HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 1990-04-25, Page 5THE CITIZEN, WEDNESDAY, APRIL 25, 1990. PAGE 5.
So many criminals
are just plain dumb
If poverty is the mother of crime,
stupidity is its father.
A French satirist by the name of Jean de
La Bruyere penned those words more than
300 years ago, but they might have been
lifted from yesterday’s blotter at any police
precinct in this country. A lot of things
have changed in the past three centuries
but not, I submit, the amount of grey
matter between the ears of your average
sneakthief, snatchpurse or cutthroat.
They’re still stupid after all these years.
There are degrees of dumb, however.
The heistmeister who hit the Bank of
Commerce in Cambridge, Ontario recently
broke a cardinal bank robbing command
ment - he left his face hanging out for
bystanders to see and remember -- but at
least he did it in style. The guy showed up
at the teller’s wicket decked out in a
three-piece suit and sunglasses with an
expensive-looking attache case dangling
from his well-manicured mitt. He passed
the teller an I-have-a-bomb-in-my-brief-
case note, scooped several thousand
dollars into his briefcase and left.
The other side
of the coin
BY RAYMOND CANON
To say that the high level of taxation in
Canada is a frequent topic of conversation
is putting it mildly. Everywhere I go I see
people reaching for their handbooks on
tarring and feathering just in case they run
into a member of the federal government.
The proposed goods and services tax is
considered by many to be the work of the
devil while the thought of higher provincial
or municipal taxes is enough to make many
a taxpayer reach for his or her bottle of
hemlock.
In the midst of all this I have just
completed an examination of tax rates in
other countries and what I have to say
about these rates will come as a distinct
surprise to a great many readers. I say this
with the distinct realization that, after they
have finished what I have to say, I may not
have any readers at all next week.
However, such are the chances that a
journalist has to take in his quest for
ultimate truth or infinite wisdom are even a
mixture of both.
The Office of Economic Co-operation and
Development, of which Canada is a
member, has released a few figures on the
topic. One of the most lucid is the
publication of the level of tax revenues as a
percentage of Gross Domestic Product of
all the industrialized countries. For those
of you who have not picked up an economic
text recently, the GDP is the sum of all the
domestic spending which goes on in a
country and is the current favourite of
economists in their study of economic
growth of a nation.
At any rate, if we use the GDP as the
yardstick, it should come as no surprise to
learn that Sweden leads the list; its tax
revenue makes up a remarkable 56 percent
of GDP, all of which makes one wonder
whether everybody in that country should
consider themselves to be a civil servant
regardless of what they do. The D^nes are
not far behind with just over 50 per cent
while the Dutch earn the bronze medal
with just under 50 per cent.
Where did Canada come in the list? Are
you ready? Well, we ranked eighth out of
eleven, with a percentage rate of just over
30. To make the surprise even greater,
outside of the United States, we had by far
In a chauffeur-driven, white limousine.
It was a rental from a nearby-town. The
crook had told the driver he wanted to
“look at some real estate’’ in the area.
“He put up a big cash deposit for the
rental” said the limo driver.
Not as big as his cash withdrawal I bet.
In the never-ending turf war between
cops and robbers it’s not always the bad
guys who show idiocy above and beyond
the call. Consider the red-faced officers of
Halton County who recently lost a danger
ous prisoner. They were driving said
prisoner between jails in a prison van.
When they got to their destination, they
went around to the back of the truck and
found the door bent open and the prisoner
long gone. “Didn’t you hear anything?”
the desk sergeant wanted to know. Well,
actually, no. The two guards had this killer
rock and roll tape on the van’s four-speaker
stereo y’see, and ...
The Halton Board of Police has since
voted to ban pleasure radios in prisoner
escort vans.
Once in a very long while you encounter
a crook who transcends the usual boundar
ies of mere stupidity and vaults into a
whole new category of Clod-dom so
breathtaking it doesn’t even have a name
yet.
Let’s call it Hyperstunned.
Such a candidate is the chap currently
staying at a Crowbar Hotel in North
the lowest top marginal rate of personal
income tax. You may wonder just which
were the three countries below Canada.
