Icebound

High birth rates have very little to do with culture. High birth rates have to do with poverty. As cultures climb out of poverty, the birth rate declines. Canada used to have a much higher birthrate when it was poor, too. http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/11-630-x/11-630-x2014002-eng.htm But People, in general, are an asset. They work, they produce, they contribute. Unfortunately, Canada's declining birth rate opened the door... in fact, REQUIRED... the importation of such assets from the rest of the world. Canada is a long, long from the point in the X-curve where the additional benefits of people are outrun by their costs. Of course, it does not help that the production of all these people is being sucked off by the 1% instead of being re-invested into the country, but that is another thread. ... . .

This whole thread just screams "we need a huge expansion of financial Transaction Taxation", and cut out the "byzantine labyrinth", as you put it. Withdraw a dollar, bank withholds a teeny percentage for the taxman. Deposit a dollar, same thing. Cash a cheque, same thing. Direct deposit, same thing. Buy a beer, retailer adds an extra percentage for the tax man buy a car, same thing. buy a stock, same thing, sell a stock, same thing.... Individual? Corporation? Wholesaler? doesn't matter. same thing. etc. etc. Fraud opportunities diminish greatly.

I heard about this statement of Lukiwski's but had not seen the video until today. I would have been very happy to pile on yet another bigoted conservative, but it is a very big stretch that he would be saying "whore".in that context, and in that tone of voice. "Horde" has my vote.

Would that include Israel?

It is too late now, but for next year: Your poppy will never come off again..... Take an "rubber band", hopefully one that is about 1/4 inch wide... like might be used to roll up your newspaper when it is delivered. Cut a short piece, like 1/4 inch long. Stick your pin through the shirt/coat then through the elastic, before bringing it back out again. You can stick the pin through the elastic AFTER bringing it outside the coat, but you would like to have it high enough so that the poppy hides it and it doesn't show.

These forums have a lot of "this is my money and why should I give it up in taxes". But is it really ALL "my money"? When my employer gives me that big fat cheque every month, has he paid all his bills? Has he cleaned up all the pollution that our product causes? Has he paid for the roads that take it to market? Did he pay for the lawyers that negotiated the free trade agreement that allows him to sell it to Timbuktoo? Probably not, and what he saved by not paying for that, he was able to stuff into my pay cheque. So maybe it stands to reason that a little bit of that money in my envelope has to be redirected to do those infrastructure things, and is not really "my own".

A couple of things.... One is that your point quite clearly shows why it is kind of ridiculous to tax based on income. I know people in the GTA suburbs who live quite comfortably on 60K for a couple, have 2 cars and a 4-bedroom detached house. And they even take the occasional trip. But they already OWN the house, probably have a pretty good portfolio built up over the last 30 years, their other expenses are minimal, their income is guaranteed, AND, of course, their tax bill is small. Taxing wealth makes way more sense than taxing income, for a whole bunch of reasons, but nobody has the political will to do it. Or scrap income taxes and increase the HST. Even that makes more sense. Even better is the Financial Transaction Tax.... which would get a lot of the HST that is now lost to the "cash transaction" market. ...maybe we would ALL pay less tax. The second point is that we keep thinking about taxes in terms of "from my pocket to somebody else's pocket".... when in fact it is from everybody's pocket..... to pay for the Canadian Infrastructure that we need / want. It is just a matter of how to divvy the bill fairly. And thats what makes the FTT so attractive.... I don't care what you make or how much money you have.... but if you move it in and out banks, stocks, properties, etc., I will take out a teeny teeny percentage every time and will make enough to run the country, and you will barely even feel it.

