Please Advise! Should Poor People Not Be Allowed to Vote?

[Editor’s note: Steve Burgess is an accredited spin doctor with a PhD. in Centrifugal Rhetoric from the University of SASE, situated on the lovely campus of PO Box 7650, Cayman Islands. In this space he dispenses PR advice to politicians, the rich and famous, the troubled and well-heeled, the wealthy and gullible.]

Dear Dr. Steve,

Recently, a former TD Bank executive named Eric Thor made a post on Elon Musk's X suggesting people's ability to vote should be based on how much income tax they pay. Those who pay over $500,000 should get five votes; those who pay no income tax should not vote. Shopify CEO Tobi Lütke agreed, then weighed in with his own amendment, suggesting pensioners should also lose their vote. “Let people with a stake in the future decide,” Lütke posted.

What do you think, Dr. Steve?

Signed,

Loki

Dear Loki,

It's an intriguing idea. But Dr. Steve is puzzled. Are these guys oligarchs or communists?

They seem to be proposing a system wherein the billionaires who hire squadrons of accountants to avoid shouldering their fair share of the tax burden should be punished at the ballot box.

Let's say we adopt one aspect of the Thor/Lütke scheme — multiple votes. Everybody starts with 10. Votes are then subtracted for various types of behaviour. For instance, every time you exercise a tax exemption worth $100,000, it costs you one vote. Every time you hire a lobbyist to influence government (and Lütke has hired plenty) you lose a vote. Shouldn't you have to select your preferred form of influence? Lobbying and voting is like wearing a belt and suspenders. It's like choosing both salad and fries. Not fair. (However, we can all agree that the person who orders salad but then starts eating your fries should lose all their votes.)

As for taking the vote away from pensioners and declaring, “Let people with a stake in the future decide,” that sounds enticing too. It would certainly be the end of the U.S. Republican Party. As it is, a pensioner who might be in a coma can still be the senior senator from Kentucky and a demented octogenarian with cankles and a bad wig can peddle meme coins from the Oval Office.

Lütke and Thor believe the more money/more power concept is an idea whose time has come. In fact, it arrived long ago and never left. Money conveys privilege in every sphere. The political power of wealth is arguably greater in America, where the Supreme Court's “Citizens United” decision legitimized massive corporate political spending.

But it's not just politics, of course. Military service has long been dependent on income — rich Americans paid poorer ones to fight for them in the Civil War, and more recently Trump's dad reportedly paid a doctor to say young Donny had bone spurs. (For all we know, Fred Trump might have paid to get his thuggish offspring out of Grade Seven.)

But money equals privilege everywhere, Canada included. While Premier Danielle Smith slowly privatizes Alberta healthcare, and national housing prices decline from roughly four to only 3.7 vital body parts, ordinary Canadians struggle with inflation and stagnant incomes.

Even on our streets, motor vehicles seem to carry extra votes in their truck beds — more space, more infrastructure, more influence. The bigger the vehicle, the bigger the electoral weight. Maybe the Freedom Convoy got some bad press, but Prime Minister Carney subsequently axed the carbon tax and Doug Ford wants to tear up Toronto bike lanes. That must be worth a few toots from the old “F*** Trudeau” truck.

Lütke does not simply want big capital to hoard votes — he wants it to monopolize the water supply too. The Shopify CEO posted that Canada needs more data centres and called the backlash against them “nonsensical.” At least, we think it was Lütke. It may have been ChatGPT.

There was a time when Lütke might have been less inclined to share his opinions. He recently told an interviewer that he used to have a tremendous fear of public speaking but overcame it simply by writing “I love public speaking” over and over. One wonders what would happen if Lütke spent hours writing, “I love poisonous mushrooms,” or “I love putting my tongue on a hot stove.” For his own safety, someone should confiscate his pen.

Lütke and Thor believe the poor should be disenfranchised. That fits with the Trump agenda — the U.S. president claims Americans lived in MAGA Eden until the scheming media invented the word “affordability.”

Still, what about the poorly educated? Trump depends on those folks but if the Thor/Lütke plan went through, disqualifications would run through the voter rolls like measles at an RFK Jr. summer camp. Meanwhile, college graduates have a disproportionate amount of wealth but they are more likely to lean left. What's the point of giving well-heeled people more votes if they are just going to turn around and elect socialists? Thor and Lütke's plan could amount to throwing open the gates of the Bastille.

This is getting too complicated. Let's just go full Henry VIII. One man, one single vote by royal proclamation. Also, let's bring back debtor's prison. It was great for literature.