Letter To Dalton McGuinty re Harmonized Sales Tax

Beginning in 2010, Dalton McGuinty's government is instituting a new tax system in Ontario which involves expanding the Provincial Sales Tax to encompass thousands of new goods and services. The program is disingenuously entitled the "Harmonized Sales Tax." To express my dissent and outrage, I sent Mr. McGuinty the following letter and I encourage everyone of a like mind on this matter to send a message as well. Please feel free to borrow my letter, either in part or in whole, while making your opinion known.

Dear Mr. Dalton McGuinty,

As a politically engaged citizen of Ontario, I am pleased to offer my support for any government initiative that aims at lessening the tax and paperwork burden on the people of our province. I find it interesting that the achievement of this rational tax reform is the guise under which Ontarians are being offered the "Harmonized Sales Tax" (HST). Regrettably, the HST plan will, in reality, distend the 8% provincial tax to include innumerable products and services that are presently – and mercifully – beyond the provincial government’s reach. As a result, it is clear that the valid objective of reforming the tax system for the benefit of Ontario’s over-taxed individuals, families, and businesses is no more than a convenient pretext that has been employed by your administration to obscure the true nature of your proposed tax plan.

Like many of your government’s policies, the HST has been initiated under a smoke screen of beneficence while truly aiming at arrogating to the state an even larger portion of the wealth of Ontario’s citizens. In essence, the “harmonization” that your government has advanced is nothing more than a massive tax hike, one that will be keenly felt by Ontarians in their purchase of basic goods and services such as hydro, gasoline, and home heating fuel, as well as in important areas like legal fees, real estate charges, and the sale of used cars. Given our province’s already inordinately high tax burden, this drastic and underhanded cash grab by your government will represent a major financial challenge to Ontario’s producers and consumers alike, especially those in the middle class. Your constituents will not tolerate this state of affairs.

Mr. McGuinty, I implore you to strike down the proposed Harmonized Sales Tax. Furthermore, as the leader of Ontario’s government, I ask that you focus your efforts on what common sense, sound economics, and the lessons of history have demonstrated time and again is most conducive to the real welfare of Canadian citizens: freedom in the economic realm. I assure you that your failure to take positive action on this matter will be reflected in the results of the next provincial election.

Please follow the link to send your own message.

Oh, Right, Harvard's A Cesspool Of Relativism ...

Michael Ignatieff:

Politics is an art, not a science, and so the judgments that you’re making are about people, and they’re judgments about what’s possible, and those are very different than the judgments you make in the safety of academic life.

Actually, politics is a science. It is the branch of philosophy that applies ethics to the social context, having roots in both metaphysics and epistemology. And, like all branches of philosophy, it requires the scientific movement from certain premises to their proper conclusions and corollaries.

This subjectivist garbage is precisely the problem with Canadian politicians. Government should not be a playground for power-lusting pragmatists and intellectual adolescents. The functions of the state ought to be animated by and limited to the stature of a moral social system as determined by reason. When did this fall so desperately out of mode?

Ignatieff is sounding more and more like Stephen Harper's less intelligent and socially awkward cousin every day.

Grow a pair, Iggy. We already know what a Liberal Party with no chutzpah looks like and it ain't pretty.

New Poll Suggests The Canadian Republic Is Prescient

Do these results look familiar to you?

The Canadian Press:

Stephen Harper may be closing in on his coveted majority despite being plagued by a series of miscues and bad news during the first week of the federal election campaign.

A new poll suggests the Conservatives have opened up a commanding 15-point lead over the Liberals, with 41 per cent of respondents supporting the governing party.

Typically, 40 per cent is sufficient to win a majority of seats in the House of Commons.

According to The Canadian Press-Harris Decima survey, the Liberals stood at 26 per cent, the NDP at 14 per cent, the Greens at nine and the Bloc Quebecois at eight.

Compare that with my predictions.

These numbers should settle down a little after the campaign gets ramped up and a few more Liberal voters defect to Jack Layton.

So far, so good.

Dion: "Humanity" To Blame For Soaring Gas Prices

Globe:

Gas prices at the pumps increased dramatically today, rising between 12 and 13 cents per litre in some parts of the country.

Mr. Dion said, however, that the pricing issue at the pumps wasn't the only reason for soaring gas prices, blaming “humanity” for asking for more and more oil.

He said his carbon tax scheme that would raise the price of carbon fuel and use that to give tax breaks to Canadian families would help to remedy part of the problem; his scheme would not raise prices at the pumps.

