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A GLOBE AND MAIL BESTSELLER
A jarring portrait of a deeply unequal Canada and how a wealth tax could rein in the destructive power wielded by today’s billionaires.
As the ultra-wealthy siphon off an ever-larger share of the world’s wealth, they now dominate us to a degree unimaginable even a decade ago. With their voracious consumption, unbridled resource exploitation, and relentless obstruction of climate action, they are rapidly undermining democracy and destroying the very viability of the earth for human life.
Their staggering power and hoarding of wealth have prompted a number of G20 nations to consider imposing a wealth tax, aimed exclusively at the super-rich. In Canada, such a tax would apply only to those with wealth above $25 million. Yet it could collect $40 billion a year — funding public programs that could immensely improve the lives of millions of Canadians while clipping the wings of the super-rich.
Billionaires would threaten to depart. But as they left the country that had nourished them and enabled them to grow so wildly rich, they’d face a hefty “exit tax” on the way out.
Yes, change is possible.
A jarring portrait of a deeply unequal Canada and how a wealth tax could rein in the destructive power wielded by today’s billionaires.
As the ultra-wealthy siphon off an ever-larger share of the world’s wealth, they now dominate us to a degree unimaginable even a decade ago. With their voracious consumption, unbridled resource exploitation, and relentless obstruction of climate action, they are rapidly undermining democracy and destroying the very viability of the earth for human life.
Their staggering power and hoarding of wealth have prompted a number of G20 nations to consider imposing a wealth tax, aimed exclusively at the super-rich. In Canada, such a tax would apply only to those with wealth above $25 million. Yet it could collect $40 billion a year — funding public programs that could immensely improve the lives of millions of Canadians while clipping the wings of the super-rich.
Billionaires would threaten to depart. But as they left the country that had nourished them and enabled them to grow so wildly rich, they’d face a hefty “exit tax” on the way out.
Yes, change is possible.
Price: $23.99
Pages: 264
Publisher: Dundurn Press
Imprint: Dundurn Press
Publication Date:
03 March 2026
Trim Size: 9.00 X 6.00 in
ISBN: 9781459754836
Format: Paperback
BISACs:
POLITICAL SCIENCE / Public Policy / Economic Policy, Economic growth, BUSINESS & ECONOMICS / Economic Conditions, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Social Classes & Economic Disparity, Poverty and precarity, Business ethics and social responsibility
A must read. This is a very important book explaining why it is so urgent to confront the extreme concentration of wealth and power — and why global mobilization is building.
Linda McQuaig is an award-winning investigative journalist, a Toronto Star columnist, and the author of eight non-fiction national bestsellers. She lives in Toronto.
Neil Brooks is a leading tax scholar and former director of the graduate program in taxation at Osgoode Hall Law School. He lives in Toronto.
Neil Brooks is a leading tax scholar and former director of the graduate program in taxation at Osgoode Hall Law School. He lives in Toronto.
- Preface
- One: The Myth of the Benign Billionaire
- Two: Billionaires and Climate Catastrophe
- Three: The Patrician
- Four: The Self-Made Man
- Five: The Hedge Fund
- Six: Philanthropy and the Surprising Indifference of the Rich Towards the Poor
- Seven: More on the Philanthropy Scam
- Eight: What Billionaires Can Learn from Finland
- Nine: The Urgent Case for a Wealth Tax, Once More with Feeling
- Acknowledgements
- Appendix: Canadian Billionaires
- Notes
- Index
- About the Authors