Canada
Soon after coming to Canada I discovered that there are two things that we Canadians like to complain about: the weather and taxes. Canadians enjoy winter skiing and skating, if not by doing it ourselves then by proxy, watching others, particularly the National Hockey League season. At the same time we complain about the cold and the snow. In summer we love to get out'n'about and, of course, we love to complain about the heat and the mosquitoes and the black flies.
We seem to have the same love-hate relationship with taxes. We love healthcare, a reliable postal service, schools and school buses, national parks and a corruption-free system of courts, vehicle registration and driver licences. We just do not like paying taxes. We hate taxes.
South Africa
There are many things about South Africa that I loved and still love: the people, especially my friends; the climate and weather; the beauty of the land, whether the amazing sea coasts, the mountains, the highveld or even the Karoo. Taxes, however, were another story. In terms of "bang for your buck" I paid a much higher proportion of my income and derived a lot less benefit than I do here in Canada. Yet, strangely enough, I do not remember people in South Africa complaining nearly as much about their taxes as we do here in Canada.
Some Lists
This week I read an article by Heather Mallick, Tax is not a dirty word, where she points out that "taxes pay for good things that we don’t think about until they vanish." She then lists about 35 benefits that we enjoy that depend on our taxes and says, "Take a deep breath, class." Mallick then lists another 35 or 36 itmes and says, "And another breath."
After listing another 22 (does hunting and snaring licences count as 1 or 2?) tax benefitting services she observes, And that was just a taste, a smattering, of what Canadians do and have done for them, the stuff that makes you want to kiss the sweet Pearson tarmac when you get home from the bloody dust of Afghanistan and never leave this good-natured civilized paved place until whatever-awaits-us extends its bony hand and says “Follow me.”
Federal Election Guide for Catholics
The Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops (CCCB) published a paper entitled Federal Election 2011 Guide urging Catholics to vote with discernment. It lists some basic principles from Catholic moral and social teaching to help voters analyse and evaluate public policies and programs. The document focuses especially on respect for life and the dignity of the human person, social justice, the family, world peace and the environment. For any government to adopt and implement these principles in law, the funding for this would have to come largely through taxes.
Just What Kind of Canada Do We Want?
I don't "enjoy" paying taxes any more than I have enjoyed standing at a bus shelter when the temperature was nineteen degrees Centigrade below freezing before the wind chill, but I do want to live in a Canada that is just, peaceful and free, where all children and the elderly have access to sufficient food, shelter, clothing, and medical care, and children have access to education to the level of their ability - just for starters.
To achieve this I am more than willing not only to pay taxes, but to pay even more taxes. I do not feel the same way about my taxes going into a black hole of inappropriate stealth fighter jets, more and bigger prisons for unreported crime, and military bases in the Arctic.
According to Heather Mallick, in 1997, Stephen Harper gave a speech to the Council for National Policy, a right-wing U.S. think tank, summing up Canada as “a Northern European welfare state in the worst sense of the term and very proud of it.” He said of the unemployed, “Don’t feel particularly bad for many of these people. They don’t feel bad about it themselves, as long as they’re receiving generous social assistance and unemployment insurance.” If that is true, and I don't see any libel charges being levelled, then the vision of Canada that Stephen Harper has is very different to the vision of Canada to which I am inspired by the Catholic bishops 2011 Federal Election Guide.
