Machjo
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Posts posted by Machjo
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2 hours ago, cannuck said:
"at the pump" taxes are not calculated by hand in any place I have ever been, and I buy a LOT of fuel. For road diesel: the vendor simply collects everything at the till based on what the register/computer puts aside from every purchase - or in some cases (Flying J for instance) it does not even show on the receipt as a separate line item. We already have a "two tax rate" system, one for road fuel (including provincial road taxes) and one for non-road (what used to be called "died diesel" or "purple diesel" but now called "reefer fuel" - no, not THAT - i.e. the Trudeau kind of reefer, but refrigeration units on insulated semi trailers).
The calculations are usually done from the total amount of fuel bought vs. the total amount of fuel sold in any particular reporting period.
True, and most gas stations belong to either franchisees or large corporations directly I assume, so they can afford economies of scale. This might not apply to a small shop owner who sells smart-phone cases for example. He might not have the money to buy the machine and so must do everything by hand. It's rare, but I've come across it... though I can't remember what product or dish it was, if it was a shop or restaurant. So yes, it's rare. But even then, a person needs to buy the machine and software or program it himself, which requires knowledge of how to program it and time to do it. It probably doesn't take much time to learn and program it, but it all adds up. The reason it's rare is because it's worth the investment to automate it, something that would not be needed if no value-added tax existed at the retail level in the first place.
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21 minutes ago, bush_cheney2004 said:
...angry Canadians are so cute... !
I'm touched.
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7 hours ago, Carbon882 said:
I'm not really sure on the details but it seems like Trump is gonna make Canada choose between China or the United States.
I often feel Anxiety when I think about how my country (Canada) is trapped in North America with the United States. It feels like the United States are bullying us with our trade relations and reliance. Call it the United States looking out for their own interest but it is what it is. Americans want to drain our blood for theirs weather if they are bully or just want to make themselves better, America will eat us if we let them.
I wanna say China right off the bat even thought it would be the less profitable option. Trump or who ever is working threw Trump has certainly trashed the United States diplomatic reputation. Our Relations with the United States have deteriorated to the lowest point since World war 2. China is far away and wont try to annex our land like how they are doing to Vietnam and other surrounding nations. In fact they may be more motivated to treat us well because we are next to their Rival. People in the American government are trying to use the Alberta separatist movement to Annex Canadian land. We need to rely less on the United States and if they are going to cut us off then we have to bite the bullet for our Future.
I think us Canadians have to really come together on a personal level and start discussing what to do because Trudeau and Doug Ford can't do this alone and divided. If we join the United States, they will annex us with Unfavorable Conditions using our desperation. Feeling the Existential Threat yet?
I think Canada has a weak cultural Identity. We're no more different than Vermont is from Texas. How can Canada beef up it's Culture?
I never felt so separate from the United States in my life. I never seen Tom Cruise(American Celeb) and thought "He's a American, he is a possible enemy" in my life until now. Canadians and Americans may say Canada feels like Extension of the USA but Trump us really slamming a wedge between our Identity's.
The solution would actually have been quite simple:
1. Canada adopts unilateral global free trade and shows the US the proverbial finger. The transition to a global economy would be painful but worthwhile in my opinion.
2. Canada needs to learn to accept that we've never in our history until today ever shared a common culture Canada-wide beyond a purely legal culture. Chinuk Wawa dominated as the lingua franca in most of BC until around 1900, Nunavut has four official languages, the North-West Territories has twelve, and our MPs still communicate with one another through earphones like ambassadors at the UN General Assembly. Many people ignore just how young Canada is as a country. In practical terms, Canada is a multinational state very much like Indonesia and needs to learn to embrace that. We need to recognize that the creation of a truly national identity would require state engineering of that identity similarly to how Indonesia developed Bahasa from a trade pidgin into a full national language even with the aid of a corpus-planning committee. I doubt Canada is ready to construct a national culture yet.
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9 minutes ago, Zeitgeist said:The basis of Canadian values are parliamentary democracy, common law, French Civil Law (in Quebec), and Judeo-Christian principles (the Ten Commandments and respect/Golden Rule minus the "no other gods before me" and matters of private morality such as adultery, coveting, etc., as there is a basic separation between church and state). There's also a component of aboriginal spirituality reflected in these traditions, which varies but includes respect for land and all life (spirit is in all), equality (the circle), and freedom to live according to native traditions. There's also the notion of "the just society", which is equity and rule of law (emphasizing the spirit over the letter of the law), protected rights and freedoms (the Charter), free expression, protection of property, appreciation of multiple cultures (multiculturalism), and deference to English and French as official languages. To some extent our safety net is counted in these values, including free child education, the CPP, and universal health care (The Canada Health Act). While I don't think we need many hard and fast rules about what constitutes unreasonable accommodations of cultural practices that diverge from these values, which are open to interpretation and revised over time, I think that anyone who poses a threat to our physical safety, democratic freedoms and constitutional protections should NOT be allowed to immigrate to Canada. In addition, any foreign power that poses a threat to such rights and freedoms must be called out. We must have the capacity to defend ourselves against threats. That's why Canada needs a stronger military, more like the one of half a century ago.
