In a somewhat bizarre press release, the Canadian Information Processing Society is calling for the Government of Canada to take some rather extreme steps to help Canada's technology sector.
Specifically, CIPS is calling for:
Now, the last point sounds great, but I can't help but raise an eyebrow at the other three.
Certainly plenty of workers would love to stop paying income tax by virtue of their choice of profession, but it seems rather doubtful that such a measure could be truly implemented.
The elimination of tax on technology would be nice as well, but depending on the definition of technology, we could talking about several billion dollars of lost tax revenue, which again seems unlikely, particularly while the Federal Government is running a deficit.
While major tax breaks sound like a great way to bring IT workers to Canada, that would really depend on whether or not they left Canada because of high taxes or for other reasons.
Government support for technology and innovation is great, but I'm just not sure across the board tax cuts are really the answer.
That said, CIPS Chair of the Canadian Council of Information Greg Lane does have a point when he states in the release:
"At CIPS we believe in order to ensure the long-term viability of Canada's information technology industry, we need a concerted effort from government, academia and industry."
A group effort is certainly required, but I wouldn't hold my breath of having the industry declared tax-free.
In September 1958, a dedicated group of data processors (DP) got together to talk about common concerns of DP workers. That conference demonstrated... [more]
Robert Janelle
Robert Janelle is a freelance technology journalist living in the National Capital Region. He's spent time covering the Ottawa start-up scene as a columnist and feature writer with his work in National Capital Scan, The Ottawa Citizen, The Ottawa Sun, Kingston Whig-Standard and The Escapist. He also suffers from a mild addiction to video games.
