer attention: the Alto situation involving his partner, federal funding received by his father’s company while a conflict screen was supposedly in place, and the massive SDTC governance failure under his department.

Now the government is eliminating the Underused Housing Tax and the luxury tax on private aircraft and expensive vessels.

Who benefits from that? Foreign owners of underused Canadian homes, wealthy buyers of private planes and yachts, and the industries selling those assets. Ordinary Canadians receive little or no direct benefit, while the government gives up hundreds of millions in revenue.