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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.