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This is a story about nothing, basically. I would imagine the number of people who pay taxes of that magnitude in some way other than payroll deduction is quite small.

Also what Americans may not realize is that in Canada we have a bank-run system called interac which allows us to use our bank cards like credit cards. You have some limited versions of this but I’ve found that when in America I can only use a credit card, not a current account accessing bank card, to pay. Up here most of us use both systems about equally. And parallel to the bank card system at point of sale, there is a system called interac transfer which is basically pay pal applied to banks. You simply send a selected recipient the desired amount and all the banks here (which are fewer in number, all banks here are what you might call large banks) are on this system, so the money flows electronically, people just don’t send each other cheques very often nowadays (it does still happen).

This interac system is very secure and we have never had one problem using it in over three decades. I often wonder why there seems to be no equivalent in most other countries.

A cynic might say well the government is monitoring your cash flow. As far as is known, the system is private to the banking system. I would not be surprised if the governments could peek in but they would need a bench warrant and it probably only happens in about a millionth of all transactions, otherwise they would need many thousands of agents tracking literally billions of transactions. And in any case, if the government wants to find out if I pay my rent or send friends money they could just as easily snoop on my bank account at source and see ATM or cheque activity so this interac system is not really any less secure.

By the way, government agents following my every move, hello. Nice weather we’re having. Is the black SUV in for repairs, I see you’re driving a white one this week.