Trump Screams, Canada Flinches, Taxes go Poof
If this were a Hollywood movie, it would’ve started with Donald Trump’s (un)Truth Social post. He’s whining about something called the Digital Services Tax, which immediately propels the new tax into the collective consciousness.:
Upon hearing about this, many of you ran out to your favorite AI GPT tool and asked it what the heck this tax is anyway (isn’t that what the kids are doing now?).
Canada responded two days later by rescinding the DST. This was fast, and I mean super fast. I can’t remember a time in my life where the government of Canada moved this quickly on anything.
I tend to agree with Michael Geist on most of his positions, and on this it’s no different. He describes how this legislation had been in the works since 2020 and every step of the way, it’s been fumbled and played wrong. This article is a good look at how bad legislation evolves, ignores all thought leaders, and is wiped out with a simple social media post.
It is hard to overstate how badly the government managed the DST issue over the past five years.
Of course, if you caught the “We have just been informed” in Trump’s post, you too might wonder what the hell they have been doing south of the border. Perhaps it’s just more proof that instability is the norm. Even for things that are already on the go. Yowza. This is also new (though probably not new to anyone), diplomacy by social media. We’re in the thick of this chaos riding the wave like anyone else.
Like the horrible Online News Act before it, Canada’s government has had a seriously bad run when it comes to technology issues. At every turn they’ve taken the tech-illiterate road. There needs to be some new people there that understand technology, the spirit of how it operates and find ways to embrace this new frontier. Taxing it like real goods is not the way to go, nor is taking a punitive approach towards larger companies.
This won’t be the last we’ll see of this.