I disagree with a few of the above mentioned to varying degrees, either fundamentally or in the specifics, yet I was born and raised in Canada and even work in both official languages. I even attended Catholic separate school as a child. Can't get much more 'Canadian' than that.
Ironically, my work in the language industry has actually made me even more opposed to official bilingualism than before I'd entered the workforce after I'd completed school. Romeo Saganash has slammed official bilingualism on a few occasions himself, and I remember a Catholic once speaking out against the separate school system as discriminatory. I think Canadians are changing and this is shaking the ideological foundation of 'two founding races' on which Canada was built.
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2 hours ago, bush_cheney2004 said:
Indeed, but many think no matter what they may be, they are a defense for the American barbarians at the gate.
Some only need the very general definition of Canadian values as "not American".
USMCA chips away a little more at such quaint notions by forcing the CRTC to allow carriage for American shopping networks (previously denied).
And we should have just called it a revised version of NAFTA. USMCA is just too damned difficult to pronounce as a word.
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1 hour ago, Zeitgeist said:
Canada is trying to eliminate barriers, but in a way that protects Canadian values and culture. I know those are quaint notions to some, but they matter to most Canadians, or else we would’ve joined the U.S. a long time ago. Using economic pressure to gain unfair advantage on trade certainly isn’t any way to win us over.
I totally agree that Trump is making matters worse for his country and ours. That said, just what are these 'Canadian' values? The PQ was slammed two elections ago over its Charter of Quebec Values. The incoming Quebec government wants to keep a crucifix over the speaker's chair in the National Assembly while of course preventing public servants from expressing themselves, Ontario defends the separate school system even though it discriminates on the basis of religion and violates an international covenant to which Canada is a signatory member-state. I don't believe that Canadians have any clear agreement on what precisely our values are.
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11 minutes ago, bush_cheney2004 said:
No sympathy here...Canada has inter-provincial trade barriers that Trump has nothing to do with....fortress Canada.
Unfortunately many of our politicians are fools. Trump is just inciting the more foolish of our politicians so he's not helping any.
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1 minute ago, bush_cheney2004 said:
Don't worry....America will not close the border and starve your economy.
Unfortunately, it appears that Canada will do it to itself judging how we're choosing to now raise fortress North America.
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53 minutes ago, bush_cheney2004 said:
There is no argument...Trudeau was quite happy to continue the globalist status quo, including fun and games with Chinese exports.
Trump has been the change agent...the leader...not Trudeau.
Tariffs are kryptonite for the globalists. Lead, follow, or just get out of the way.
Tariffs are kryptonite for globalists and provincialists alike.
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26 minutes ago, bush_cheney2004 said:
Right now, the Trump team only recognizes that Trudeau didn't do anything about dumping and transshipments until Trump imposed the tariffs.
And protectionism can only beget more protectionism. 1920's all over again?
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11 hours ago, bush_cheney2004 said:
Trump leads...Trudeau follows...but he can't admit it for political reasons. Trudeau is the...apprentice.
Canada will impose surtaxes on certain types of steel imports starting on 10/25:
Canada introduces new surtaxes to curb flood of steel imports
And businesses will pass that tax onto poor Canadian consumers. And then we wonder why the poor get poorer and the rich get richer.
Worse yet, this will raise the cost of Canadian production and so make Canada less competitive on world markets. It would have been far preferable for Trudeau to negotiate a deal that would have allowed Trump to impose a reasonable tariff on Canadian steel while allowing Canada to trade freely with the world. While Canada would pay higher tariffs to export to the US, as long as the US tariffs are fair, they would just counter-balance the lower cost of Canadian products. Meanwhile, Canadian consumers would enjoy lower-cost products on our side and Canadian businesses could export more competitively to other countries.
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9 minutes ago, Zeitgeist said:
Calculating tax at gas pumps is a simple computed algorithm. The cost is nominal.
