NBA 🌐 Generalist

🇨🇦 MARK CARNEY SAYS CANADA IS “THE GREATEST COUNTRY IN THE WORLD TO BE A REGULAR PERSON.” Wonderful. Let’s meet this mythical regular Canadian. Not a billionaire. Not a trust-fund beneficiary. Not someone with three investment properties. Just an ordinary Ontario taxpayer earning $120,000 a year, trying to raise a family, own a modest home, and perhaps commit the outrageous act of saving for retirement. In Ottawa, $120,000 sounds like prosperity. In the real world, it’s a remarkable opportunity for everyone else to get paid. Let’s follow the money. YOUR $120,000 SALARY — 2026 🇨🇦 Federal income tax: ~$17,502 🇨🇦 Ontario income tax, including surtax: ~$8,636 🇨🇦 Ontario Health Premium: $750 🇨🇦 CPP contributions: ~$4,646 🇨🇦 Employment Insurance: ~$1,123 TOTAL PAYROLL DEDUCTIONS: $32,657. Congratulations. Before you’ve bought a loaf of bread, paid your mortgage, or turned on a light, roughly 27% of your gross income has already been deducted. You now have approximately $87,343 left. And this is where the Canadian dream gets really expensive. Own a home? Property taxes. Buy taxable goods or services? Another 13% HST in Ontario. Fill your car? Federal and provincial fuel taxes are already embedded in the price. Insure your car? Pay the premium. Insure your home? Another premium. Heat your house? Pay the utility company. Need child care? Open your wallet. Need groceries? Statistics Canada says grocery prices have risen 33% since September 2020. And remember, insurance, food inflation, and child care aren’t taxes. They’re simply the other bills arriving after the tax collector has finished. Now consider one illustrative annual budget for that $120,000 Ontario household: 🏠 Mortgage payments: $33,600 🏡 Property taxes: $5,300 🥦 Groceries: $13,000 👶 Child care: $10,800 🚗 Auto and home insurance: $5,000 ⚡ Utilities, internet and phones: $6,000 ⛽ Transportation, fuel and maintenance: $7,200 🛒 Clothing, household supplies and other essentials: $6,000 TOTAL HOUSEHOLD EXPENSES: $86,900. These are illustrative costs, not national averages, and applicable sales taxes are included rather than added twice. AMOUNT LEFT FROM $120,000 GROSS INCOME: $443 A YEAR. That’s approximately $37 a month. Before a vacation. Before a major home repair. Before an emergency. Before meaningfully contributing to your child’s education or your own retirement. Now imagine what happens to the family earning $70,000. Or the single parent working two jobs. Or the young couple who cannot afford the down payment on the home their parents bought with one income. And then imagine being lectured by the Prime Minister about how extraordinary life is for ordinary Canadians. Here’s the intellectual dishonesty in modern Canadian politics: Governments love measuring prosperity by how much people earn. Families measure it by how much they can keep, afford and save. Those are two very different economic realities. A six-figure salary used to signal financial security. Today, in some Canadian households, it merely qualifies you to participate in a more expensive version of financial insecurity. And yes, taxes fund hospitals, schools, infrastructure and pensions. Canadians understand that. What they’re entitled to ask is whether the price they’re paying is producing the quality of life they’re being promised. Because a country cannot indefinitely celebrate its standard of living while ordinary people struggle to maintain it. The government gets the first deduction. The bank gets the mortgage payment. The insurer gets its premium. The grocery store gets what’s left. And the Prime Minister gets to give a speech about how lucky you are. Perhaps Canada really is the greatest country in the world to be a regular person. Patriotism is loving your country. Accountability is demanding that your country work for the people who pay taxes 🇨🇦 @wealthmoose Video : @MarkJCarney