Machjo

Of course such a proposal would reduce resource extraction, but the lower dollar would increase the eexport of manufactured goods. Resources are finite.

Raising taxes on the net profits of resource-extraction businesses would give government the wiggle room it needs to then lower taxes on other businesses.Would that not be an indirect subsidy from the resource-extraction businesses to the value-added businesses by having the former carry the tax burden for the latter? If a business still can't compete after deep tax cuts, what else does it want? What else does it deserve? Yes we want value-added, but let the market decide what value-added businesses we want, not government. We can also subsidize value-added busineses indirectly by increasing funding for universal compulsory public education. This combination of lower business taxes for non-resource-extraction businesses and more generous funding for public education would reduce their tax and staff-training overhead costs. Again, if a business still can't compete after that, then tough. The average mom and pop shop should not be subsidizing the aeronautical engineer's salary given how even without government subsidies, he can probably earn far more than than the mom and pop shop ever could.

If we must subsidize it, then is it worthwile? Why not focus our attention on self-supporting industries instead?

Again, I'm looking at it from an ethical point of view. Let's say all have States adopted a law preventing the export if raw resources. This would unfairly devastate have not states. Even just imposing a tax on these resources that Canada collects to invest in its own citizens gives Canada an unfair advantage. By giving citizens if gave not states visa-free access to study, work, and business in Canada would ensure that those harmed by these taxes could freely partake if the benefits of these taxes in Canada. I guess another theoretical solution would be that the UN collects resource taxes for the benefit of all and that individual states would not be allowed to impose their own taxes on the same resources.

Actually, Hong Kong does some manufacturing too, but its main staple is the service sector, especially in banking and travel, tourism, and transportation both commercial and industrial.

You do have a point there. I'm just brainstorming an ethical question. Since some states have resources and others don't, how do we ensure the have states don't exploit the have-not states by imposing a tax on their resource exports to them? I think visa-free access to Canada's economic resources is the easiest solution. That way, the Hong-Kongese would be paying for this right through the taxes they'd pay on the resources they buy from us. Another would be to transfer part of the tax to Hong Kong. Yet another would be to sell tax free to Hong Kong on the condition that it impose an equivalent tariff on our fuel exports to them. I still think visa free access is the simplest solution though.

I agree. For this reason, I think government should charge the highest royalty the market can bear and a tax of at least one third of a resource-extraction business' net profits. Of course this could impose an injustice by forcing Hong-Kongese to pay taxes to Canada for services they'll never enjoy, but Canada could compensate in one if a few ways: 1. Allow Hong-Kongese to study, work, and do business in Canada visa-free. 2. Earmark resource taxes to UNICEF without expecting Hong Kong to contribute in kind. 3. Exempt a resource-extraction company that extracts strictly for export from the tax. My preferred option would be the first as the simplest, but other solutions can exist too of course.

I agree; but where would you rank it on the list of least deserving?

Given our growing public debt, it's clearly not sustainable at present. I'm not saying the rich have no moral obligation towards the poor. I am saying that we need to more clearly define the rights of the poor. At present, we define those rights so broadly as to include what properly ought to constitute luxuries and not rights. Living a great distance from the city while working in the city is a privilege in my estimation. Also, coming back to Ottawa as an example, we could argue that suburbanites infringe on the right of city-dwellers to live close to nature. Because of suburbs, nature lies far from the city centre. This raises the cost of food in the city due to greater transportation costs from farther afield too. As an example, if Ottawa had the same population density as Hong Kong, you'd be able to walk across it in two hours tops and walk by a couple of farms on its outer perimeter to boot. On bicycle in the same two hour period, you could go from one campsite on one end of the city to a campsite on the other and cross plenty of farmland and a truly urban city on the way there. Due to the supposed rights of suburbanites to have their suburban lifestyle subsidized, you have to get into your car and drive two hours on a highway to get to the nearest provincial park. With a carbon tax, that will get expensive. With heavy public transit subsidies, suburbs will expand even farther out from the city centre and when people petition the government to keep the green belt, others will cry human rights because they perceive suburban living as a fundamental human right. Human rights will win out in the end since everyone has a right to a suburban home. Freedom! they'll cry. But of course they'll expect city dwellers and farmers to subsidize that freedom through taxes and ever expanding suburbs and ever retreating farm land on the city's outer edges. Meanwhile suburbanites petition against urban intensification because of the pollution it brings while ignoring that their daily commutes are the very source of that pollution.

