Sure. I appreciate the question.
We looked at our labour productivity, which is often how we view productivity in developed economies, and how that played out over the longitudinal set of data of our capital gains inclusion rates when they bounced from having no capital gains to 50% and 75%, and back down to 50%. What we found was that there was just absolutely no correlation whatsoever between the rate of capital gains taxation and our productivity.
We looked across a variety of economies across the globe and found the exact same data. Higher capital gains inclusion rates do not correlate with lower productivity.
What we know, from many longitudinal studies—some done by the London School of Economics—is that greater inequity in a society, which comes from tax systems like ours, has a regressive result on society. That, through things like the capital gains tax break, does in fact put a drag on productivity.
Something we would like to see explored in deeper ways in Canada is whether or not our low taxation of corporations and very wealthy people is providing a drag on our productivity right now as a country.