Mecklenburg’s GRAT does not exist in Canada. The thing it does — moving future growth out of your estate — does.

A grantor retained annuity trust is a creature of US estate-tax law, and Canada has no estate tax for it to plan around; it has a deemed disposition at death instead, which taxes accrued capital gains. So the instrument does not transfer. The objective does.

The Canadian analogue is the estate freeze: exchange your common shares in the operating company for fixed-value preferred shares, and let a family trust subscribe for new common shares at nominal value. Your future tax liability is capped at today’s value; the growth from here accrues to the trust. The appreciation Mecklenburg’s remainder beneficiaries captured as Hinge Health went from $38 to $103 is the same appreciation an Ontario freeze is designed to put on the other side of the line — and, like a GRAT, it works best before the growth, not after.

Three things to know before anyone says “just do a freeze.” A family trust faces a 21-year deemed disposition, so it is a structure with a clock, not a permanent one. Trusts now face expanded annual reporting obligations in Canada, so it carries ongoing compliance cost. And a freeze interacts directly with the lifetime capital gains exemption on qualified small business corporation shares — done correctly it can multiply that exemption across family members, done carelessly it can disqualify the shares for it. This is the single highest-value and highest-risk item in this report for someone in your position, and it is exactly the kind of thing that must not be done from a newsletter.

First step this week: establish whether your shares currently qualify as QSBC shares at all. The test is about asset composition and holding period, it is checkable from your own balance sheet, and it determines whether a freeze is a tax win or an expensive reorganisation. That is a question for your accountant, and it is the right question to arrive with.