The Canadian Crossroads

So… here we are in 2011, and us Canadians are faced with a dilemma that couldn’t have been foreseen even 3 months ago.

Great swaths of Liberal voters – who had never even thought it possible – are heading to the polls in the early summer heat of May… ready to vote for more Stephen Harper.

How the hell did this happen?

Where did the Liberal party go so wrong that those who had vowed to die fighting the Blue Meanies would willingly put an ‘X’ next to the name of their local Conservative candidate – desperately trying not to vomit while doing so?

In a word? Iggy.

Michael Ignatieff has turned out to be a blunder of almost Biblical proportions… a goddamn Greek tragedy in motion.

You see… the Liberal body of voters (especially the card-carrying party members that attended the last Grit leadership convention) were duped into thinking Iggy was the next Great White Hope – someone who could embody the intellect and flare of great Prime Ministers of times past, and to be more specific, Pierre Trudeau.

On paper, Ignatieff had a lot going for him: international experience, academic fortitude, and lots of time doing public speaking engagements – which are all good ingredients when you want to promote yourself as being the central figure of Canadian politics.

However, the Iggy Experiment has failed.

Despite endless opportunities provided by the Harper Regime, and chances to interact directly with the Canadian people through much ballyhooed Liberal Express road trips, Michael Ignatieff has never come across as anything other than a stiff, awkward presence that seemed more apt to be a university professor than a man who would be king.

Worst of all to the Liberal faithful – and much to the delight of Conservative election engineers – Iggy has settled into a routine filled with arbitrary whining, pompous airbaggery, and snide opportunism… none of which are pleasant to behold and all are contrary to endearing yourself to a Canadian public who are just getting used to more prominent place in the global community after years of mismanagement by previous Harper rosters.

As much as the recent recession sucked for the world’s citizens on the whole, the economic meltdown played exactly to the Conservative’s business acumen: spend yourself out of it wisely (by surging money to public infrastructure projects that both put people to work and took financial stresses off municipalities), and then make Canada a very attractive place to set up your business by lowering corporate taxes to a rate that’s extremely appetizing when compared to other jurisdictions.

Also, the governmental officials that were responsible made sure they kept their hands firmly on the rudder… steering our economy in the opposite direction of many of our G8 neighbors who ended up drowning in boiling red ink.

The final part of the public’s redefinition of Conservative cronies is that Harper & Co. have been much more reactive to the concerns of the electorate: intervening in headline-making business deals like the Potash debacle… enabling Canadians to have more choice in the cellphone market by allowing Wind Mobile to set up shop in spite of questionable ownership… and taking the CRTC on directly over the ‘usage based billing’ decision that would have drastically altered the Canadian internet experience for the worse.

All of these things look very good for Harper & Co. when you string them together… portraying them as people who care about Canadian national identity issues, and what we feel like as citizens that are being raped at every juncture by money-hungry corporations that could honestly not care less about us.

Yes, it’s true that the Conservative Party Of Canada feels entitled to do whatever the hell it likes – regardless of rules, regulations, and political mandates.

If the Harper government doesn’t fall on the 2011 Budget text alone, it definitely will fall on the current Contempt Of Parliament issue that it can not shake… because, honestly, the opposition parties are practically foaming at the mouth in their hurry to throw an election party – even as non-governmental polling suggests that the Conservatives could possibly squeak by into majority-rule territory.

Why Iggy and Layton are so eager to get egg in the face is beyond me.

Well, maybe I can understand Jack Layton’s view: the floundering Liberals could mean a bolstering of NDP seats come the May election since they could position themselves as the least whiny alternative – providing that Layton can shake his socialist image (and it wouldn’t take the greatest Photoshop artist to manipulate Layton’s head back and forth with Lenin’s).

Gilles Duceppe and the Bloc Quebecois never really need a reason to support a federal election as they’re Canada’s more civilized answer to the IRA (minus the bombings of course – at least not in 30 or 40 years) and whose sole function is to break apart federalism at the seams so Quebec can go it’s own way to whatever future they’re deluded into thinking exists.

But… this all rolls back to Iggy.

He’s the one who aches to be the guy standing before the world leaders gathered at the United Nations… to be the Prime Minister who puts the gallery to sleep by finding 1,000 ways to iterate how civilized Canadians are (it’s true – not saying otherwise), and how we disagree with violence and want to give half our clothes to strangers on the streets.

