The largest budget item for Average Canadian? The Government.

As reported by the Fraser Institute today:

The average Canadian family spent more than 41 per cent of its annual income on taxes in 2010, more than it paid for food, clothing, and shelter combined, concludes a new study released today by the Fraser Institute, Canada’s leading public policy think-tank.


“Taxes have grown over the past 49 years to the point that government is now the largest expenditure facing a family,” said Niels Veldhuis, Fraser Institute senior economist and co-author of the Canadian Consumer Tax Index 2011.

Much like the Consumer Price Index calculated by Statistics Canada which tracks the average price that consumers pay for the goods and services they choose to purchase, the Canadian Consumer Tax Index tracks the price of goods and services that government buys on behalf of Canadians.

In 2010, a Canadian family with an average income of $72,393 spent 41.3 per cent of its income on taxes, while spending 34.0 per cent on the necessities of life: food, clothing, and shelter.


But it wasn’t always this way. In 1961, the average family spent 33.5 per cent of its income on taxes, while 56.5 per cent was required for food, clothing, and shelter.

Imagine that you had another 41% of your pay cheque every month.

Would you..

..pay to create safe heroin use areas?

..pay government bureaucrats to tell you you can't listen to Dire Straights on the radio?

..pay money to separatist politicians seeking to destroy the country you love?

..pay to have someone look after the children of the wealthy so that they can be even more wealthy?

..pay to create a gun registry that doesn't make anyone safer?

..pay to fund government commissions to hold biased and lawless "hearings" to force a comedian to pay $15,000.00 to a drunk heckler because he insulted her in response?

Neither would I.