Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Canadian Political Free-for-All -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: marcos who wrote (1245)	10/8/2002 9:26:17 AM
From: DeplorableIrredeemableRedneck	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 37527

Not another health-care tax Mark Milke National Post Tuesday, October 08, 2002 Here we go again. If the trial balloons launched from Ottawa recently are any indication (and they are), Canadians are about to be hit with a new tax. As usual, taxpayers will be told to take their medicine without complaint and that a new tax -- probably with the word "health" attached to it -- will be good for them. Of course, federal Liberals will dress up the tax hike in language of compassion and necessity. Prime Minister Jean Chrétien gave a strong hint of this strategy last week when, in parliamentary debate, he echoed the famous dictum of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.: "It has been said before and we on this side of the House agree that, like it or not, taxes are the price one pays to live in a civilized society." One could debate whether government Members of Parliament and the Roy Romanow commission have had an open mind on health-care reform, or whether it has all been a dog-and-pony show to provide cover for what they really want -- ever more money and tinkering with health care from the top down as opposed to substantial reform with, say, individual medical savings accounts à la Singapore. But that debate aside, Canadians should not buy the notion that this is the first time a new tax or an increase in tax has been justified based on health care. There are multiple examples from Canada's past. Gleaned from the work of tax historian J. Harvey Perry, here are some past tax introductions and increases justified in such a manner. 1916: Prince Edward Island's War and Health Tax Act raises all taxes by one-third except for the road tax. Saskatchewan's Union of Hospitals Act authorizes local municipalities to set up hospitals to serve common needs and to finance the same through land tax levies. 1939: Saskatchewan passes the Municipal and Medical Hospital Services Act, and extends the municipal taxing right to include personal taxes, though not to exceed a $50 charge per family. 1944: Ontario's Municipal Health Services Act permits municipalities to levy property taxes or a poll tax for health plans. 1947: Saskatchewan introduces a new tax -- compulsory monthly premiums for health insurance. 1948: Ontario enacts a 20% amusement tax in the Hospital Tax Act. British Columbia introduces a 3% retail sales tax under the Social Security and Municipal Aid Tax partially for medical services. The same year, British Columbia passes the Hospital Insurance Services Act which, similar to Saskatchewan, mandates personal and family premiums. 1950: Saskatchewan increases and renames its 2% retail sales tax to 3% for health funding under the Education and Hospitalization Tax Act. 1951: British Columbia raises its health-care premiums. 1953: Newfoundland introduces an entertainment tax of 5¢ per ticket for cancer control. 1954: Saskatchewan health-care insurance premiums are raised. Newfoundland broadens the entertainment tax. British Columbia increases the retail sales tax from 3% to 5%, now known as the social services tax. 1959: Nova Scotia imposes a 3% retail sales tax known as the Hospital Tax. 1965: British Columbia reintroduces health-care premiums and keeps the retail sales tax in place. With the introduction of medicare in 1969, the provinces once again moved to raise or initiate new taxes over the following years. Nova Scotia raised its retail sales tax from 3% to 7% and promised the new money for health programs. Quebec increased the corporate tax by 2% and in 1972 introduced a payroll tax on employees, employers and the self-employed with the same justification. In Manitoba, a 5% addition to personal income taxes was labelled the "Hospital Services Tax" though proceeds from it were not specifically earmarked. Monthly premiums were introduced in 1969, eliminated in 1973, but a payroll tax was introduced in 1982 for health-care and education costs. In the early 1970s, Saskatchewan increased its retail sales tax and earmarked half of the new money for health services. Alberta introduced health-care premiums in 1969. In 1984, British Columbia introduced a 4% surtax on personal income tax as a "health care maintenance" tax and upped it to 8% in 1985. Health-care tax increases continued into the last decade when, in the early 1990s, Ontario New Democrats introduced a new high-income surtax which the Ontario Conservatives later kept and re-labelled the "fair share" health-care levy. And in 2002, two governments that are supposed to be fiscally conservative -- British Columbia's Liberals and Alberta's Conservatives --both doubled their health-care premiums. Around the time Justice Holmes uttered his now-famous remark in 1904, total government expenditures in Canada amounted to 9.5% of the economy. By 1910, government relative to the economy reached 11.4%. And the latest figure from the OECD pegs Canada's total government expenditures at 41.9% of gross national product. It is one thing to introduce or raise new levies when government taxation and spending is low compared to historical standards -- even compared to historical welfare state levels -- but taxes have risen for the past several decades with only a temporary retreat in 2000. But rather than divert existing expenditures, the federal government appears ready to raise taxes on Canadians once again. Mark Milke is the former British Columbia director for the Canadian Taxpayers Federation and is the author of Tax Me I'm Canadian -- Your Money and How Politicians Spend It. © Copyright 2002 National Post