Perhaps. I've never worked at a gas station so I wouldn't know. I have rarely but on occasion come across a small shop owner calculating the GST manually, presumably due to lack of money to automate it or maybe the machine was down that day. regardless of the reason, that imposed far more work than if the GST was just added to the business tax instead. In the airline industry, it may happen that a person must calculate multiple international taxes, airport fees, and surcharges converted from a different currency. While automation exists for most cases, there are still enough times when they all had to be calculated manually, adding to that figuring out what tax applies to what charge, etc.
You may be right that a fuel surcharge at the pump is pretty straightforward, but that does not apply to all cases. For the most part, a rule of thumb would seem to suggest one large tax at the end of the year rather than billions of mini-taxes.
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39 minutes ago, Zeitgeist said:
Most Canadians, the vast majority, function very well using only one of the official languages. The 99% literacy rate says it. Technical language specific to an industry will always require additional learning. Translation is necessary from one official language into the other any time you’re doing national business. That’s where learning the other official language as a second language comes in. That’s why it’s mandatory to learn FSL into early secondary.
Just today I had an English-speaking colleague serve a Federal-Government worker. To try to reduce the language barrier, officially-unilingual English-speakers serve only English-speakers. However, she found herself needing to call a business in Quebec. The contact in Quebec did know some English but at first misunderstood some of the information which caused a delay and almost resulted in an error which could have cost us a few hundred dollars.
You might say the solution is to hire more officially-bilingual staff, but we're not a dime a dozen. And even if we all knew English and French, I've sometimes found myself struggling when serving between a Government worker and a business in Austria or Brazil for example. There exist more languages in the world besides just English and French and ever more businesses need to interact internationally. On one occasion, I literally could not help the person even though that was supposed to be my job. Luckily for me, he knew Portuguese, was understanding, and offered to deal with the situation himself. Had he made a complaint, I could easily have defended myself by simply saying that I contacted the business he wanted me to contact and that my contact didn't know enough English for me to understand and I knew no Portuguese. I don't know Spanish either. Strictly speaking, according to our contract with the Government of Canada, it was our responsibility to deal with the situation even though we might have had to search for a Portuguese-speaking staff member or figure out another solution. Again, luckily for us, he just took it upon himself. Also, that we need to hire more English-French-speaking staff actually reduces the linguistic diversity among us which makes it harder for us to find staff who may know other languages. Just think DFATD, DND, the RCMP, and many other departments interact internationally in North and South America, Europe, Asia, and Oceania. The Government of Canada does not function just within Canada's own borders. You'd be surprised at just how many Federal Government workers are working outside of Canada at any given time and how much Ontario and Quebec need to interact with one another and even BC and Quebec.
As far as official bilingualism goes, one could say that I'm working in the belly of the dragon. I'm immersed in it each day and so can tell you all kinds of stories because I live it. For most people, official bilingualism is just something you show off when ordering a meal at a restaurant and then listen to through earphones in Parliament, not something you use for any more complex interaction than that.
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1 hour ago, Wilber said:
My guess is there are a few things you use that aren't required or essential either.
I buy fuel. That's a non-renewable resource and so I think it should be taxed. That said, I also think we should tax it efficiently. For example, imposing a tax on the net profits of a resource-extraction business allows it at the end of the year to write one big check to the state after having calculated its total net profits for the year. Compare that to each gas station needing to invest in programming their systems to calculate this tax and that tax with each transaction often collecting no more than a few dollars. Sometimes governments overlook inefficiencies even in the tax-collection process itself.
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On 10/9/2018 at 6:32 PM, Wilber said:
What's the difference between reducing taxes for an industry and taxing then reimbursing them? Supply management is user pay and the industry has the same tax rate as any other, so why do you have a problem with that?
My problem is less with supply management than with subsidies. With animal husbandry raising the cholesterol we consume, it does make sense for at least an animal-husbandry business to pay a tax on its net profits. That said, yes, I would prefer supply-management and even tariffs over government subsidies to it. While this might increase the cost of milk, animal products and byproducts are not a required part of a healthy diet anyway and not essential.
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13 hours ago, Zeitgeist said:
I think that’s a petty concern. We have much bigger issues to worry about.
Like that the lack of a common language costs taxpayers around 2.4 billion dollars a year according to the Fraser Institute and that it probably accounts for the single greatest trade barrier between Ontario and Quebec and that official bilingualism can prevent many indigenous and other Canadians from accessing much employment in the Government of Canada and that it contributes to high rates of functional illiteracy due to both languages being among the more difficult ones to learn which imposes a further drain on our economic resources?