What? Why should we promote urban development that depends on subsidies? That's insane! We should promote efficiency instead. The idea that the taxpayer should spend so much money because some people don't want to "feel hemmed in" is truly a first-world problem. If you feel hemmed in, then don't move to the city, but accept that your choice imposes a cost that society should not bear. To not "feel hemmed in" is not some fundamental human right. It's a privilege. No wonder our country is nearing bankruptcy as it subsidizes our right to not "feel hemmed in." Geographically, Ottawa is more than twice the size of Hong Kong. as for air quality, I can guarantee that the average Ottawan pollutes far more than the average Hong Konger. So even on air quality, we can learn from Hong Kong. Sure it might have more pollution, but it also has a much larger population and gets much of its pollution from the mainland. But if we look at it on a per capita basis, Hong Kong is far cleaner than Ottawa by a long run. And why do we want to encourage more northern development? Are we going to grow orchards there?

Actually, Hong Kong has quite open borders when it comes to immigration, bearing in mind that its social services are much more spartan which naturally affects the kind of immigrant that Hong Kong attracts. As for lowering tariffs, Hong Kong did so unilaterally. That's not to say that Hong Kong does not engage in trade agreements to deal with more complex matters like phytosanitary rules, patent rules, packaging and labeling and language rules, etc., but at least on tariffs and quotas, it's been unilateral and highly successful. As for agriculture, Hong Kong just imports. In that respect, there are some similarities. In Hong Kong's case, it's not the best place for agriculture due to population density. In Canada's, due to climate. In that sense, it would actually make more economic sense for Canada to copy Hong Kong's example of importing most of our food and producing other things that we could produce more efficiently instead. As for cheap goods, only a fool would complain about that. Not only do Hong Kongers earn more than Canadians on average, but things cost less there too. That means that in terms of purchasing power, they're actually even wealthier than their income would suggest compared to Canadians. So yes, Canada could learn from Hong Kong on all of these points. Hong Kong has no natural resources either. And on the cultural front, Canada actually has an edge over Hong Kong. Hong Kong speaks Chinese (though Cantonese, granted) which makes far more vulnerable to the mainland's cultural influence. In Canada, most Quebecers don't know English and many in Northern Canada don't know English well either. Add to that that many in Canada's cities also know an unofficial language. This makes Canada quite resistant to US cultural influence. Even I myself know four languages, three of which are not English and two of which are not even official languages of Canada. I do read books, watch films, and listen to music in all four languages. Canadians are quite resistant to excessive US cultural influence without state Canadian-content rules.

Wouldn't a high carbon tax automatically make driving to work less attractive which in turn would automatically result in more people switching to public transit whether it's subsidized or not? We have a massive debt to pay off right now. We can't afford subsidies anymore. Also, if we deregulate and allow private businesses to get into the public-transit business, we'd probably end up with much better public transit too. Hong Kong's non-subsidized mostly private public-transit venture suppresses Canada's mostly city-owned and highly-subsidized systems. Clearly Hong Kong has done something right on this that Canadian cities could learn from.

Not even in its trade policies? Those have nothing to do with urban development but rather with international trade.

I agree. It came about through the opium wars for which even British journalists at the time admitted the UK was morally at fault in spite of its military victory against the Qing Dynasty. I'm in no way excusing Britain's behaviour in creating Hong Kong. Then again, had the Opium Wars not happened, the Qing Dynasty probably would have never fallen and instead evolved into a constitutional monarchy. But that's speculation of course. That said, for all of Britain's wrongs, it did make up at least in small part for its shameful behaviiour by administering Hong Kong superbly well even if that same behaviour may have fed the rise of the Communist Party and so the ruination of the mainland.

I hope those taxes go first to public debt, second to walking and cycling paths, and then to tax reductions in GST and income taxes. Again, what's the point of a carbon tax if the government will then turn around with the other hand to subsidize carbon?! Lower taxes and let the people decide whether to pay for transit at full fare, telecommute, find work closer to home, or move closer to work. The public should not subsidize public transit as it defeats the purpose of a carbon tax. If we're going to subsidize transit, then we might as well scrap the carbon tax and just stick to GST and income tax. No point the left hand undermining the right. That just makes for pointless bureaucracy. It also penalizes those who choose to live close to work who then have to subsidize the public transit of those who choose to live in the burbs. You want to live in the burbs, then pay for it yourself. As for highways, I actually could agree to toll booths on highways but not on roads since people still need to get around somehow. Besides, with a high carbon tax, they'd be paying for their road use anyway.

Of course Canada has it all including tariffs, quotas, supply-management, Canadian-content rules, official-bilingualism bureaucracy, CRTC rules, etc. etc. etc.How's your weekend, Comrade?

I have no qualms about a person choosing to live in the suburbs. All I'm saying is that we should not be subsidizing suburban development. If we cut all public funding to public transit and public transit charged according to distance, and we replaced the GST/HST/QST and most income taxes with at least a 1/3 carbon tax (Hong Kong has a 100% carbon tax so I'm actually being generous here), then we'd ensure that suburban living truly was user-pay. It's not a right, it's a luxury. If you have the money to live in the burbs, by all means, but the taxpayer should not be encouraging it by subsidizing public transit.