The expense of re-examination every 2 years would be enormous. That's partly why Canadian passports now have gone from 5-year terms to 10-year terms. You can achieve the same result with a process that is quite a bit simpler (but will be equally unpopular) . That is: simply enact that Canada's public places will only operate in your 3 suggested languages.... and if you need interpretation beyond that, you will have to bring your own. Visit freely if you wish, but if you get into trouble, too bad... its English, French, Esperanto... We will try you, convict you, jail you or deport you, without you having any say if you don't have the language. This is not going to fly, of course.... but your proposal has exactly the same effect at a much greater cost, and it is not going to fly either. But seriously, I think that you are solving a problem that might exist, but not to any HUGE extent... and you would probably create some unintended consequences. For one example, the translation industry is poised to reach $40billion globally in the next few years. With a multilingual populace, Canada is well placed to get a big chunk of that business. Would a funnelling toward 3-languages-only reduce our capability? Would it reduce the world-wide demand? ...

Well, even if I DID feel they were Tory partisans, there was nothing about "punishment", gulags, or firing squads, was there? Those were strictly YOUR inventions.The very top bureaucrats in departments often are partisan because they might not be able to carry out Minesterial direction if they weren't. And it is perfectly reasonable that they will move on, whether voluntarily or involuntarily. You cannot carry out "reasonable political discourse" if you attribute words and thoughts to your adversary. And especially words and thoughts which he/she never expressed, and never even considered. You might note that my reply to the "excising" was that most public servants follow direction and a change in direction won't matter. The few at the top, however, in my opinion will consider moving on. Sure, I could have been more explicit... but I doubt that anybody would consider your vitriolic interpretation as "reasonable political discourse". ...

The key paragraph from that article: The only party faction that was really served was the yahoo faction, the “toxic Tories” as a friend calls them, to whom this government truckled and whose loyalty was rewarded in turn. MPs who were willing to say the opposite of what they believed, or believe the opposite of the facts, were promoted; those who were not found themselves out of cabinet, or indeed out of the party.

You know.... you put yourself forward as looking for "reasonable political discourse".... in fact, you have started a thread on the topic. Yet.... in response to this simple line in one of my posts: .... you immediately put forth the suggestion that I have found somebody "collectively guilty"... that I want to "call up a firing squad"....Did I have "gulags" in mind..... "re-education camps". Since it boggled my mind how you got there from a simple statement about top Departmental officials leaving, I suggested an imagination because that would be the only logical explanation... If the quoted statement is ambiguous to you....then did you consider that it might have meant actual "retirement".... or it might have meant that top officials who has been used to operating within a "conservative" framework, may not be comfortable operating with a "liberal" framework.... it may have meant that officials comfortable with dealing with "conservative" ministers may have personality conflicts with "liberal" ministers. ... Top officials OFTEN move on with a change of government exactly for the reasons above.... sometimes they are replaced... sometimes they move on on their own .... sometimes both parties wait a year or so to see if they can handle it.... And THAT is precisely what my intent was when the statement was typed. For you to choose such a vitriolic interpretation is NOT "reasonable political discourse" and makes me doubt your sincerity in that other thread. ...

They wanted it "fixed" when they were not in the majority. But the priority seemed to go away once they were.

Yeah, it would pretty funny having a foreign minister who would be refused entry to Russia.... Would her personal interests in that part of the world interfere with her objectivity? Ukraine is a complicated mess.... perhaps even as bad as Iraq was. We should be really, really careful about getting involved in their domestic political squabbles. I am thinking that Trudeau should keep her as far away from that file as possible.... I am sure that the eventual Foreign Minister will be hearing enough from her in Cabinet meetings, anyway.

Wonderful imagination. How does the reply above relate to the original post? .

No. The complexity of the problem increases as density increases. So there is no way to tell for sure, whether per-capita costs go up or down. Furthermore, increased density has historically led to increased density of non-productive citizens as well, and you have to deal with that somehow, which usually means increased costs for the rest of us.

