Werecar

Don't be so sure of that: http://www.chsrf.ca/mythbusters/html/myth29_e.php MYTH Canadian doctors are leaving for the United States in droves Myth Busted June 2001 Busted Again! September 2005 Yet Again! March 2008 Higher incomes, newer equipment and more opportunities - for some Canadian physicians, the United States seems to have it all. i Some critics have long alleged that because of the “exploitative nature of medicare,” Canadian doctors cannot resist heading south. ii More recently, some argue that this brain drain is a “major contributor to physician shortages in Canada,” iii prompting physician associations and ministries of health to launch campaigns to lure expatriate, Canadian-trained physicians back home. iv Fears of physician losses are further fuelled by reports that the U.S. - renowned for luring more physicians than any other country v - could be short 85,000 doctors by 2020. vi There’s no doubt that Canada - like other wealthy nations - is losing some of its physicians, particularly to the U.S., vii and that this emigration represents a loss for Canadians. However, when it comes to the brain drain, it’s nowhere near a mass exodus. At worst, it’s more a trickle than a flood. Entry and exit Physicians enter and leave the country for a number of reasons. For instance, some Canadian doctors go overseas for medical training, then return home to practise. Foreign medical school graduates may arrive with temporary work visas or as landed immigrants, practise in Canada for awhile, leave, and even decide to return eventually. viii The Canadian Institute for Health Information charts migration patterns for practising physicians. The data exclude interns, residents and doctors who leave Canada right after graduation without ever working here, but they still provide important information on trends. According to the Institute’s data, the gross number of doctors leaving the country hit two peaks in the last 35 years: one in the late 1970s, when we lost between 500 to 600 doctors a year, and another in the mid-1990s, when we lost around 600 to 700 a year. When assessing the brain drain, it’s important to consider not only the number of doctors who are leaving, but also the number returning to Canada. This number has been holding fairly steady since 1980, with around 250 to 350 returning per year. Thus, our net loss of physicians is fairly small - since 1980, our annual net loss has never been more than one percent (and averages closer to one quarter of a percent) of all practising physicians. ix, x In recent years, not only has the brain drain trend slowed, it has actually reversed. In 2004, there was a net brain gain of 85 doctors. Although this gain has decreased as of late - a net gain of 61 doctors in 2005 and 31 in 2006 ix, x - the data still counter popular perceptions that Canadian doctors are leaving in droves. The data also disprove claims that the brain drain is responsible for Canada’s doctor shortage. In 2006, there were 62,307 active physicians in Canada - the highest number ever, largely attributable to a more than five percent increase in Canadian-trained physicians over the last five years. ix The 2006 data also show a five percent increase in physicians between 2002 and 2006, which is just over parity with population growth over the same time. ix An important issue in all of this is where our doctors are coming from. In 2006, of the 238 returning physicians, about 190 had received training in Canada, while the rest were trained mostly in the UK and Ireland, but also South Africa, India and elsewhere. ix In the same year, international medical graduates accounted for 22 percent (13,715 doctors) of the total physician supply in Canada. ix If this means Canada is “poaching” doctors from countries that have a much more limited ability to train physicians and handle internal crises in population health, then this is a serious public policy problem. xi Destination U.S. Of the doctors who are leaving Canada, more than half choose to go to the U.S. ix The Canadian Institute for Health Information has been tracking doctors’ destinations only since 1992. Since then, between 60 and 70 percent of physicians who emigrate have headed south of the border. In the mid-1990s, the number leaving for the U.S. spiked at about 400 to 500 a year. However, in recent years, this number has declined, with only 169 physicians leaving for the States in 2003; 138 in 2004; and 122 in each of 2005 and 2006. These numbers represent less than half a percent of all doctors working in Canada. Popular culture’s obsession with the "mass exodus" of Canadian-trained physicians to the U.S. has meant little attention is given to the movement of physicians from one Canadian jurisdiction to another. In particular, physicians appear to be moving “from less prosperous to more prosperous provinces and from rural to urban areas,” xii which likely exacerbates real shortages in rural, remote and economically disadvantaged areas. Conclusion Over time, annual losses of physicians can add up - if we lose even a handful of physicians each year, in 25 years we will have lost a stock of Canadian-trained doctors. This point merits our attention, for educating our physicians is a costly, time-intensive investment - it costs about $1.5 million to train a doctor, much of which is paid for through taxes. xiii There is also the real concern of physician retention in rural and remote areas. vii To address these problems and ensure Canadian taxpayers are able to benefit from their investment, provincial and federal policy makers should focus on co-ordinated national recruitment and retention strategies to retain and sustain our physician supply in all regions of the country.

