The Growth of a Leaner, Meaner Society

A recent Federal Court ruling slammed the Government's policy on medical care to refugees as being "heartless and shameful".  Journalist Christie Blatchford spent some time pointing out why this 268-page ruling was a good decision, and an indictment of the government's policy.

The trolls were immediately out in force, spouting off about how Canada is giving all their hard-earned tax dollars away to "furriners" who had no right to any of it.  The Government's Minister, Chris Alexander, vowed to appeal the ruling, claiming that the policy was reasonable and prudent and that there needed to be a way to deal with all the "bogus refugee claimants".  Reminded me of the government's recent claims of "thousands" of cases of voter fraud.  Not that they could come up with any REAL examples, but it made for a good bit of "fear and smear", happily practiced by this government every time they don't have any evidence to back up their claims.

Quite frankly, I am getting quite annoyed by the tone of these claims.  There have been many more of them lately floating around in social media spheres and the comment section following the article noted above had it's fair share.

I like how selective some of these posts are on the topic of what governments should spend money on. There is outrage that the government should provide basic humanitarian aid to a few people who can't afford it but there is no mention of the BILLIONS wasted on other boondoggles being aggressively pursued by this government. So, let me throw out a few possibilities here:

I dislike the political agenda publicly espoused more and more by many churches, especially the so-called evangelical groups. Their positions on many issues clearly stray into the political sphere.  I want their charitable, tax-exempt status canceled. I see NO reason why they should get a free ride on MY tax dollar. You want to support a church or some other religious organization?  Great.  Do it on your own dime.  What this costs Canadians is somewhat difficult to discover, but I read one estimate that tax exemptions in the USA for religious organizations was worth about $71 Billion each year.  I have no idea how accurate that might be or what it might be in Canada, but the real amount is clearly a big number.

I'm also against the, what is it now - $65 billion? - fighter jet scam. You will recall Peter Mackay's early claims that these things would "only" cost about $16 billion.  The real cost is obviously going to be much higher.  Military toys that likely will have little use for our "traditional" role as UN peacekeeper, not that we're doing much of that lately.  Our Prime Minister prefers demonization of his enemies instead of diplomacy and has little use for the United Nations, preferring to tag along behind whatever unilateral decisions the USA makes.

I'm also completely against tax breaks and various subsidies to the fossil fuel industry.  Correction: that's the "grossly profitable oil and gas industry" as well as the coal industry, one of the worst polluters in the energy business.  In Canada, those subsidies have been estimated to be as much as $34 billion every year.

By a very rough count, then, these three examples represent a cost of about $170 billion, some of that is a yearly cost, some not, but you get the picture, and that's just the tip of a huge financial iceberg.

Although I'm not in favour of these spending priorities, I'm forced, like everyone else (other than the very rich who seem to pay a lower tax rate on total income compared to the rest of us) to pay for these freeloaders. Billions.  This is where your hard-earned tax dollars are going.  Cut the tax breaks.

The few dollars spent actually helping people and countries in need and making the lives of real people better is an insignificant pittance by comparison. When did we become a nation of selfish, self-centered, uncaring twits? I think it was right after Harper was first elected. It's not a country I recognize any more. Shame on us.