[thechat] canada's new democratic party

Tara Cleveland tara at taracleveland.com
Mon Jan 27 13:44:01 CST 2003


rudy wrote:

>> I hate it when people talk about the government basically
>> taking *their* money.
>
> um, okay, then whose money is it?

My point was that you receive all kinds of benefits for the taxes that you
pay, directly (you can go to the doctor for free) or indirectly (you live in
a country with social peace and civility - for the most part anyway). So
although you call it 'your' money, you should be paying it because you 'owe'
it to the government for those benefits that you receive. That money is
money that gets spent for the collective good of everyone - including you.
You have the opportunity to participate in the democratic election of the
government that chooses how to spend your money. If you don't want to live
with that kind of social contract, then go live in the woods and you won't
get caught for not paying taxes. Actually, that doesn't work either because
you'd still be benefiting from foreign affairs and military security,
environmental protection etc. etc. that we all spend money on. But I
digress...

> hey, i don't mind paying taxes for social programs, what p*sses me off is
> that the social program slice of the pie gets so bloody roaring out of
> control whenever left-of-center parties get into power, and has bloody
> little to do with the actual recipients of society's largesse than with
> furthering the political careers of those in in power

And what about the slice of the pie that goes to tax cuts for the rich that
gets totally out of whack when a right-of-centre government gets in power?
And we all know that's about who give campaign contributions - the
corporations and the rich guys who give money to the right-of-centre
political parties, allowing them to spend on election campaigns, get elected
again and further their political careers. Besides, the NDP has never formed
a government federally and so hasn't been in power federally... but I won't
get into that discussion...

> i personally want a government that says "this is ridiculous" and puts the
> onus back on people to stop expecting handouts and start supporting
> themselves more

Kind of like Mike Harris and the Ontario Tories that tried to reform the
welfare program by paying Anderson Consulting (now Accenture) millions of
dollar to find a few hundred welfare cheats
<http://www.eye.net/eye/issue/issue_04.25.02/news/editorial.html>, allowed
for the fingerprinting of welfare recipients, started a program of
"workfare" that allowed corporations to hire people in low-skilled,
no-future jobs off the welfare rolls for half of  the minimum wage and with
no labour standards and then tried to kick everyone else off the welfare
rolls? Yeah that was really great public policy. Sounds more like corporate
welfare to me...

Here's a link to the Ontario Auditor's Report that condemned the Anderson
(now Accenture) deal.
<http://www.gov.on.ca/opa/english/en02/301e02.pdf>

It also produces tragedies like that of Kimberly Rogers
<http://www.cbc.ca/stories/2002/12/19/rogers_021219>. Kimberly Rogers was a
40 year-old woman who was 8 months pregnant. She killed herself after being
put under house arrest (with no source of income to pay rent or feed
herself) for welfare fraud after attempting to collect welfare and get a
student loan at the same time. A coroner's jury recommended ending such
harsh penalties and zero-tolerance attitude to welfare fraud.

I'm really sick of people who say "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" and
then implement sickening programs like these that are punitive, cruel,
mean-spirited and don't save money.

> yeah, i know, i know, there are those who cannot, et cetera...
>
>> you still benefit from living in a country where government
>> programs lessen the hurt of poverty, ignorance and crime
>
> yes, and i really do appreciate how lucky i am to live in canada and not
> some imperialist wacko evil global tyrant country like our fine neighbours
> to the south, where each missile in the arsenal costs a half a million bucks
> and a bomber two billion

You said it not me ;-) ...

Actually, I didn't mean the US. I meant places like Colombia where there is
rampant corruption, incredible poverty, an upper class that is unbelievably
wealthy compared to the majority of the population, and where civil unrest
makes large areas of the country unsafe.

> but hey, let's get real about this "lessen the hurt of poverty" idealism --
> if you give stuff away, there will always be more people lining up for it
> than you've got to give, and the answer is *not* to give more away, but less

Hey, let's get real about this "less is more" idealism. No. Less is less.
Yes the welfare rolls have diminished in Ontario since the Tories came to
power, but that's 'cause people are getting kicked off the rolls.
Homelessness, food bank use and other indicators of poverty have gone *way*
up. So, you've got your 30% tax cut, but you'll have to step over a few more
homeless people on your stoop than before, are you happy? 'Cause Kimberly
Rodger's friends and family aren't.

> not enough affordable housing?  gee, let's have the taxpayers build some
> more

How about co-op housing? How about as Martin suggests, requiring developers
to include affordable housing in their plans, instead of encouraging
high-price condo developments, while allowing developers to tear down
affordable rental units to build them?

> i think socialists have a fundamental blind spot as to how the economy works

I think you've got a fundamental blind spot as to how socialists work. ;-)
There are plenty of countries run by left-leaning governments that work
exceptionally well (as Drew pointed out) and their economies work well too.
Scandinavia is full of 'em. And closer to home, wasn't Saskatchewan the
first province to balance it's budget - under the provincial NDP government?

Tara




More information about the thechat mailing list