Given how Hong Kong and Singapore have already unilaterally adopted free trade with Canada, Canada should do the honourable thing of reciprocating. As for the UK, let's do so for five years and see if the UK reciprocates. Unilateral free trade does have its limits in that it can extend only to intentional trade barriers like tariffs and quotas and does not touch unintentional ones such as packaging and labeling rules, phytosanitary rules, etc. However, it would be a quick start and would not prevent Canada from negotiating deeper trade agreements with them beyond tariffs and quotas later on. Even without deeper agreements, however superficial unilateral free trade may be in limiting itself to only tariffs and quotas, even that alone would already be a positive step.

So what? Sometimes a smaller country is better. Hong Kong, with its limited resources and small size, was forced into a more open world market and to its benefit. Compare that to large states and organizations like the EU, the US, Canada, etc. They're the ones with high statism because they become arrogant. Had BC never joined Canada, due to its small population and size, it might have come out looking like Hong Kong today with its free markets because the state of BC would just not have been big enough to maintain any protectionist policy. Sometimes small is better and a large country like Canada might make the government and the people more arrogant and so lead to lower-quality governance.

You forgot to mention Hong Kong. It's about as free-market as they come.

I hope your oranges are Canadian cultivated too.

You make a valid point about Canada's small population and low population densities which impose a need for Canada to open its borders to international trade so as to benefit from economies of scale. If a factory is to invest massive sums of money on machinery, etc., it wants to be sure that it will then be able to fully utilize that machinery at full capacity to serve world markets rather than at partial capacity to serve a small Canadian market and so force the factory to then invest in additional machinery to diversity its production line so as to become a jack of all trades and master of none at high cost and low efficiency. And if, as you propose, the state should invest in this machinery through nationalization, then all the more reason to open our borders to exploit economies of scale given how even the poor pay taxes too and would like to know that the state is not adopting policies aimed at making its own investments high-cost and inefficient at taxpayer expense. I have also mulled the idea of an urban zone. For example, imagine if Canada limited any new urban development to within one kilometre of a river bank but allowed high-density mixed development in that zone and maybe even limited the right to a grave or tomb to a renewable rental period of 15-years after which the bones would be transferred to an ossuary so as to allow the grave or tomb to be recycled and so further improve urban efficiency. Many states around the world, including the UK more recently due to its having run out of urban space in some areas, have times limits on grave and tomb rentals. Due to the zone being high-density mixed development, it would allow for efficient development of walking and cycling paths. To further encourage people to live close to where they work, we should cut all subsidies to public transit as Hong Kong has done. In fact, compare Hong Kong's Octopus pass to Ontario's Presto pass. In Hong Kong, when you take the metro, you scan your card on entry and on exit and the fare will apply according to the distance you traveled. If you do not scan the card on exit, the system will assume you traveled to the end of the line and charge you accordingly. Furthermore, while the contract between the Hong Kong government and the Hong Kong metro system provides tax-free use of the space, the government provides no direct funding whatsoever beyond allowing free use of the metro space. All of the Hong Kong metro's funding comes from the Octopus pass and paid fares, making it not only user-pay but also a motivation for people to reside closer to work. Even Hong Kong's bus services are all privately and contracted through the government to link to the urban Octopus system. In other words, other than losing money by making transit tax free, the government does not directly spend any money on public transit and instead lets the free market take care of that. You;ll notice that Hong Kong buses are of different colours and bear different company logos. That's because different companies have entered the business. You'll also notice that they exploit much of the bus' space for billboards as an additional source of revenue. I've visited Hong Kong a few times and in spite of the state investing so little into it, Hong Kong's transit system is far less expensive than Canada's and, to be honest, far better overall. Some of its buses even function like taxis in that they start at one point and do not stop until they reach their destination. They fill with passengers all going to the same destination. Highly efficient. To excessively subsidize public transit simply encourages the same problems as the never-ending expansion of highway systems by encouraging people to reside farther from work at taxpayer expense. Hong Kong understood that. Canada's Green Party still fails to understand that even a bus uses energy so to subsidize it defeats the purpose of the government's intended goals. It would make far more sense from both an economic and ecological standpoint for the state to not subsidize public transit at all, make it fully user-pay, and maybe even based on distance traveled as in Hong Kong, and build more walking and cycling paths so as to encourage people to reside closer to where they work. If you want to live in the burbs and work in the city, then pay for that luxury yourself because that is a luxury.

You may have a point there. I'll be boycotting all US animal products and byproducts. Will you do your part?

Transit should not be subsidized. In fact, let private businesses set up transit. That said, I would not want to have to stop at each intersection to pay a toll fee. Not efficient that way. build the infrastructure but let the market adapt to that infrastructure.

Who am I to decide what industries are valid for what? Free markets or subsidies? I don't mind a meat market if it's supported by the free market. I thought we were talking here about subsidies, not the free market.