Surprise! These absurdly high gas prices are our own fault for daring to leave the Dark Ages. I guess it serves us right, then.

On the other hand, I'm slightly less willing to simply blame this one on "humanity." I'd say gas prices are so wildly out of whack with the law of supply and demand because North American legislatures have imposed impossibly restrictive drilling regulations on domestic oil companies, effectively leaving us at the mercy of foreign oil exporters. These are the same foreign oil companies, by the way, that were developed by Americans using American technology and were then promptly nationalized, with no repercussions for the looters whatsoever.

So, in that sense, I suppose "humanity" does shoulder some of the blame. Or, rather, certain members of humanity are guiltier than others regarding the price of gas in Canada today.

The Myth Of The Morally Neutral State

The Canadian state is a lot of things but morally neutral is not one of them. Surprisingly, however, the idea that modern liberal and democratic governments constitute Impartial Observers enforcing no particular moral code, remaining above the scrum and delivering unprejudiced decisions in all instances, is strangely popular among Liberals and, stranger yet, among Conservatives as well.

David Cameron, leader of the British Columbian Conservative Party presented this view in a recent speech in Glasgow which earned considerable media attention:

I think the time has come for me to speak out about something that has been troubling me for a long time. I have not found the words to say it sensitively. And then I realised, that is the whole point.

We as a society have been far too sensitive. In order to avoid injury to people's feelings, in order to avoid appearing judgemental, we have failed to say what needs to be said. We have seen a decades-long erosion of responsibility, of social virtue, of self-discipline, respect for others, deferring gratification instead of instant gratification.

Instead we prefer moral neutrality, a refusal to make judgments about what is good and bad behaviour, right and wrong behaviour. Bad. Good. Right. Wrong. These are words that our political system and our public sector scarcely dare use any more.

I sympathize with Cameron's position but I dissent from his conclusion. We live under anything but a morally neutral state. What he means, clearly, is that he does not support the kind of morality our state currently endorses and enforces.

Pierre Lemieux explains:

So, we are living under a morally neutral state? Try telling this to individuals who are denormalized because they smoke tobacco or are jailed because they consume drugs or provide them to consumers, who have their children seized by the state because they don’t teach them state-approved morals, who pay taxes to support government programs based on egalitarian ethics or other state activities they disprove of, who are brainwashed by the subsidized environmental religion, or who are prohibited by law (in theory or in practice) from defending themselves against gun- or knife-wielding thugs. All these people and others have moral values imposed on them by the state, that is, by force. Nothing morally neutral about that.

The best example, perhaps, is the recent troubles with free speech and the Canadian Human Rights Commissions. It is impossible to argue that the prosecution of Steyn and Levant for "hate speech" and "Islamophobia" does not assume the morality of the left, to wit, that our freedom of expression can be properly subordinated to a newly-enforceable "right" not to be insulted.

Ultimately, I conclude with Lemieux:

What is needed in Canada as in the U.K. is not a wishy-washy retreat from a neutral morality that doesn’t exist, a substitution of Liberal fantasies for Conservative hang-ups, but a revolution that would abolish the state’s moral authority and let individuals at liberty to make their own moral choices. The solution is to minimize the moral content of public policy and require that the state avoid taking sides between its citizens, except in matters of murder and other violent crimes. Such a true morally neutral state would allow the re-establishment of efficient private morality.

Cameron's article represents a strong and passionate advocacy of the traditional Canadian values of freedom and liberalism. Read the whole thing for a more nuanced analysis of the question of state neutrality.

You Think Eet Eez Easy To Chew Out Garth Turner?

Liberal MP Garth Turner hasn't apologized on his website for a controversial blog he posted about Quebec sovereigntists -- despite being "chewed out" for the remarks by Liberal Leader Stephane Dion.

Turner came under fire Friday after some readers objected to a blog he posted calling sovereigntists "self-aggrandizing, hostile, me-first, greedy, macho, selfish and balkanizing separatist losers."

CTV.

Uh oh, Garth. You've really done it now. You wouldn't like Stephane when he's angry.

"Now see 'ere, Gart. Eet eez not easy to make priorities, je sais, but perhaps one of yours could be not pissing all over de Quebec vote? Like, for serious? If we lose Quebec we're so totally screwed, hokay?"

I can only imagine how irritating it would be to get "chewed-out" by Stephane Dion, the archetypal beta male.

God, am I thankful Garth Turner isn't a Tory anymore.

