You don't know? If you care so much, why don't you buy a notepad and a calculator and figure it out?
I have a very hard time believing the claim.
Consider this. We will use hypothetical numbers.
Someone makes a gross income on their paycheck: $2400.
Say 2/3 of that goes towards taxes, EI, CPP, etc. (EI and CPP aren't taxes, but we'll pretend that they are)
They're left with $1600 net income.
If they spend every last dime of that $1600 on taxable goods then roughly $200 of that will be taxed with consumption taxes (we'll even pretend that they have zero non-taxable spending despite the fact that groceries and rents aren't taxed).
That means another $200 on top of the $800 they spent on taxes is added to their tax burden. That's a total of $1000 out of $2400 or 42% taxes.
The problem is that this is a completely unreasonable scenario.
First of all, it presumes they spend every last penny of their income. People do not.
It presumes that EI and CPP are taxes. They are not.
It presumes that every last dollar of their spending is on taxable goods. It's not. Not even close.
So they're not paying anywhere even close to the
theoretical maximum tax. They would literally have to spend every last penny of their income on taxable goods and services for that to be the case. That means they wouldn't have a roof over their head or food in their belly (unless they literally only ever ate at restaurants).