Sure, Iggy, those are all nice things to say about us… and we wish somebody who had actual lectern presence could get up and reaffirm our place in the world… but that’s not and never will be you.

We’ve all had time to watch you flop around, flailing at just about any issue you think you might be able to get some traction on – going on long-winded diatribes about things that, in all honesty, aren’t on the average Canadian citizen’s radar.

In fact, the biggest issue that Michael Ignatieff has been able to attach himself to is the future purchase of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter – which is somewhat an issue due to the $16,000,000,000 – $30,000,000,000 price tag – to replace our 30-year-old batch of CF-18 fighters that are starting to fall out of the sky for no particular reason other than they’re quickly reaching their Best Before dates.

To counter any argument that the Liberals might make on the F-35 purchase program, let me put forward two things:

1. The F-35 Lightning II is the most technologically advanced fighter available to the open market i.e. not limited to purchase by the U.S. military like the F-22 Raptor – and is designed for multiple roles in the combat and patrol missions that our Armed Forces take on (please see current mission over Libya, or semi-frequent intercepts of Russian bombers that test our defenses periodically).

2. The last time the Liberals canceled a military aviation purchase, it took nearly 20 years to find another suitable aircraft: in fact, the replacement of  50-year-old Sea King helicopters aboard our navy ships is still ongoing – leaving Canadian sailor-aviators at the mercy of 700 worn-thin spare parts flying in unison. WE DO NOT HAVE 20 YEARS TO REPLACE THE CF-18.

In the end, the Liberal election platform is going to be based on the notion that we’re sick and tired of paying so much money to the government in taxes when Big Business pays so little.

It would be a good platform in the 80′s or 90′s – maybe even in the 2000′s – but this is more and more a society that deals with information in a point-blank fashion: the internet and other forms of media has made the average Canadian more insightful (you’re reading a blog after all) as to what is working and not working from coast to coast.

And, right now, we’re all very aware of basic facts: our dollar is strong enough to top the mighty U.S. greenback… our banking system is the healthiest among all G8 (maybe even G20) nations… our employers are healthy enough to generate jobs at a rate higher than our southern neighbors… and however cynical it may be by design, our federal government seems to be interested in helping us in the face of Big Business.

Those things are all tangible indications of progress (but not of progressiveness, naturally – they are Conservatives) that has made our lives a bit better when compared to peoples in other countries, and even to ourselves when compared to a few years ago.

I fear that we as Canadians have no other option than to give Harper & Co. another mandate since they are doing what’s in our overall best interests… while overlooking their institutional inclination to be dicks.

The best we can hope for is another minority government that will be held in check by the Opposition – an Opposition that will finally wise up and take care of their Iggy problem after a trouncing.

So… sit back for the next 45 days or so and watch the Conservatives, Liberals, and NDP duke it out over our airwaves in endless TV attack ads and televised debates.

It should at least be entertaining.

Me?

I might actually vote Green… as I can’t stand the local Conservative candidate.

Video Blog: The F-35 Goes To Canada

My video companion piece for the previous blog entry.

Take a look at what you’re buying, Canada!

Available in 720p HD if you click through.

Good News, Everybody! $100 For Just Being You!

Well… to be more precise, I have to specify that it’s $100 for just being from Ontario, Canada.

Also need to point out that if you make more than $82,000 a year, you won’t get a dime – so all you fat cats in banking and insurance will have to supply your own splurge funds!

Anyway…

A lot of you who are simple enough to buy into Tim Hudak’s message that the government is bribing you with your own money are more than welcome to rip up these nifty little cheques and go on about your business.

What’s that? You already cashed yours?

I see.

You must have done it under great protest… bitterly cussing out each and every single cent.

Regardless of those people who complain for the sake of complaining, these cheques are a nice shot in the arm when money has been thin due to the economy – and yes, I know some of the money being sent to your snail mail boxes or direct deposited in your bank accounts will be stolen back from you when the HST is fully implemented on July 1st, 2010.

However, I’ve done the math for myself, and have come to the conclusion that of the $300 dollars I will receive from the government through the Sales Tax Transition Benefit (S.T.T.R.), only $45 to $50 of it will go back to Queens Park in the form of HST a year – solely through a $4 and change increase on my telephone/internet bill.

Phone services have always had the PST added to them.

Same goes for my cable bill.

The only area of my regular finances that will be effected is my internet service.

