On September 24th, I took part in the The Walrus Talks: The Billionaire Problem. Each participant gave a seven-minute talk on the topic. You can watch the talks individually or in whole here and read a write-up on the event here. What follows is my talk as I prepared it.
Making the case against billionaires is almost criminally easy. I could ask if you’ve been to Loblaws recently or if you’re a Rogers customer and then spend the rest of my time on stage reading Nigella Lawson recipes before we wrap up and go for drinks. But that’s not very sporting, so I’m going to give it an honest, substantive shot, and I’m going to warn you that billionaires pose a threat to our democracy – to our capacity to self govern.
The formula is simple. Extreme wealth equals extreme power; extreme power equals extreme capacity to disproportionately shape political and economic outcomes; so, to hold billions of dollars in wealth is to hold exponentially more day-to-day votes on how we should live than the average person.
Billionaires shape our political, social, cultural, and economic life by wielding capital and influence in political and business circles. They set and advance agendas about what we should build or not build, what sort of legislation we should pass to regulate industry or not, whether and to what extent we should have a welfare state, under what conditions and to what end we should welcome newcomers into the country, where our manufacturing should be done or not, and plenty more.
Billionaires have the ear of the prime minister and those around him. They have the ear of provincial premiers and those around them. They have the ear of asset managers, bank presidents, and corporate heads throughout the country and across the world. In the United States, the hegemon whose politics and economy have a disproportionate effect on our politics and economy, they have the ear of the president, who is himself a billionaire, even if he’s a shitty, authoritarian one who somehow bankrupted a casino. But the point stands. Billionaires have the ear of the powerful. And you don’t.
By having the ear of the powerful, the ultra-rich not only set agendas, but define what is good, reasonable, necessary, common sense, and true. In a society, our shared reality isn’t objective and fixed. It’s constructed day-by-day through intersubjectivity, which is to say that we decide together what our reality looks like, and we process it subjectively. That means that what is good, reasonable, necessary, common sense, and true is subject to definition and redefinition, just as it’s subject to manipulation and hijacking by the powerful who wish to live in a plutocracy in which they set rules the rest of us must live by—rules which, no surprise, keep them ultra-wealthy and powerful.
In March of 2025, the Carney ministry dropped planned changes to the capital gains inclusion rate that the Trudeau government had previously pursued. Big capital balked at the idea that they might pay a little more tax on their passive income, as if sitting on your ass is tough work, which, to be fair, it sometimes can be, as I must admit as a writer.
But still, we might have had a bit more money in the treasury to heal sick people, feed the poor, house the unhoused, support the elderly, build public-owned and controlled infrastructure, take on climate change, and educate the next generation, who might someday, at this rate, be prone to mistake a book for an empty carton from Amazon because tech billionaires would rather the young, and the rest of us, too, spend their time farming out thinking to machines and deploying those “saved” hours to be spent loathing ourselves through invidious self-comparison on Instagram or fighting with lunatics on Twitter.
In June of 2025, the Carney ministry dropped the digital services tax, which would have required major tech companies, who pay little tax, to pay a bit more. The government did this in the hopes it would encourage the Trump administration to strike a trade deal and because the wealthy oligarchs who run and benefit from the dominance of our lives by Meta and Alphabet believe too much is never enough.
In late-July of this, the Gordie Howe Bridge opened, easing travel and life for those who still cross into enemy territory these days. The bridge was late opening and might not have. The wealthy owners of the original and alternative bridge crossing, the Ambassador Bridge, fought the project for decades, not wanting to lose their monopoly. Canada ended up paying a disproportionate cost for Gordie Howe and conceding to the Trump regime, a fantastic elbows up irony on at least two levels.
Just weeks ago, at Canada’s Investment Summit, the room was packed with the very people against whom we are ostensibly fighting for our sovereignty, including America’s BlackRock and Blackstone; BlackRock is a booster and perpetuator of fossil fuel dependency, which means it puts making the wealthy wealthier ahead of solving the existential risk of climate change, while the latter is infamous for buying up homes and pricing tenants out of them, sending them into the street. To them and others like them, we’ll now sell our industry, our infrastructure, and our sovereignty, because, to quote Don Draper, “THAT’S WHAT THE MONEY’S FOR.” Or, to paraphrase him, that’s what the power is for.
The ultra-wealthy used to build libraries. Now they shred them as they undo the democratic project we’ve been working on in one form or another since antiquity. The ultra-wealthy shouldn’t exist as a class because wealth should be created and distributed in such a way that it, and the power it entails, is broadly shared among those who have a hand in building it and who must live in the society and polity it shapes.
Accordingly, to preserve and perfect our institutions, our democracy, and our society, we ought to democratize not just our politics, but our economy, which for all intents and purposes, are one and the same. Solving the billionaire problem won’t solve all our policy problems or our economic problems, but doing so will start us on our way by ensuring that we get to fix them well and truly together.
We have chosen ... poorly.
The problem is, we shouldn't be choosing. Random selection of representatives would ensure that billionaires didn't have the influence they have now.
But I have to say, billionaire is a pretty high (and arbitrary) cutoff, why not say quinquagintamillionaire (50 million)?
Linda McQuaig and Neil Brooks also write a book in 2010 called The Trouble with Billionaires. It's worth reading.
The problem with our tax system is that it favours capital over labour. I don't have any problem with wealth, I just think it should be treated the same as labour. Because wealth also benefits from the same security that government provides to people - why should it be provided at less cost to wealth? (i.e. why should only 50% of capital gains income be taxable) And wealth doesn't need the government to encourage investment, that's done with ROI, and it's the market's job to provide it, not the government's.
And you can make the same point that inheritances and gifts are a form of income and should also be taxed. The Carter Commission thought so in 1966 - they used the term comprehensive income and recommended that the then current estate tax should be replaced by an inheritance/gift tax.
They also recommended 100% capital gains inclusion with no CPI adjustment. I disagree with their reasoning on that one, I think capital gains should be adjusted for CPI, otherwise you're taxing inflation, not income. You can use a deemed realization to tax those who would use the increased value as security for some other transaction.
That commission also recommended that principal residence gains be taxed after allowing for a 25,000 lifetime exemption (that's about 237,000 now).
On the other hand, it was that same commission that led to the dividend tax credit because corporation income should only be taxed once, but that implies that all the benefits of incorporation should be free to the corporation. I can't agree with that. Corporations and their shareholders are distinct, and should be taxed as such. Let the market decide how corporate tax is distributed amongst those it does business with.
Agree. How?