Four Reasons Why I Love David Miller

Reason The First:

Because he betrays the illogic of banning fire arms so eloquently.

"I don't think there is any defence for sport shooters anymore, it's a hobby that creates danger to others. Guns are stolen routinely from so-called legal gun owners and it's time we got those guns out of Toronto." -- David Miller

That's right. "So-called" legal gun-owners are the problem with Toronto. I assume he is drawing on heretofore classified evidence showing that most gun crimes in Toronto are perpetrated by legal gun owners and criminals who have stolen registered guns and not by criminals with unregistered fire arms mostly smuggled from the United States as common sense and all previous data has indicated. I'm sure Miller will be happy to show us this new evidence any day now.

I'll allow commenter Edward Kennedy at Free Dominion to demonstrate just how absurd this logic is:

Right on miller, but following this display of intelligence and logic, let us carry this a bit further, since legitimate owners of cars have them stolen, and since the stolen vehicles often cause accidents, there is no room for driving as legitimate automobile owners are responsible for the injuries and deaths caused by the criminals who steal them. Thus, all automobiles must be banned. After all, cars kill people and there is no defence for auto enthusiasts anymore, the activity creates danger to others.

Reason The Second:

Because he undermines every leftist social movement that he embraces by arguing unbelievably illogically for them.

Aside from the previously mentioned movement to ban fire arms in Canada which he has disgraced so thoroughly and consistently, he has also been extremely helpful in undermining the popular global warming movement which seeks to solve "the greatest crisis facing our generation" by replacing our liberal democracy with a green brand of fascism. Particularly, I'm thinking of his frequent chatter about increasing taxes for downtown parking, as well as other such abuses of his extensive taxation powers, in order to strong-arm Torontonians into abandoning modernity to reduce our carbon footprint.


Reason The Third:

Because he has ensured a Conservative come-back in Toronto in the near future.

Toronto is home to a very special political culture. My personal relationships and experience has taught me that most Torontonians vote the way they do based almost entirely on what is fashionable at the time. The vast middle class has consistently voted Liberal in Toronto because it meant they could drive home in their Hybrid cars and smugly chat with their middle class hybrid-driving friends about how morally superior they are for voting for Trudeau's party and for solving the climate crisis in the process.

Miller's reign of terror has made Torontonians reminisce about the good ol' days under Mel Lastman and, even in the most hopelessly fad-voting circles, it is no longer "cool" to vote Liberal. Since Harper has clawed his way towards the center of the political spectrum as quickly as Dion could abandon it, many Torontonians are sure to, although uncomfortably at first, begin posting blue signs on their lawns.


Reason The Fourth:

Because he's a caricature of himself and makes all leftists look silly by association.

Democratic politics has proven to be largely the result of our visceral reactions to the politicians between which we are supposed to choose. Since most Canadians don't have the time or the interest to truly engage with the issues of an election at a normative level, they make decisions based upon which candidate they intuitively prefer.

In 2006, for example, Paul Martin came off as a snake-oil salesman and a rich power-luster and so stolid Liberals couldn't get over his repugnancy enough to cast ballots for him in numbers necessary to win. Martin bled Liberal support like it was his job because he wasn't likeable. Conversely, Harper, although profoundly unexciting, came off as reasonable and dependable and, consequently, he has and will continue to slowly win converts from the centrist and right-leaning Liberal camp.

David Miller is no longer taken seriously by ANYONE. Accordingly, he has made it gloriously uncomfortable to be associated with the left in Toronto.


For all these reasons, I can now say without any trace of sarcasm that I love David Miller.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. You've done all Tories inside and outside of Toronto a big favour.

Stupid & Busy: The Last Fighting Liberal Bites The Dust

I don't blame him but I wish it weren't so:

Dr. Keith Martin got into politics 15 years ago because he thought he could accomplish more as an MP than as a doctor. He had a fulfilling career as an emergency room physician and GP but figured he could make a bigger difference helping shape policy in the House of Commons.

However, the 48-year-old British Columbian MP, who has been re-elected five times under various parties, has decided the next election will be his last. He is fed up with the parliamentary system and is disillusioned by how hard it is to get anything done in Ottawa.

"One of the great myths with respect to this job is how much ability an individual MP has to influence what goes on," he said in an interview at his office. He likened most MPs to "mice on the treadmill running as fast as they can, going absolutely nowhere."

He said the parliamentary system is designed to keep MPs "stupid and busy" and added he is frustrated by how much taxpayer money is wasted on MPs working long days accomplishing very little on behalf of their constituents.