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18 minutes ago, Zeitgeist said:
But the nation has two official languages. That's the deal. Why fight this, so we can further balkanize the country by simply letting go of the official languages of our government institutions? I don't see who that serves apart from maybe new immigrants who don't want to learn the country's languages. Are we expected to change all of our traditions to meet the needs of one specific new group? Also, Esperanto was a failed experiment. I remember talk about that becoming a new international language. Of course it died. Where does one travel to have the Esperanto immersion experience? Idioms and slang are part of the fun of learning a new language. Language is culture. Shutting down the official language is shutting down that culture. It's not on.
I know both official languages fluently, so yes, they form parts of my culture. Official bilingualism with MPs sticking earphones into their ears like UN ambassadors has nothing to do with culture. That's just expensive bureaucracy. I'd rather our MPs lead by example by actually sharing a common language among themselves rather than act like UN ambassadors in Parliament.
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28 minutes ago, Zeitgeist said:
Ah no. If you want to do business in Canada, it's French or English and bilingual labels. What's it like to do business in Belgium with two languages or Switzerland with four languages? You don't make a population give up their language because some people find it inconvenient. Canada has to produce export goods in whatever language the target market speaks. So what? The solution in Europe is often to provide multiple language labels: German, French, English, Spanish, and Italian, for example. How many companies won't sell into Europe just because many languages are spoken there? Print off labels in the language of the market country. Done.
It's not just packaging and labeling and it's not just immigrants and foreigners. Statistically around half of working-age Canadians is functionally literate in neither official language. For indigenous Canadians, it increases to around 60%. So again, we're not talking about immigrants here but rather internal trade itself. That's why I'd given the example of trade even between Quebec and Ontario, two provinces within Canada. Small businesses can't always afford translation and interpretation. Heck, even Parliament needs to recess for the day when their interpretation system breaks down. Why expect a higher standard for our small entrepreneurs than we do for our lawmakers?
Also, the EU is a bad example. Whereas Canada is based on the personality principle, Belgium and Switzerland are based on the territoriality principle. In other words, individual regions within their states are officially unilingual with only the legislature that's really officially bilingual. In other words, they expect the individual and not the state to be bilingual. We can look at Indonesia and Tanzania too. They're both bursting with languages but at the national level have but one official language, Indonesian and Swahili respectively, even though few actually speak them as a first language. They chose these languages for their comparative ease of learning, not because many citizens speak them as first languages. Canada in many ways is like Indonesia with its multiple languages. Even Nunavut alone has four official languages and the NWT has twelve regional official languages too.
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15 hours ago, bush_cheney2004 said:
Agreed....the two official languages game that Canada plays is definitely a drag on competitiveness...domestically...and internationally.
It just adds another layer of complexity and cost.
I'm not denying that English and French Canadians may need to communicate with one another. But to learn a smattering of English or French brings no benefit whether cultural or economic. It would make more sense to allow those with the right aptitude to specialize in English and French translation and let others specialize in other fields even in high school. Those who do not wish to specialize in a second language but would still like to know a second language should be free to learn an easier language as an alternative. Given the dismal success rate in French and English as second languages in both Ontario and Quebec, I could even see Ontario and Quebec agreeing to letting interested students learn Esperanto as a second language. Since it's an easy language, even Esperanto as a core language course would suffice so no need for intensive or immersion courses. Due to a coordinated effort between two provinces, Quebecers and Ontarians could communicate with one another through Esperanto after a generation while the few bilingual English and French resources could shift aware from small business to other areas where their expertise is more needed so as to eliminate excessive market demand for that skill.
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22 minutes ago, Zeitgeist said:
Aug 2, 2017 - In Ottawa, bilingualism rates increased from 37.6 per cent in 2001 to 38.3 per cent in 2006.
It's not necessary to know both French and English when emigrating to Canada, but it's necessary to know one of the two. Either language will do.
I wasn't talking about immigrants. I was referring to people with very Canadian accents in either language and probably born in Canada. If Canada is to compete with the world, our education must become more practical. Either success rates in second language learning improve, we teach an easier second language, or we stop making second-language learning a compulsory subject and have students focus on other skills. Another option would be for those who choose to learn a more difficult second language like English or French to make it a specialization to ensure that they graduate fluently bilingually.
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3 minutes ago, Zeitgeist said:
The official languages and packaging aren't changing, nor the cultural protections. People sometimes try to say Canada doesn't have an identity. Well these are aspects of the Canadian identity, non-negotiables.
