Why are your taxes still hurting?

The frustration starts in a very ordinary place: the kitchen table. It is there, between grocery receipts, rent notices, and the next electricity bill, that a new MEI-Ipsos poll lands with uncomfortable clarity. Canadians are not arguing over abstract budgets or policy jargon. They are saying, in plain language, that they feel squeezed, overtaxed, and underwhelmed by what they get back for the money they hand over.

Photographer: ANYA RICHTER

The poll found that 63% of Canadians say they pay too much income tax, while 70% say their tax burden reduces their living standards. That is the heart of the story, because it explains why this debate is not just about ideology or fiscal theory. When people feel their paycheques shrink before they ever reach the grocery store, tax policy starts sounding like survival. The same survey found that 52% think the federal government spends too much, while only 5% think it spends too little.

That sense of frustration deepens when the subject turns to subsidies. Two-thirds of respondents, 66%, said corporate subsidies are expensive and yield poor results. In Quebec, that figure rises to 69%. The public is responding to a pattern many Canadians already recognize in everyday life: governments announce big economic wins, promise jobs and growth, and later leave taxpayers holding the bill when the results do not match the pitch. The poll’s timing matters here, because it arrives after years of high-profile subsidy controversies and rising concern about whether governments are using public money to manage politics more than problems.

The sharpest warning in the poll may be the one aimed at the federal government’s proposed sovereign wealth fund. A majority, 58%, oppose borrowing $25 billion to finance it, while only 20 per cent support the idea. That is not a technical objection. It is a gut-level rejection of the logic that says Canada can keep adding debt while asking people to trust that the next fund, program, or investment vehicle will somehow produce discipline. The poll also notes that the federal government is still projecting a deficit of $65.4 billion for the current year, which helps explain why borrowing for a new fund feels, to many respondents, like money pulled from the same strained household budget they are already trying to manage.

What makes the findings politically significant is its consistency. No level of government receives majority support for giving taxpayers value for money, and provincial governments fare worse, with 56% saying they do not get their money’s worth. That is a warning shot for every order of government. People are asking for receipts, priorities, and a basic sense that public money is being treated with the same caution families must use when their own budgets are tight.

Photo Courtesy of Microsoft 365

The real challenge for governments is that this kind of skepticism is cured by restraint, transparency, and fewer expensive promises that cannot survive public scrutiny. Individuals can respond in smaller but practical ways: by reading budget announcements carefully, asking elected officials what gets cut when a new fund or subsidy is created, and pushing for straightforward answers about outcomes, not slogans. Governments, meanwhile, have a narrower choice than they might like. They can keep asking people to accept higher costs in the name of long-term planning, or they can start proving that every dollar spent has a result ordinary Canadians can see and feel.

The poll’s most telling line is not about deficits or subsidies at all. It is the simple fact that Canadians say they are paying more and receiving less. That is where the political argument lives now. If governments want trust, they will have to earn it in the one place that matters most: the daily life of the people writing the cheques.