Yes… there will no doubt be incidental HST taxation throughout the year – though I can only imagine it happening to me on the 2 or 3 taxi fares that I grudgingly throw money at a year.

It’s hard taking a new TV or office chair home on the bus!

Before you say it, let me beat you to the punch: I know a lot of you out there don’t have your finances in the same amount of control I do.

There are many of you who may be charged more HST than what you receive by the end of the S.T.T.B. cycle in July, 2011 – because you have a bigger set of financial liabilities and bills that you are responsible for.

But you must always bare in mind that your overall tax load has been reduced via both income tax reductions for more than 90% of the Ontario population, and the products/services you consume will become cheaper as corporations that operate in Ontario stop passing on to you parts of their taxation that have always been hidden in the prices you pay at the cash register.

Yes… you’ve been paying some of the taxes that Ontario companies (both large and small) are charged for doing business in Ontario.

Every case of Coca-Cola you buy in Ontario carries some of the taxes that will be charged to the local Coke bottling operation/Coke delivery operations/Coca-Cola Canada Ltd. head office – but it’s buried in the price tag that you see on the shelf.

Furthermore, the store you buy the Coke from also passes on some of their taxes as well in that price sticker.

In fact, every business that has had anything to do with that case of Coke Zero (aside from the manufacturer) passes on some of their taxes to you – think of the companies that print the cardboard carton the Coke cans come in, or the business that makes the cans that you drink The Real Thing from.

With the introduction of HST, all of those companies instantly save money through streamlining.

Some of them will save money when certain items they buy are cheaper – either through the removal of one tax layer, or because they will save money in the same way that you do through the removal of hidden taxes.

Companies like Walmart and Hewlett-Packard know that you – the person who buys the products they sell – ultimately choose whether they live or die when you vote with your wallet, so they can not continue to charge the same prices on the whole that they did before HST came into effect.

Yes, it may take anywhere between 6 months and a year for those passed on savings become tangible in comparison to what you pay now in June, 2010 – but by the time that happens, you probably won’t notice because the price decreases will be slow and incremental.

On July 1st, that case of Coke won’t all of a sudden be 10 cents cheaper – that’s completely unreasonable as all the people involved in getting that 12-pack to the grocery shelf still had to pay disharmonized taxes on everything that went into it.

Companies – both large and small – often sign yearly contracts to pay certain prices – and there’s a good chance that Coca-Cola might be locked into paying 3 cents for every aluminum can it fills until its contract with the aluminum supplier runs out in December, instead of 2.5 cents a can per a new contract come January 1st, 2011.

Until then, Coca-Cola still has to charge you that .5 of a cent per can to at least break even.

If it comes to be June 10th, 2011 and you’re still paying the same prices that you are on June 10, 2010 on your goods and services, then you know that the companies you’re dealing with are being dishonest – and you can then take the necessary steps to make them accountable.

Buy your services/products from another vendor who has dropped their prices a few dollars or a handful of pennies, nickels, and dimes.

You have the power.

As for the money that does go to Queen’s Park from the taxes that you can’t avoid?

It all comes back to you.

Maybe not in the form of a cheque – though some of you who make less than $15,000 dollars a year in taxable income will receive three cheques a year for $87 dollars.

All of you will see that money come back to you in the form of improved provincial services – better health care, improved education, and more infrastructure spending that this province desperately needs but can’t afford at the current tax level.

Are you aware that more than $0.50 of every dollar you spend in taxes goes to funding health care in Ontario?

That cost is only increasing as the Baby Boomer generation ages – and will continue to do so exponentially.

Where do you expect the government to get that money to pay for your sick grandparents – or hell, even you when you’re ill and laid up in a hospital?

Especially when you’re also demanding that there be better roads in Ontario to drive on.

When you want Ontario children to have superior education when compared to other areas of the country so they have a leg up on kids from Manitoba at job application time.

Many of you desire more police officers on the streets to make you feel safer.

Our environment requires funding to help us breathe cleaner air and to have lakes/rivers/streams that we can swim in without worrying about getting sick.

These are all valid things to want and desire from your government – the people you elected to represent you and your needs.

However, all those things come at a price… and the province needs the money to pay for these increased expenditures.

And that money comes from you.

Nowhere else.

Complaining about it doesn’t change the facts.

Like it or not, you’ll be better off in at least a dozen areas of your life through that Harmonized Sales Tax – probably more.

So accept your S.T.T.R. cheques happily and put the money to good use.

