Well, since it's still Canada Day season, thought I should investigate how our federal tax dollars are contributing to making Canada, Canada. Le voila:

• $0.15 - interest on the debt (pays our Canada Savings Bonds interest, for example)


• $0.53 - given to the provinces and territories and individuals to do good stuff with. We hope.
  
  
  
  • $0.23 - go to individual Canadians (like Old Age Security - $0.13, and Employment Insurance - $0.06, Child Tax Benefit - $0.04)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  • $0.19 - given to provinces and territories to implement federal programs like healthcare-$0.08, education & social assistance -$0.03
  
  
  
  


• $0.11 - grants to things like the arts, farmers, aboriginal programs, bilingualism, sports


• $0.25 - operating costs of running the federal gov't (eg. Nat'l Defence - $0.07, RCMP - $0.03 and our favourite, the CRA itself - $0.02)


• $0.03 - crown corporations like CBC, CMHC and Atomic Energy (huh? who knew?)


• $0.06 - surplus, used to reduce the federal debt.

There you have it. Note that some of the things we love to hate, social assistance and employment insurance, were only about $0.06 cents of the dollar, whereas old age security is actually the largest single item after interest on the debt.Now we know!