They were Australia, Japan and the United
States but all three were only one - two per
cent below our rate.
In short, the evidence would seem to
prove that, far from being hard done by as
far as taxes are concerned, in terms of the
percentage of GDP and the top marginal
rate, we are one of the most fortunate of
countries.
I am sure that at this point there will be
some that find this unbelievable but I have
not tried to distort the figures. After all, it
is my job to take a look on a regular basis
at what is happening in other countries and
I am most assuredly not in the employ of
any political party, nor have I any intention
of doing so. In short, I call them as I see
them.
You may wonder what the Swedes get
for all the money they pay in the form of
taxes. Well, the country has without a
doubt the most lavish welfare state in the
world. So generous is it that it is starting to
destroy work incentives. On any given day,
no less than one out of every four workers
Letter to the editor
Male cooks can apply
THE EDITOR,
An item from a local church bulletin
appeared in The Citizen last week asking
ladies to put on their thinking caps as to
what to prepare for the Rutabaga Baking
Contest being held in Blyth on Saturday,
June 23, - just one of the events in the big
June weekend Rutabaga Festival. I wonder
why in the notice men were excluded from
participating in what proves to be a popular
activity in any big-day celebration.
Many men, as well as ladies, these days
graduate from a College Chef Management
Course and obtain enjoyable employment.
I feel certain they would take pride in
showing off what novel Rutabaga dishes
they are capable of concoting.
Who knows? Men with no “Chef”
degree who might right now be planting
Rutabaga seed on the George Hubbard
acreage and other acreages in Huron
might, on June 23, just love to don a
Rutabaga sweat shirt, roll up their sleeves
and before our very eyes perhaps, surprise
us with what they can come up with in the
way of Rutabaga tasty treats. They even
might surprise themselves with what they
could carry home in the way of trophies or
Carolina. It all started one sunny Saturday
morning - the kind of morning where you
get up and say ‘boy, what a great day to cut
the lawn!’. No such luck for an anti-hero.
First, he lost control of his vehicle and
ploughed into a truck. Two other cars ran
into each other trying to avoid the crash.
Police arrived, handcuffed our man and
popped him into the front seat of their
police cruiser while they took statements
from the other drivers. Next thing they saw
was their patrol car disappearing down the
highway. After abandoning the car our
man (handcuffed, mind) led police on a half
hour footrace before they finally brought
him down, hauled him off to the slammer
and threw the book at him. His charges are
various: driving while impaired, driving
while his licence was revoked, improper
registration, larceny, hit and run causing
personal injury, careless driving and
reckless driving.
Not a laughing matter, to be sure ... until
you find out that the vehicle our man was
piloting was a lawnmower.
Pretty dumb, but not all-time dumb.
That honor goes to Willie J. Collins who
stormed into an Atlanta police station last
month and indignantly showed the desk
sergeant the very bad quality cocaine some
...thief - had sold him.
Mister Collins is in jail, but not
forgotten. He serves to remind us just why
they call that stuff ‘dope’.
is absent from his or her place of
employment. About 10 per cent are
actually sick, 15 per cent are looking after
children, or study leave, holidays or for one
of the 101 reasons why they are entitled to
take leave. After the birth of each child, the
parents are entitled to take no less than 15
months between them to look after the
child. They can also take up to 60 days a
year to look after a sick child. There is no
limit of sick days that a worker can take
each year and they are paid 100 per cent of
their salary for each day off. Many of them
can actually phone in to report their
alleged illness and talk only to an
answering machine.
We in Canada do not get anywhere near
such services but, when you consider what
we do get and what we pay in taxes, it is
small wonder why we are having to run
such a large deficit. As it stands now we are
living beyond our means as a country and
either we reduce our expectations or pay
more taxes or a combination of both or we
are going to be in far worse shape than we
are now. We had better be prepared soon
to face the real truths of making our way in
a very competitive world.
medals or ribbons. Let’s give every one a
chance. .
Melda McElroy,
Blyth.