There are two kinds of MPs in Canada (and the observation likely extends to all liberal democracies). On the one hand, there are those who entered politics with a vision of doing good. This type is quite easy to recognize since they're invariably miserable. On the other hand, there are those who entered politics for power and, sadly, these are the ones that flourish. Democratic politics is an absolutely thankless profession and the only ones who aren't burnt up by it are "pragmatists" who hold power as their highest value.

Dr. Keith Martin was a passionate defender of free speech and the best the Liberal Party of Canada had to offer. He'll be sorely missed but, tragically, probably more by right-wingers than by Liberals.

H/t Joanne

If You're Really Interested In Rolling Back The Tide of Extremism, Have Yourself Committed

Oh, how brave and noble are today's "progessive" bloggers. I've only waded into the morass of the leftosphere on a handful of occassions and, despite the superfluity of knee-jerk reactionary dreck (which, in all fairness, can be found in spades on our side as well), I must confess that I've found a few sparks of intelligence and wit over there.

Hoping to stumble upon a trenchant little piece from the leftist perspective today, I paid a visit to the Liblogs aggregating website whereupon I chanced to read a post of such staggering insight that my knuckle-draggingly rightist cranium exploded upon reading its words.

The insight was found, in the form of a thoughtful "memo" to Prime Minister Harper regarding some ambiguous and unsourced stiffling of the Canadian military's freedom of speech, on the blog "Rolling Back The Tide of Extremism." The blog's title, incidentally, had me rolling in the ironic aisles for a pleasant 5 or 6 minutes before I could gather myself.

And so I thought I'd share the aforementioned insight with my gentle readership:

Memo to Lardo:

We've checked and, sure enough, you don't pay the public and armed services of Canada, we do. Their job description requires them to work for the best interests of the country, not for the furtherance of your political fortunes.

Look here, you abysmal control freak, take the gags off the public service and the armed forces. If they've got something to say, let us hear it. When we want to hear from you, we'll let you know.

Let's have their opinions, their insights, their considerable experience and invaluable knowledge, not your censored, perverted version of what you would have us believe. You don't have to agree with them and you certainly have every opportunity and the full means of Parliament at your disposal to explain your position when you disagree and choose another path. If you've got a case, make it and, this being a democracy, we'll decide.

You see, Stevie, when you gag the public and armed services, you impose a form of partisan, political censorship on them and on us. That's undemocratic and what's undemocratic in Canada is unpatriotic. You're being unpatriotic and those who shill for you are just as unpatriotic and even those who merely sit on their hands and support you are not one bit better.

Yes! Yes! I've always suspected Stephen Harper didn't personally pay the armed services. Validation at last. And how about that gorgeous line "when we want to hear from you, we'll let you know." I wasn't aware that Prime Ministers were confined to a "dont speak unless spoken to" relationship with the citizenry.

I'm so amused by the left's constant moaning that Harper is somehow undemocratic. When someone takes this position, they're giving you a valuable clue towards an understanding of the Liberal perspective. You see, democracy is "rule by the people" and I, as a leftist and supporter of Canada's Natural Ruling Party, must certainly speak for the people. Consequently, anything Harper says or does is perforce undemocratic. More importantly, don't you see how not voting for the Liberals is unpatriotic now? If "democracy" is "rule by the people," and the Liberals speak for the people of Canada, then voting for the Tories violates the Will of the Canadian People and is tantamount to treason.

Oh, and did you catch that in the last paragraph? He called the Prime Minister of our country "Stevie." The brilliance here is that "Stevie" is an informal epithet and, by applying it to a person for whom appelations are conventionally formal, the nickname belittles without the troublesome responsibility of providing evidence for any criticisms that one might have.

But maybe RBTT does provide evidence. Let's read on, shall we?

Look here chum, we have plenty of reason to be suspicious of you and yours. If you'll do something this egregious when you have only a bare minority government, how underhanded will you be if we ever give you a majority?

Ah! There's that belittling through inappropriately informal appellations again. I just can't get enough of it.

Every now and then, Steve, you can't help but reveal just how deeply you hold the country and the Canadian people in contempt. It's time you showed a little respect, Steve, for Canada, for Parliament and for us lowly Canadians. We're not cattle and we're sure as hell not your serfs either.

Shorter RBTTOE: "Brothers and sisters, please! We need to have more respect for each other. Especially you, Lardo, you fat, knuckle-dragging moron."

At any rate, thanks for the laugh, friend. And, you know, for rolling back that tide of extremism like you do.