If they're so much a part of the Canadian identity, why do they need official recognition? I remember visiting Ottawa for the first time as an adult. I was seeking directions in Orleans (a supposedly more French-speaking part). For some reason, I addresses a couple in French. They apologized in English saying they didn't know French. It took me no more than a day to realize Ottawa was English.
When I went to Gatineau, I noticed that people in Hull all seemed to know English to varying degrees, usually quite well. I soon learnt that that wasn't the case everywhere in Gatineau as I went deeper into the suburbs of Gatineau where most definitely didn't know English. This is all in the National Capital Region itself, right on the border between Quebec and Ontario. If most Ottawans don't know French and most Gatinois (at least outside of Hull and areas near it) don't know English, then I can't imagine that official bilingualism is as widespread as people think beyond the most rudimentary language skills for introductions and basic negotiation of prices in commerce. Even in Hull, some knew only what I'd call 'commercial English', meaning the ability to discuss prices and a little more surrounding their field of work and not much more beyond that.
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3 minutes ago, Zeitgeist said:
Canada's big trade advantage going forward is free trade. We will be able to upgrade our manufacturing with technology from Canada, Europe, the U.S., Chile, and Pacific Rim partners. We'll be able to export both raw materials and finished goods into these markets with low barriers. We'll also have a vast variety of low-cost consumer goods from these countries, including items we simply can't produce in Canada. Our manufacturing will have to be super productive and value-added to compete with low-cost jurisdictions and other highly skilled workforces. The challenge continues to be competing on wages and labour conditions, which is why having international labour laws, even an international minimum wage (based on purchasing power parity) is necessary. I think we'd all agree, Americans included, that when wages are similar, we can compete quite well. Higher wages also create new export markets.
We can compete even when wages are dissimilar. Even in the present NAFTA, many manufacturers moved to Mexico only to regret it later since while the workers were willing to accept lower wages, they didn't always have the skills the company needed, forcing the company to then spend much money on training. Some businesses even remained in the US or Canada to avoid this problem.
The same applies in world trade. i absolutely agree that in a state of unilateral free trade, Canada would absolutely need to invest heavily in universal compulsory public education and trades and professional education for its unemployed. Also, it would need to take a more no-frills-no-gimmicks approach to policy. No more official bilingualism from coast to coast to coast. We might allow unilingual English packaging and labeling in BC and French in Quebec to reduce the cost of translation for example. We might scrap Canadian-content laws. While education would still need a civic-education component, it would need to become more streamlined. Unless second-language education can achieve more than a 10% success rate as is presently the case in New Brunswick schools, we may need to make it an optional subject (or let students choose easier languages like Esperanto, Indonesian, Swahili, etc. to increase success rates). We may need to focus on more practical education. For example, environmental policy might involve teaching vegan cookery in school so that students know how to cook healthier dishes to reduce health care costs and improve the environment through dietary influence. We may need to focus more on ensuring that every child graduates with a trade or profession. In short, education would need to become highly public-policy-driven.
Since the state could not afford to help the poor as much, it would become important to help the poor help themselves. This could mean allowing for more high-density mixed development with more walking and cycling paths. This is not to say that the rich have no obligation towards the poor, but merely saying that we cannot help the poor through monetary solutions alone. They need to be combined with strategies that would allow the poor to live at lower cost without the need for subsidies. Again, I'm not saying scrap social assistance, but I am saying a much more no-frills-no-gimmicks-hands-up type of assistance.
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6 minutes ago, Wilber said:
Doesn't matter if the cost to the intended market's consumer is protected by tariffs.
As I mentioned above, we can't assume that the US would necessarily be the intended market. For example, a business that wants to avoid tariffs on its exports would rather move to the US and just focus on selling to the US market. A business that wants to focus on keeping its production costs down would rather set up shop in Canada and focus on the Canadian market. The US business might have to sell at a higher price to cover its higher overhead costs but would be protected by tariffs against Canadian competition. The Canadian business could undersell the US product in Canada. So each would just focus on its own market.
Where I could see a problem has to do with economies of scale and high transportation costs. Businesses that are particularly affected by that would naturally prefer to move to the US and just accept the higher costs of production. Businesses that are less affected by these factors and would benefit more from lower costs of production would rather just move to Canada and focus on the Canadian and other 'free-market countries.'
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5 minutes ago, Wilber said:
Unilateral free trade isn't an advantage, It's just going into a knife fight with your bare fists.
It lowers the cost of production. How's that not an advantage?
China or Trump? And weak Canadian identity.
in Canada / United States Relations
Posted
If you believe that the only thing keeping a Canadian in Canada is a hate for the US, then you've never been to Canada. Many stay because of family and friends , others for work opportunities, etc.