The Citizen, 1991-01-16, Page 5Arthur Black
THE CITIZEN, WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 16, 1991. PAGE 5.
Attacking
our planet
I’d be astounded if this planet is still
going fifty years from now. I don’t think
we will reach 2000. It would be
miraculous.
The great British-cum-American journa
list Alistair Cooke made the forgoing
prophecy away back during the darkest
days of World War II. He was, it appears,
unduly pessimistic. The millennium is just
nine years off and we’re still here. (So’s
Alistair, come to that).
But we owe our survival more to good
luck than good management. We still treat
the earth as a combination candy
store/garbage dump. Every so often a
government flack comes to the parapet wall
to announce glorious new plans to save the
environment, but if you look around it’s
still business as usual.
In some jurisdictions the government
doesn’t even pretend to mean well. In
Karnataka, a state in southern India, a
project to study the dwindling population
of Royal Bengal tigers has been abruptly
cancelled by the Minister of Forests.
It’s our borrowing,
not taxes
that’s the problem
BY RAYMOND CANON
Earlier this year I wrote a piece on
taxation in Canada and, on the basis of a
detailed report from the Office of Economic
Co-operation and Development, revealed
that we were not nearly as badly off in the
level of our taxation as was generally
believed."
The OECD did a study of tax levels in 11
industrialized countries throughout the
world and showed that, out of the countries
examined, we ranked eighth. To make the
picture even brighter for us, our marginal
tax rates were lower than all the other
countries except those in the United States
where they were only slightly lower. In
short, in the field of tax burdens, we came
out smelling like the proverbial rose.
I have got some negative feed-back on
these revelations. The figures, claimed
one, were slanted; another stated that
he never heard about people in the other
countries complaining about taxes etc. For
those doubting people, I have now come up
with additional information which taxpay
ers everywhere in southwestern Ontario
should find decidedly fascinating.
There is a more recent study on tax
revenues as a percentage of Gross Domes
tic Product, or the sum total of all domestic
demand, which looks at a much larger
number of countries and which compares
the level last year with those which existed
at the beginning of the 1980’s. It will come
as no surprise to learn that, of the 24
countries studied, almost all of them had a
higher tax level in 1989 than in 1980. In fact
only two, Norway and Austria, saw their
levels fall. In Austria you would have to
look hard to see any change; there is a bit
more of a drop in Norway but tax revenues
in that country are still running at about 45
per cent of GDP. or about 15 per cent
greater than those in Canada.
Now to the question you have all been
waiting for! Out of the 24 countries
studied, Canada ranked 18th. In short, this
is the further proof that our tax levels,
compared with those of other countries, are
certainly surprisingly low, considering that
"If nature wants tigers to die out, who
are we to save them?” snapped the
Minister in an interview. "Have you ever
heard a tiger complain?”
Shades of Ronald Reagan sleepily philo
sophizing "If you’ve seen one Redwood,
you’ve seen ’em all.”
Things are not a lot better in Japan,
where last month the Foreign Ministry
issued a press release announcing that
coastal dolphins were suffering from
"massive depression”. How did they
arrive at that diagnosis? Well, the dolphins
were committing suicide, you see. In fact,
600 of them had thrown themselves ashore
just a week earlier.
What’s that? All those Japanese fishing
boats out there? Oh, no - they weren’t
trying to drive the dolphins ashore to
protect their fishing grounds, they were
trying to save the dolphins and lead them
out to sea.
Uh huh.
Unfortunately, Japan does not have a lot
of credibility in offshore environmental
circles. These are the same folks who use
drift nets and factory ships to strip mine
the oceans of everything that floats. Last
month the Japanese whaling fleet set sail
for the Antarctic over the protests of the
International Whaling Commission.
Anti-whaling countries -- which is to say
most of the world - fear that whale stocks
cannot sustain further slaughter. The
Japanese tut tut and pooh pooh as they
sharpen their harpoons. In any case, say
we have a universal medical plan which
works relatively efficiently and one of the
better unemployment insurance programs.
I don’t want you to get the idea from all
this that I enjoy paying taxes; anyone who
does must be a masochist of the first order
and that I most assuredly am not. It is just
that, while we are complaining about our
high tax levels, we have to remain
somewhat objective about the whole matter
d'nd realize that things are frequently not
as bad as we think.
If we have a relatively low tax level, why,
you may ask, is that possible? I was hoping
that you would get around to that question
and, now that you have, we can take a
closer look at it. One of the main reasons is
that our governments since 1975, especial
ly the federal one but also at the provincial
level, have preferred to finance a consider
able amount of their spending by borrow
ing. Many of you know that the federal
Help for the grieving
THE EDITOR,
Well, the holiday season is over, and for
most people it was a joyous festive family
celebration. For most people, but not all.
Anyone whose child has died knows that
the Christmas season is one of the hardest
times of the year.
There are the Christmas cards to send
out (without your child’s name signed)
there are presents to buy (none for you this
year, son), the festive table to set (oops, 1
put an extra plate at the table) and all that
ho-ho-ho let’s be jolly Christmas cheer
(what is there to be happy about? My child
is dead). Worst of all, no one - not family,
not friends - No One mentions your child.
Everyone is trying to cheer you up, hoping
to spare your feelings. Instead they end up
denying them.
Yes, the holiday season is hard: But
that’s not the problem. The problem is
your child is dead. No one can solve the
problem, and no one can take away the
pain. But, there are people who can share
your pain. And a shared load is lighter to
the Japanese, they’re not “hunting”
whales this time, they’re merely studying
them to establish sex, age and breeding
habits.
