Profit Over People

This is for Toronto’s Afro-Caribbean, Indo-Caribbean, and diasporic communities: teachers, truckers, nurses, Uber drivers, hairstylists, freelancers, cultural workers, and small business owners. The people whose day-to-day lives shift when trade deals are made behind closed doors. This is for those tired of being left out of the conversation, yet always expected to carry the cost.

Canada just killed its digital services tax. The same tax meant to make big tech platforms like Amazon, Meta, and Google pay their fair share. Why? Well, because the U.S. didn’t like it, and they threatened retaliation. So, in the name of “reviving” trade talks, Ottawa backed down. Yep, our government is at it again.

On the surface, it looks like diplomacy, but let’s call it what it is; Canada once again bending to American pressure, while marginalized communities across Toronto bear the economic fallout. Afro/Indo-Caribbean workers (especially those in gig work, retail, education, and culture) are caught in the crosshairs.

Meanwhile, in Toronto, the contradictions pile up. Police continue to be deployed as first responders to mental health crises. Chinatown residents uncover buried histories of displacement and racism, and Caribbean communities ask, “When will our stories, our safety, and our economic survival matter at the policy table?”

This is about whose lives are protected by policy, and whose are expendable in the name of trade.
Let’s break this down. The digital services tax (DST), set at 3%, was Canada’s attempt to claim revenue from multinational digital giants profiting off Canadian users and businesses without paying into the local economy. It would have raised an estimated $7.2 billion over the next decade, but the U.S. called it “discriminatory,” and threatened $2.3 billion in retaliatory tariffs.

Instead of pushing forward, Canada blinked. The federal government suspended the tax, with Freeland stating the goal is to “Strengthen Canada-U.S. economic ties.”

When Canada caves to U.S. pressure, it’s not Bay Street execs who feel the squeeze. It’s the underpaid warehouse workers. The substitute teachers with rising rents. The Uber Eats drivers whose platforms don’t pay local taxes yet take 30% off every delivery.

Who are those workers? Largely racialized. Largely immigrant. Largely Toronto-based, and deeply tied to the Afro/Indo-Caribbean diaspora.

At the same time this tax reversal plays out nationally, Toronto faces another reckoning: who gets to feel safe in this city?

Recent protests have reignited demands to stop using police as mental health responders. The statistics don’t lie; African Caribbean residents are disproportionately subjected to force during these calls. Yet funding for community-based crisis response remains inconsistent, and transparency is thin.
If you’re Afro/Indo-Caribbean and navigating mental health, whether as a frontline worker, a parent, or a youth, it’s hard not to feel like your crisis needs to be palatable to be seen as legitimate.

Meanwhile, in Chinatown, a different kind of unveiling is happening. Community groups have exposed hidden histories of displacement, how development projects bulldozed Chinese businesses and homes without consultation. Sounds familiar?

Caribbean Torontonians know this script. From Little Jamaica’s gentrification to the shuttering of African Caribbean cultural hubs, the pattern is clear; our stories are erased, then tokenized. Our histories are paved over, then commodified.

Yet these grassroots efforts in Chinatown are sparking hope. They show the power of naming the past to reclaim the future. Afro/Indo-Caribbean groups are doing the same: documenting, archiving, demanding memorials, and building intergenerational legacies.

Scrapping the DST won’t suddenly lower your grocery bill, or stop landlords from hiking rent, but it sends a clear message: economic policy will always protect profit over people unless people push back.
This trade maneuver won’t impact everyone equally. Those with investment portfolios and international assets will be just fine, but the Caribbean Canadian freelancer trying to monetize their online content? Still underpaid, still overtaxed. The immigrant-owned delivery service trying to compete with Amazon? Good luck. The cultural curator trying to build economic independence through storytelling? Still unseen.

Toronto’s Afro/Indo-Caribbean communities deserve policies that work for us. Here are some questions we need to be asking our government:

• Why are racialized communities never at the trade table, but always in the fallout zone?
• Why does “economic growth” always mean “gentrification” in our neighborhoods?
• Why do we only hear about public safety when someone’s harmed, but never when communities are healing?

It’s time we ask more than just what’s happening; we need to ask who it’s happening for.
Policy doesn’t live on Parliament Hill. It lives on Keele street. On Malvern street. On Lawrence East. On St. Clair West. It’s shaped by the educators who feed kids out of pocket. The nonprofit leaders burned out by bureaucracy. The elders holding space in churches, mosques, and temples. The young workers inventing careers that didn’t exist ten years ago, because the old pathways were blocked.
The DST reversal is one piece of a bigger puzzle, and it’s not just about trade. When governments backpedal to please global powers, who’s left holding the bill?

Here’s what we need:
• Real consultation with racialized communities before major economic shifts
• Investment in digital equity, not just digital profit
• Local platforms supported by policy, not just tech giants protected by loopholes
• Recognition of our histories, not just when they’re convenient, but when they’re uncomfortable
• And safety, not just in crisis, but in everyday dignity

To Afro/Indo-Caribbean communities in Toronto: you don’t need to beg for seats at tables that were never set for you. It’s time to build new tables. Name the truths, and demand policies that honour (not exploit) our place in this city.