I know I will.

A Few Words Strung Together About The Ontario HST…

Listen.

You can’t do anything about it – no matter how much the NDP and PC parties would have you believe.

You should also remember when it comes to election time in 2011, neither the NDP or the PC party could cancel it – even if they were inclined to do so… which is completely unlikely because government likes money – since it makes it possible for them to live up to 45% of the promises they make during their election campaigns.

The only reason that the NDP and PC parties are squawking about it now – two years before any election could be called by normal means – is that they’re trying to build up doubt amongst voters in the long term.

In two years time, the dust will have settled mostly over the HST implementation because the electorate will have been paying the extra taxes for more than a year and will have settled into acceptance – however begrudging it is.

Ontarians were irritated by the health premium tax introduced by the Liberals before eventually getting over it by the next election – despite the two opposition parties hammering away on the issue to no end during the last provincial election campaign.

It all boils down to the experienced adult’s concept of reality i.e. the old saying that the only certainties in life are death and taxes – which is pretty much universal no matter which party is in control of Ontario’s parliament.

Taxes go up in the long term – never down (except in brief spurts that raise the ruling party’s profile for a time – such as the federal Conservatives lowering the GST rates).

Why don’t they ever go down?

It’s simple: the provincial electorate – the citizens who vote during an election – get used to a particular level of service from their government and it’s individual agencies that deals directly with the public.

Let’s take two costly departments as an example – the Ministry Of Health, and the Ministry Of Education.

These two governmental departments take an enormous amount of cash to run at their current levels of service… and even then, they don’t really have enough money to meet their goals as set out by the government – the goals that the majority of Ontario’s citizens look forward to seeing implemented sooner than later.

How else is the government going to pay for shorter wait times at hospitals and doctor’s offices?

Where is the government going to get money to hire teachers and implement a better curriculum to teach at your children’s schools?

Taxation.

The money for these enormous public institutions comes from your pocket through taxes and tariffs on the goods and services that you consume on a daily basis.

As much as it hurts at the point of purchase, the average citizen sees that money come back to them in the form of the government improving areas of their lives – whether it be through better health care, improved educational opportunities, or expanded and renewed infrastructure projects.

That’s where your tax money will go when the HST comes into effect next July.

The NDP and the PC parties would like it very much if you temporarily (or better yet, in the long term) forget that you can’t get something for nothing in this world that we live in.

Both the provincial New Democrats and Tories tried that last time they ran the province and what did it result in?

Nearly every single public employee union was on strike.

The poor were getting poorer.

Health care suffered.

Things didn’t get better until taxes went up when the Liberals took over.

See how that works?

In the end, higher taxes make people happier – which seems rather perverse when you think about it and is the absolute inverse of what the opposition parties want you to believe.

What else can they harp about that will resonate with the general public?

The OLG and eHealth scandals are fleeting and will subside over time, most likely long forgotten by the fall season in 2011 – yet the NDP and PCs still nag about those at every chance they get – despite only the eHealth issue being directly attributable to the current Liberal party.

No… taxes are the only long-term issue that effects the public, so that’s the topic which the opposition will crow the loudest about.

But it doesn’t really matter in the end.

We as the voting public will get over the HST and the increases that it represents to our bottom lines.

That may stick in your craw at the moment and leave a sour taste in your mouth – but it’s inevitable.

It’s somewhat similar to those of you out there that may be reading this blog who absolutely HATE getting any kind of needle – regardless of the obvious health benefits that will you’ll receive upon going through the momentary pain.

So why don’t we all just roll up our sleeves and demand that our chosen political parties get it over with and move on to something far more interesting?

I, for one, and really tired of hearing the broken record that’s playing at Question Period.

Let’s listen to something better.

The Smell Of Election Is In The Air

I love the smell of ballots in the morning… it smells like victory.

Yes, ladies and germs, it’s time to heave Steve!

It’s been time to heave Steve for… I dunno… four years?

This may sound petty and small, but the guy has the personality of an empty refrigerator box – looks useful on the outside, but completely empty on the inside… fit for vagrants and the homeless to use as shelter.

Wait.

No.

Harper has no time or compassion for the homeless and destitute, so scratch that last portion.

All Stephen Harper has time for is big business and ways that he and his cronies can help making fat cat C.E.O.’s lives easier.

What else do you expect of a U.S. Republican who was born in a Canadian body?

