Posted: Tuesday, 4 May 2010

The international labour movement and many nongovernmental organizations promoting development and policies to deal with climate change have supported the idea of a financial transactions tax — a small tax on trading in equities, bonds, currencies, derivatives, and other financial instruments. Such a tax would be levied at a very low rate so as to have limited impact on financial trades that meet the needs of the real economy, but would limit destructive speculation and could raise significant new revenues for governments.

The International Monetary Fund is currently studying the concept of such a tax for the upcoming Toronto G20 Summit. On April 20, CLC President Ken Georgetti argued the case for this important financial reform at a meeting of labour leaders with the Director of the IMF, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, and the Canadian Labour Congress urges the support of the Canadian government in this letter to Prime Minister Harper.