Lesson 15 — Activity 3: Are Taxes a Good Thing?


Warm Up


Some regions in Canada are richer than others. The Canadian government collects tax money from all regions of the country but sends payments to poorer provinces. This helps to equal things out across Canada.

In this activity, you will learn about the services provided from taxes.

Although people in Canada earn different amounts of money for different jobs, most Canadians feel that everyone should be able to afford the basic things like food, shelter, and clothing. This means the government puts social programs like employment insurance and social assistance in place to help people who need it. Also, people who earn less money pay lower taxes than those who earn more.


Governments also use tax money to help people who are the victims of unforeseen circumstances such as forest fires, floods, drought, ice storms, or tornados.

Police car in Calgary flood

Courtesy of Colby Stopca, flickr


Tax money also helps pay for a large number of services in Canada.

Two of the most important are health care and education. Since we use tax money to pay most of the costs in health care and education, everyone in the country can access these very important services. A few days in the hospital can easily cost thousands of dollars. A year's schooling would also cost thousands of dollars. Without a tax system, most Canadians would not be able to get medical attention when they are sick or be able to send their children to school.




Self-check!

Try This!

Below is a list of services that taxes are used to fund. How many of these services have you personally used?

  • National Parks (Jasper, Banff, etc.)
  • law enforcement (police)
  • schools
  • medical services (hospitals, doctors, nurses, etc.)
  • roads
  • water and sewer systems
  • recreational facilities (pools, arenas, soccer fields, etc.)
  • public transit (city buses, LRT, C-Train)
  • Hire-a-Student Office
  • Alberta registries (car and driver licenses)
  • fish and wildlife
  • Environment Canada (weather office)


Now you can see that many of the services you might use are funded by tax dollars!