TORONTO — The federal budget is being met with distain from Canada's innovation industry, including tech darling Shopify, which both positioned capital gains measures embedded in the fiscal plan as a potential cause of “irreparable harm.”
It said the increase would only impact the wealthiest 0.13 per cent and result in $19.3 billion in revenue over the next five years. At the crux of the complaints he fielded was a feeling that the potential changes would encourage entrepreneurs to open their businesses elsewhere and push workers in the sector away from Canada as they try to avoid paying more when they want to reap the benefits of their stock options.
While capital gains measures are seen as a way to tax the wealthiest and deliver a Liberal budget buzzword —"fairness" — to the country, Bergen said what's in the budget could affect tech workers who aren't in senior positions. Such concerns also reverberated around the highest echelons of Canadian tech. Several Shopify Inc. executives, including president Harley Finkelstein, posted about the capital gains measures on X hours after the budget's release, saying"What. Are. We. Doing?!?""Our policy failures are America's gains."