To: marcos who wrote (1245)	10/14/2002 1:38:12 AM
From: Eashoa' M'sheekha	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 37527

38% in U.S. favour annexing Canada: Poll [" annexing "...I like that work...heh heh ] MONTREAL (CP) — Should Canada become the 51st American state? Four out of 10 Americans answered "sure" in a recent poll conducted by Leger Marketing of Montreal. While 38 per cent of respondents said they would be "in favour of Canada being annexed to the United States," 49 per cent disagreed. Another 13 per cent said they did not know or refused to answer. But those who follow Canada-U.S. relations closely said Canadians should not panic. "I wouldn't worry about the army coming," said Christopher Sands, director of the Canada Project for the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C. "I don't think there's any manifest-destiny thinking much in the United States anymore. People don't want to just acquire territory." Sands said he was somewhat puzzled by the "high minority" of Americans who said Canada should be annexed. However, he speculated the responses were an indication of goodwill and welcome towards Canadians should the government ever decide on its own that it wants to join the United States. Canadians are no longer the strangers to Americans they once were, added Sands. So Americans are now more accepting of the cultural and political differences between the two countries than they were in the past and they aren't in a rush to launch a takeover of their neighbours to the north. Harold Waller, who teaches U.S. politics at McGill University in Montreal, said Canadians should view the poll result as more of a curiosity than a real window on how Americans see us. "I doubt if the average American knows enough about Canada to make a reasoned assessment, what the pros and cons might be," said Waller. "There's really an abysmal level of ignorance about Canada in the United States so I don't know what conclusions you can reach." Waller said Americans likely didn't express overwhelming enthusiasm for annexation because they didn't see any obvious advantage to them. From a historical perspective, there hasn't been a real push by Americans for annexation since the 19th century, he added. Leger interviewed 1,000 Americans between Sept. 19 and Sept. 29 for the poll provided to The Canadian Press. The margin of error is plus or minus 3.1 percentage points, 19 times out of 20. Leger also compared these results to a similar survey of 1,508 Canadians in early September 2001. On the question of annexation by the United States, 19.9 per cent of Canadians said at that time that they would be in favour, while 76.5 per cent rejected the proposition. Another 3.6 per cent said they didn't know or refused to answer. For this year's survey, the pollsters also asked Americans if they would be "in favour of Canada adopting the U.S. dollar as its national currency." Fifty-eight per cent of respondents said "yes," while 28 per cent said "no" and 15 per cent said they didn't know or refused to answer. In last year's poll, 39.9 per cent of Canadians said they'd be in favour of the switch, while 55.1 per cent were opposed and 5 per cent said they didn't know or refused to answer. Sands said the wording of that question could have been interpreted by Americans as Canadians asking for permission to adopt the U.S. dollar after already deciding it was the best move for Canada. "I'm sure the average American doesn't think, `Gee those low Canadian dollars give them an export advantage,' " said Sands. "I don't think it's about imposition. I think it's about `Well, yeah, we don't mind.' " Waller said it wouldn't make a difference to the average American if Canada started using the U.S. dollar, noting Panama already uses the currency. "I can't imagine the average American having a clue about the Canadian dollar, or what it means, or what its value is, or how it fluctuates."