MVCA appoints
General Manager
The Executive Committee of the Maitland
Valley Conservation Authority (MVCA) has
appointed Ken R. (Chuck) Westman as
General Manager of the Authority, effec
tive April 9. Ken replaces Les Tervit, who
resigned in January.
Mr. Westman is a graduate of the
University of Guelph with a degree in
Agriculture. He has worked for conserva
tion authorities since 1971, beginning as a
Resource Manager for the Kettle and
Catfish Creek Authorities. In 1976 he
moved to the Saugeen Valley Authority as
Resource Manager. He held the position of
General Manager of the Saugeen Valley
Authority from 1980 through 89.
While working for the Saugeen Valley,
Mr. Westman was active on a number of
staff committees of the Association of
Conservation Authorities of Ontario
(ACAO).
Letter
from the
editor
Booze adds to abuse
BY KEITH ROULSTON
Spend even a little time around a court
room as I do as part of my job, and you
come to understand why people once
thought the answer to many of the
problems in the country was to ban alcohol.
I remember being surprised several
years ago reading Nellie McClung’s book
“Clearing in the West” that prohibition
was originally a prime cause of the
women’s movement. So much of the
violence against women, she says in the
book, was from husbands and fathers who
had imbibed too much. We like to laugh
nowadays at the temperance movement
and its melodramatic plays and stories
about the evils of demon rum. Certainly the
women’s movement wouldn’t like to see
itself stuck too close to an old-fashioned
movement like temperance.
And yet if you sit in court for a while
you’ll see that the concerns of Nellie
McClung and her cohorts are as valid today
as ever. Probably at least three-quarters of
all the cases dealt with at a typical sitting of
provincial court involve alcohol. There are
of course the drunk driving charges to be
dealt with (which result in more trials than
just about all other offences put together as
lawyers try desperately to help their clients
keep the right to drive).
Next probably comes mischief charges in
order of frequency. Almost always the
story is the same: a young lad, or several
young lads, (and yes most of the crime
does involve males) have been out drinking
and they get the inspired (by alcohol) idea
to play mail box baseball or to shoot out
street lights or knock down street signs or
do some other mindless damage. Sober
and embarrassed they now face a judge
and a hefty fine or maybe even a jail term.
At least in these cases no one has been
hurt but in the cases of assault that come
before the court, someone has had to suffer
because of the problems someone else has
with too much liquor. In more than a year
of covering court now I don’t think there
has been a single case of wife assault (or
girlfriend assault) that hasn’t involved the
man drinking too much. I vividly recall one
anguished woman pleading with me not to
report the conviction of her mate because
when he gets drinking on the weekend he
becomes a different, and very dangerous
man. If he -got angry and drunk after
reading about himself in the paper, she
feared for her life.
Perhaps even sadder was the case at a
recent session of court where a man
admitted having stayed at a friend’s home,
had too much to drink and in the middle of
the night found his way to the bedroom of a
young girl in the family and tried to
sexually assault her.
What can we do about alcohol abuse?
Well, obviously Nellie McClung’s solution
wasn’t the answer. Prohibition just made
drinking more daring and created a whole
underground crime system to serve then
illicit drinkers. Ontario’s stringent liquor
laws don’t seem to make much difference
either. In the days of my youth we didn’t
have a liquor store in every town but we
had a bootlegger. We didn’t have licenced
dances but there was still lots of booze
around and lots of fights outside when men
went outside to take a nip.
Maybe for a start we could stop laughing
off the damage people do while they’re
drunk. Maybe we could realize that
vandalism done while you’re plastered is
just as mean and destructive as that done
cold sober. Maybe we could realize that the
guy driving two tons of automobile down
crowded highways when he’s tanked is just
as dangerous as a madman waving a
loaded gun. Maybe we could stop making
people think they’ve been the life of the
party when they get drunk and do silly
things and instead treat them like what
they are. sad drunks, out of control.
We need to realize once and for all that
in this neck of the woods at least, the most
dangerous drug around is alcohol. It is
taking lives and wrecking homes. A lot of
things may have changed since Nellie
McClung’s day but alcohol is still some
thing for women to fear.