While this Sunday will be a day to celebrate the 134th birthday of our nation, today is also very significant as June 29th is Tax Freedom Day.

Each year, the Fraser Institute calculates tax freedom day (TFD) as the day of the year when Canadians finally start working for themselves. Prior to this date, all money earned by Canadians is required to pay the taxes, fees and levies imposed by all three orders of government - federal, provincial, and municipal. The original news release and supporting calculations and tables can be found at www.fraserinstitute.ca.

But even with historic federal and provincial tax relief measures, the Institute notes that Canadians are still working for government until 12:56 pm of each working day before they start working for themselves. That's right, your lunch hour, save four minutes of it, belongs to the taxman. Talk about losing your appetite.

Also, we lag behind our American and the British taxpaying colleagues who respectively celebrated TFD on May 3rd and June 10th. On the bright side, this year's TFD is a five-day improvement over last year. But Canadians are still plenty fatigued.

Two weeks ago StatsCan reported that Ottawa and the provinces racked up a collective $25.7 billion over-taxation surplus last year.
And a recent National Post/CanWest Global poll showed that 89% of Canadians think their tax burden is still. While 61% believe their taxes continue to creep up. A 16-year snapshot of tax freedom days validates this creeping belief.

1985 1994 2001
NF May 9 May 22 May 30
PEI June 7 June 1 June 6
NS May 17 June 6 June 14
NB June 2 June 1 June 10
QC June 17 June 16 July 4
ON May 26 June 17 June 27
MB May 5 June 20 July 2
SK May 17 June 23 July 2
AB May 22 June 17 June 17
BC June 16 June 30 June 29

CAN June 6 June 19 June 29

(Note: TFD occurs earlier in the Atlantic region due to its heavy reliance on federal transfer payments.) Nationally, our tax burden has increased by 23 days over the past 16 years. In every province, except PEI by one day, TFD falls later now than it did in 1985.

The chart above also depicts the federal tenure of the PCs and the Liberals. While each party will tell you with some truth that they cut taxes, during the Mulroney-Wilson-Campbell-Mazankowski era, TFD nationally (which includes provincial effects) was prolonged by 13 days, while the Chretien-Martin tag team has had a role in extending it further by 10 days.

Taxpayers in Ontario and Alberta should note that their provincial governments - while cutting income taxes - have not substantively improved the overall picture. This transparency is possible because TFD captures all taxes paid including consumption taxes, property taxes, municipal levies, sin taxes, etc. Here we see that provincial downloading merely shifts the burden from income taxes to property taxes and other local user fees.

Worse still, Manitobans deserve a national sympathy card for the two-month additional burden of taxes they now bear compared to 16 years ago. Their license plate slogan is "Friendly Manitoba", now we know for whom, tax addicted governments.

To be fair, TFD does not measure the benefits or value we receive for our taxes. It simply looks at the price we pay for a product known as government. But we'd be willing to bet a Canada Day t-bone steak that Canadians know they continue to pay more but get less when it comes to government services. This is the message that politicians of all stripes and at all levels of government must hear from this year's TFD.