Ever so long ago, before the years of bad hair and horrible sweaters, I had some hope for Steve because he made some good sounding promises to the body of our military – promising to get them better tools and weapons so that they could go out into the world and spread Canada’s image and values into the global theater through quality peace keeping.

In four years, what has Steve done on this front?

Honestly, the Conservatives have made good in that one area for the most part: new planes, new guns, new jeeps, and new soldiers.

But…

Why is it that as a peacekeeping force, we don’t even rank in the top ten on a global scale anymore?

We used to be THE country people turned to when they needed help…  but now our spot in the big ol’ United Nations Rolodex has been shifted more towards the middle – and that really kind of smarts in the national pride department.

I mean… for crying out loud… the United Nations was pretty much Lester B. Pearson’s (Canadian prime minister from 1963 to 1968) idea to begin with – and they don’t even call? WTF?

Yes, I do realize that for a long while, we were the ones doing all the grunt work in Afghanistan while the Yanks were busy trying to set up Exxon in Iraq – and that’s something to be proud of (and yes, I understand other Commonwealth military outfits were there as well).

However, that’s pretty much the only place we are.

Why?

The reason why is this: Stephen Harper sees peacekeeping as a function of budget i.e. if there isn’t money in the budget for sending our men and women to to far-flung places around the globe, then he can’t really justify having the Department Of Defense issue the order.

This… this I find completely intolerable.

Peacekeeping is a means of projecting compassion around the globe, and showing those in need of help that Canadians as a people care about the situation.

It’s the Canadian way… but not the way of Stephen Harper and the Conservatives – which some would say makes the lot of them un-Canadian (but I’ll refrain from that chorus as it sounds a lot like American politics).

The longer Harper stays in office, the more xenophobic Canada seems – xenophobia being a fear of peoples and cultures different than your own.

Stephen Harper is mostly against trade missions to other countries who’s names don’t rhyme with Texaco or ‘lopsided plates’ – since the majority of Canadian businesses are either owned by or export a lot of Canadian jobs to places that rhyme with those two things.

He’s also pro-Christian, anti-women’s rights, anti-homosexual, and all-around anti-reality- well, any reality that doesn’t precisely match his own beliefs.

In fact, the Conservatives are the kings of being out of touch with reality.

Their membership is chock full o’ cronies that just make shit up.

Take for example the local Conservative goon… err… M.P., Dean Del Mastro – who, aside from looking like he belongs in a movie about organized crime, is best known for making shit up to make himself and his party look good in the eyes of the electorate.

Pretty much the day before the last election was called, he randomly blurted out that he and an anonymous developer had a plan for Peterborough that would brings jobs and tourists to the area – despite not putting anything forward or hinting at this proposal to ANY OTHER LIVING SOUL at any time prior.

The nature of this project? Doing away with green space owned by Parks Canada so a hotel/convention center/amusement park/IMAX theater could be installed just meters from the historic Peterborough Lift Lock.

When confronted about this harebrained scheme, the Honorable Member had very few details to share – saying that he wished to respect the anonymous developer’s privacy.

Right.

The buffoon even wasted tax-payer money on a mail-in ballot over whether the Peterborough electorate would support such a development – to which he received both resounding apathy and ‘no’ votes.

When Global National came to town last fall during election fever to do a broadcast live-on-location, Del Mastro suited up his own squad of goons in hockey jerseys adorned with the Conservative logo and tried to invade the crowd of spectators that were watching Kevin Newman do his broadcast thing (note: this blogger appeared on air in an ‘ask the electorate’ segment).

Needless to say, the Global producers turned back this goon squad and completely ignored them for the most part.

That sort of spectacle is the party signature.

Just show up randomly and spout party beliefs.

Do any of my fellow Canadians remember the random political attack ads (example) trashing the Liberals that Stephen Harper directs the party’s media arm to run at completely random times – regardless of whether there’s an election afoot or any other sane reason to do so… squandering taxpayer’s money in the process?

I do.

Let’s face it, folks.

The Conservatives are not on your side unless you’re male, white, rich, Christian, running a business empire, hate gays and lesbians, believe that laws and regulations exist purely to benefit those in power, that the needy and disabled are only trying to milk the public coffers, the environment can fend for itself (stupid polar bears!), and of the firm belief that the tax burden should be shouldered by only individual citizens.

If that’s you, please disregard everything I just wrote and vote for your local Conservative candidate.

Me… I’m voting Iggy and the Liberals.