W-e-e-l-l-l,,,,, I don't look at "Redistributing wealth" as the real goal of any government. I have a long and complex reply running around in my head, but its not making it to the keyboard right now. I will say THIS, however. 1. We have painted ourselves into a corner with the sort of economy that we operate under. If we did not have the big houses, the fancy backsplashes, the huge cars.... our economy would be crap 2. As the population increases, becomes more dense, more mobile, the need for greater and more reliable infrastructure increases.... whether material. such as roads and railways, or regulatory, such as food and drug safety. The COST ... the INCREASED cost ... for all this is going to go up and somebody is going to have to pay for it. So whether your "taxes" go up ... or your private enterprise "user fees" go up, the difference is going to be the same .... Y o u w i l l p a y m o r e So the only remaining question is.... will "you" (and every other individual) be paying a fair share?

Icebound Full Member Posted Yesterday, 11:56 PM ReeferMadness, on 19 Oct 2015 - 5:38 PM, said: There are reports in aboriginal ridings that Elections Canada showed up with, like, 400 ballots... where several thousand eligible voters showed up. Edited by Charles Anthony, Today, 10:35 AM. [---SNIP---] Quote MultiQuote Edit Report NOW... this is interesting.... A moderator would edit MY post, but only by changing the quotation to which I replied. Am I missing some rule that specifies which parts of a post I am not allowed to keep, when replying to it in a "quote"? Not like it was a very LONG quote. The entire post to which I originally replied, is here: http://www.mapleleafweb.com/forums/topic/18384-federal-election-polls/page-375#entry1106874 ...

I wouldn't worry too much about the minions below the "Assistant Deputy Minister" level. They were eager to prove themselves as good auditors, they have to keep there performance evaluation up. But direction means everything.. and if the direction changes to "audit broadly and fairly", they will do THAT job eagerly as well. But the top 3 or 4 or half-dozen in each department.... yeah, time to retire. ....

There is the problem, isn't it? You say "cut welfare", but if "welfare" was already sufficient NOW, then there would be no need for charities. Why would we need food banks? There is a big disconnect between the "welfare state, nanny state" thinking, and what is actually going on in the streets and kitchens of poor people. The wealth of the world is trickling UPward, not down, and unless that is reversed, whether through some form of intervention, or some form of restructuring the Free Enterprise economic system, or whatever..... there will be a need for all the charity we can muster. Unless, of course, you want to live in a gated-armed-fortress, surrounded by a riotous hell-hole. ...

I picked what I picked because the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives WAS audited, but apparently the Fraser institute was not. Muslim organizations WERE audited, but Catholic and Jewish were not. If it will make you happy, I will throw in the Universities, the Salvation Army and United Way, the LGBT organizations, CARE, UNICEF, and anything else you can think of. I will throw in everything from the Accessible Community Counseling and Employment Services, of Toronto... to the Zuru Ling Society of Vancouver. And the 1,226,858 charities in between. And I am still awaiting that apology. From my posts, you may have some idea of what I agree and disagree with, .... ... but you have no idea of what I do or do not "hate", it is presumptuous of you to imply that you do, and it is libelous of you to make an inaccurate assertion of that type in a public forum....

I want the CRA to investigate everybody fairly. AND.... I want you to apologize for suggesting that there are "groups I hate". I said no such thing.

That's the whole point. Why "focus" on ANY group? Investigate fraud where it occurs, regardless of affiliation or ideology or whatever. And scrapping the deduction will not get much of an argument from me. There would be issues of what work the Government might have to take over, which the charities are doing now.... but in some ways the Government may actually be able to do it more efficiently by funding charities directly. It would eliminate the huge fundraising costs that many charities are incurring. ...

Why would that be? Is it possible that after seeing their own ideology in operation for 4 or 10 years, they find out that even THEY cannot stand it anymore.... and thus nobody wants the job of perpetuating it? ...

It IS good for the CRA to investigate fraud. But if we are going to investigate fraud by charities.... then let us investigate the Christian Churches, including the Catholic Church.... let us investigate the JEWISH charitable organizations. Let's audit the Fraser Institute, to see if they have carried out any political activities. Etc. etc. Let's investigate fraud broadly and fairly, not target specific organizations that have been specifically critical of the Administration. ...

There are reports in aboriginal ridings that Elections Canada showed up with, like, 400 ballots... where several thousand eligible voters showed up.