Jeff: Taxation should be used more as a social engineering tool. These days, the deductions you mentioned are political tools more than social engineering. Woe betide any Canadian political party that dares to cast these deductions aside.
After reading a few other articles on Medium, I think the emphasis on tuition has been tilted towards the upper middle class and higher. The American Aristocracy is trying to keep its tribe as the elite by making it more difficult for others to get a college education (or keep them broke after they get it).
I belong to the lower middle class. We make about $40,000 a year. Maybe pay about $5,000 in fed/prov taxes. Another $1,800 on civic property taxes. Then there is the GST, maybe another $1,000. I would not say that our tax load is onerous. But our spending habits are reasonable.
