Henry George Foundation of Canada

Overview

The Henry George Foundation of Canada is Canada's long-standing Georgist organization, based in Ottawa and operating online as earthsharing.ca. It describes itself as "part of an international network of organizations that work to popularize the thought of 19th century American economist, Henry George," with three stated goals — "a just society, a green society and a prosperous society" — and frames that network as "an interconnected think tank advocating financing governments by capturing 'economic rent' in lieu of taxes on jobs, business and goods and services."[1]

Corporations Canada records show The Henry George Foundation of Canada federally incorporated on December 1, 2014 (corporation #9104593), registered in Ottawa, with directors listed as Glenn Grignon, Francis K. Peddle, and Brendan Hennigan.[3] The 2014 federal incorporation formalized an advocacy operation that had already existed for several years: the organization's current website, earthsharing.ca, was online as early as August 2011 under the name Earthsharing Canada — a grassroots tax-shift project whose spokesperson was Frank de Jong, former leader of the Green Party of Ontario — and the site continued to carry the "Earthsharing Canada" name through at least January 2016, more than a year after the federal entity was registered.[7]

Work

• Economic-rent education. Its concise "Economic Rent" article defines rent as "unearned income, windfall profit, or … revenue without a corresponding cost of production" that "exists because of the existence of the community, and should accrue to that community," and argues rent recovery "does not inhibit extraction, use or economic activity."[2]
• Earthsharing Economics Primer and explainer pages on Henry George, land value tax mechanics (worked household, business, and farm scenarios), and the 18-year land cycle, which features on its homepage.[1]
• Reviews and resources. It publishes book reviews and commentary (e.g., Francis K. Peddle's November 2024 review of Patrick Condon's Broken City) and hosts movement documents such as the Green Party of Ontario's 2010 "Proposed Government of Canada Budget Based on Rent Recovery."[1][4]

Significance

The Foundation's practical importance to recent Canadian rent-capture research is as a source of definitions and benchmarks: Common Wealth Canada's Natural Common Wealth and Economic Rent in Canada (2023) cites the Foundation's economic-rent article for its working definition of rent and for the argument that rent recovery does not deter extraction (fns 21, 27), and adopts "the proposed royalty rate proposed by the Henry George Foundation of Canada" — rent at 24% of the total value of mineral production, yielding the paper's $11.3 billion/year mining-rent scenario (fn 32, Table 5).[5] That 24% attribution should be read with a caveat: no standalone Foundation document stating a "24% of value of mineral production" royalty could be located. Searches of earthsharing.ca (the site and a domain-scoped web search), the Foundation-hosted Modernizing Henry George paper, and the 2010 Green Party of Ontario "Budget Based on Rent Recovery" report written for the Foundation — which proposes minerals-and-aggregates rent of $10 billion, not a percentage rate — turned up no such figure. The Common Wealth paper attributes the rate to the Foundation in fn 32, but its Table 5 row for the Foundation carries no footnote, and the 24% equals the paper's own $11.3B ÷ $47B total-mineral-value figures — suggesting the rate may be Common Wealth's own back-calculation rather than a separately published Foundation proposal. The Foundation has in turn covered Common Wealth Canada's proposal on its news pages.[6]

See Also

• Common Wealth Canada · Natural Common Wealth and Economic Rent in Canada
• Economic Rent · Resource Rents
• Henry George Foundation (UK) · International Union for Land Value Taxation

Sources

1. Henry George Foundation of Canada, "About Us." earthsharing.ca/page/about-us — used for the self-description, three goals, network framing, and LVT scenario material (fetched directly this session).
2. Henry George Foundation of Canada, "Economic Rent." earthsharing.ca/page/economic-rent — used for the rent definition and no-disincentive argument, quoted verbatim (fetched directly this session).
3. Corporations Canada federal corporation record #9104593 (via third-party mirrors). opengovca.com/corporation/9104593 · federalcorporation.ca/corporation/9104593 — used for the December 1, 2014 incorporation date, Ottawa registered office, and named directors.
4. Green Party of Ontario (2010), "Proposed Government of Canada Budget Based on Rent Recovery," hosted by the Foundation. earthsharing.ca PDF — used as an example of hosted movement resources (this hosted copy is what the Common Wealth Canada paper's fn 63 links to).
5. Common Wealth Canada, Natural Common Wealth and Economic Rent in Canada (Jan 2023 v.3 and July 2023 Final). PDF — used for the citations of the Foundation's rent definition (fns 21, 27, verified verbatim against the PDF) and the 24%-of-production mining royalty benchmark (fn 32 and Table 5, $11.3 billion scenario, verified verbatim).
6. Henry George Foundation of Canada, "A Commonwealth Proposal in Canada." earthsharing.ca/news/commonwealth-proposal-canada — used for the Foundation's coverage of Common Wealth Canada.
7. Internet Archive Wayback Machine captures of earthsharing.ca: 23 August 2011 (site titled "Earthsharing Canada," self-described as "part of the international grassroots movement advocating revenue-neutral tax shifting off consumption and income taxes and onto site rental, resource rental, and pollution levies," with Frank de Jong as spokesperson), 23 January 2015 and 11 January 2016 (both still titled "Earthsharing Canada," after the December 2014 incorporation) — used to establish that the organization operated under a predecessor name/structure predating the 2014 federal entity.