Mind you, they will have to kill them tc
do that.
And a clause in the international whaling
agreement makes it permissible to eat
whale meat, once the "scientific observa
tions” have been concluded.
And whale meat is now selling in Tokyo
restaurants for more than $200 a pound.
All told, the Japanese plan to "study”
300 minke whales.
Yep, when it comes to sheer perversity,
the old two-legged hairless Homo Sapiens
is hard to top.
Not that you have to be Asian or Oriental
to participate. Last I heard, our own
beloved federal government still had plans
to slaughter 3500 bison in Wood Buffalo
National Park.
Official reason for slaughter: some of the
animals have tuberculosis and brucellosis
and we wouldn’t want those diseases to
spread to domestic cattle.
Actual reason for slaughter: Under the
terms of the Canada/U.S. Free Trade
agreement, Canadian livestock must be
certified brucellosis-free.
Which they are -- and will remain so.
Wood Buffalo Park is far too remote to pose
any infection threat to domestic cattle.
But why take a chance, eh? So what if it
means obliterating the largest herd of wild
bison on the planet?
We wouldn’t want to offend Big Brother.
deficit alone is running at about 30 billion
dollars a year; it might be lower if it were
not for the fact that Canadians tend to
throw tantrums whenever efforts are made
to reduce it. Just think back to such topics
as Via Rail, military base closures and the
General Sales Tax.
There is another recent study that shows
that out of 18 countries, Canada has a
higher per capita debt level than 13 of
them. In short, if we shine in the general
level of taxation, we do not when it comes
to looking at debt levels. You might be
interested to learn that the two worst
offenders in this category are Greece and
Italy, both of which have debt levels that
make us look like amateurs.
Countries can reduce debt by raising
taxes, reducing expenditures or a combina
tion of both. If we as Canadians are
concerned about our debt levels, that is the
range of choices we have available.
carry.
The support group for the Bereaved
Parents meets the first and third Wednes
day of every month at 7:30 at the
Wingham and District Hospital (in the
classroom by the Emergency Department).
The first meeting for 1991 is Wednesday,
January 16. If you are having trouble
coping, or just want to talk to someone who
truly understands, please come.
JENNIFER MILTENBURG
Letter policy
The Citizen welcomes Letters to
the Editor from readers. All letters
must be signed. Upon request we
may withhold the name of the
author but the phone number,
signature and address of the writer
must be included. We reserve the
right to tell those directly involved
by comments in the letter the
identity of the author upon request
made in person.
Letter
from the
editor
The aging of
a business operator
BY KEITH ROULSTON
Pardon your local business operator
these days if she or he has a perpetually
furrowed brow and may yank out hair by
the fistfull. These are not happy times to be
in business.
The first of the year has brought on a
new onslaught of taxes and regulations
that has most business people wishing
they’d listened to their mothers and got a
nice job in the civil service.
First and foremost, of course, is the
infamous GST. 1 know the headaches the
tax has brought to our business. You think
you’ve got things figured out when
somebody brings up the dreaded words
"but what about....?” and you scurry back
to the books and pamphlets to see if you
can find the answer. You’re tempted to call
your accountant but you remember that
will cost you big bucks (besides the
accountant is probably as frazzled as you
about now). Some people have called that
toll-free GST line the government offers. If
they make five calls they may get five
different answers to how the tax applies to
any particular instance in their business.
I hate to even grumble when I see my
neighbours on main street and what they
have to go through. Our business is
relatively simple since we sell only a few
different products. Take something like the
variety store down the street. Some things
are food and thus tax free and some are
not. But which is which? There are some
things that have had manufacturer’s tax on
them and some that didn’t... but which are
which? Which do you reduce the price on
and which don’t you? On and on it goes
until if you see a smile on the faces of the
staff you start to wonder if they’ve finally
cracked.
There’s the fact that the guy at the top
not only has to figure out what’s going on
but has to pass that knowledge along to
each and every member of the staff ... and
hope it sticks. The problem is if somebody
goofs, it’s the business that will be out the
money, not the government. This is the
kind of game everybody would like to play:
the government says "heads I win, tails,
you lose.” In our business we owe the tax
the minute we bill somebody for an
advertisement. If the person takes six
months to pay, or never pays at all, we’re
still expected to pay the tax on time
(supposedly we can eventually get the tax
back for a bad debt but the government's
had our money interest free all that time).
But it isn’t just the dreaded (or is that
dratted) GST that makes life complicated.
The new year brought lots of other fun as
well. There are changes to the Occupation
al Health and Safety Act in Ontario. In our
business, there’s the new Freedom of
Information and Privacy Act that is setting
out all new ground rules. Other businesses
no doubt have new regulations of their own
they have to deal with now that a new year
has started.
A year ago it was the new Employer’s
Health Tax and, in some cases, Pay Equity.
You get to feeling swamped after a while. I
mean here we are facing a recession,
worrying about being internationally com
petitive, worrying how to finance our
businesses with sky-high interest rates as
well as just run that store or put out that
newspaper or keep that little plant going,
and we’re expected to also spend all this
time studying up on the latest tax
regulations and the latest laws and how
they affect us.
A lot of people seem about ready to
throw in the towel these days. They get the
feeling that big government and big
business really don’t want them around
with their little business. Government, you
get the feeling, would rather deal with
General Motors and Labatt’s than have the
nuisance of dealing with all of the
thousands of little businesses all across the
country. You don’t hear the big companies
complaining about the GST because
they’ve been able to put a team of
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