Yet you quoted me. As for the coalition not having a plan well thats just nonsense. Harper obviously didn't and if the stimulus spending was at the demand of the coalition as you say then obviously they did have a plan. You cons are so confused right now you don't know where to go or what to stay. The truth is that Harper betrayed every shred of fiscal conservatism and did everything you spent 13 years decrying the Liberals were doing (when in fact they were doing the opposite). You just can't admit it. The evidence is right there concerning Harpers failings. Hell the web site I posted was as ruthless on the Liberals for their short comings as they are on Harper (and these posts were long before the 54 billion madness) so you can't claim liberal bias. So far we have Harperites crowing about how much his government did and was able to push through because Dion let him until election time (when he broke his own election law) then it was "dysfunctional parliament prevented him from doing anything" During the election the only party to not release an actual platform was the CPC and you claim he was the only guy with a plan. The recession/deficit took everybody by surprise, everybody but the economists who predicted it including unbiased Harper PBO appointee Kevin Page: http://www.vancouversun.com/business/INTER...0619/story.html In fact he shows exactly why we are in the red: Cutting Spending Only three federal finance ministers since 1983 were able to chop spending. They are: Ralph Goodale, Liberal, 2005-06: $1.15 billion less than prior year Paul Martin, Liberal, 1996-97: $9.52 billion less than prior year Paul Martin, Liberal, 1995-96: $2.4 billion less than prior year Michael Wilson, Progressive Conservative, 1985-86: $805 million less than prior year Harper government spending record 2006-07: +$13 billion (+6.9 per cent) 2007-08: +$11.2 billion (+5.6 per cent) *2008-09: +6.8 billion (+3.3 per cent) *2009-10: +34.9 billion (+14.5 per cent) Note the last 2 have since been revised upward by a lot. Now you claim that the coalition had no spending plan whatsoever at the same time you hold them responsible for Harpers spending plan. I'm sure that if the situation were reversed you'd be OK with a minority Liberal government blaming everyone else for their budget woes.

The old forum ploy of accusing a new member of being an old member. As for abusing the funds you keep thinking that somehow Harper didn't use it to a greater degree. I'm guessing this dobbin guy bested you often as well. As for the Liberals and NDP ready and willing to spend 30 billion without a plan, well thats just con lies again. Both those parties released fully costed platforms for the last election while Harper released nothing instead attacking the other platforms as deficit magnets. The truth was only Harper was the one headed into the red and the current one year record 54 billion deficit proves that, quite a bit of that going to the ceo autochief chums of the conservatives. Myself I trust the party with a proven economic track record of surplus after surplus and sensible government.

They also wanted tax measures to avoid the red ink. Again you are left with the fact that Harper is the man in charge of the spending and the buck stops with him.

It said the surplus had ballooned by 7 billion and now stood at 51 billion and it clearly stated Harper was in control of a larger surplus and using it in a manner they decried in the Liberals. Despite accusing Liberals of using the fund as a “partisan piggy bank,” the Conservatives are now controlling a much bigger EI surplus as they embark on an unprecedented multi-billion-dollar spending spree in preparation for an election. You were decrying the use of the EI surplus at all when you thought it was just the Liberals (most cons do) but now that its been laid bare that Harper did the same thing you try and mitigate it by comparing amounts (and failing). Where is your condemnation of Harper? Even if he did use less then the Libs he did use it despite his opposition to it. Now address the fact that Harper showed himself to have no budgetary restraint at all in his government. I'd like a conservative to stand up and recognize that Harper was laying down the groundwork to deficits long before the recession. All the recession did was deepen his damage.

read it again: the Conservatives are now controlling a much bigger EI surplus as they embark on an unprecedented multi-billion-dollar spending spree in preparation for an election. Oh and the charges were levied against them and the courts said using the EI for general revenue was legal (its tax deductible after all) and that the Libs only broke the law by changing EI premiums without informing parliament although it should be noted they lowered it in each case and the law was there to prevent increases without proper approval. Still, the use of the EI surplus makes harper a giant hypocrite in light of his crying over the Libs use of it.

Oh, and Harpers has been the captain of his own ship: http://www.taxes.ca/blog/archives/tax_spending/index.php FEDERAL SPENDING BALLOONING TO UNSUSTAINABLE LEVELS Conservative government to taxpayers: We’ve given up trying to control spending OTTAWA: The Canadian Taxpayers Federation (CTF) reacted today to the announcement that the federal government’s spending is ballooning to unsustainable levels. The finance department reported today in their June Fiscal Monitor that Ottawa’s expenditures grew by 11.1 per cent in June, and program spending swelled by an astounding 8.4 per cent in the first three months of the fiscal year. This increase is two-and-a-half times the 2008 budget’s spending estimate, which called for a 3.4 per cent boost to spending. “Many Canadians were encouraged by the Conservative's apparent new restraint shown in their third budget that limited spending growth to 3.4 per cent this fiscal year. Well, so much for that. In the first three months, spending is instead up two-and-a-half times what these so-called fiscally responsible Conservatives in Ottawa budgeted it to be," said CTF federal director John Williamson. “The Conservatives continue to claim they will still hit 3.4 per cent in spending growth for the year, but they’ve proven throughout their term in office that they can’t stop themselves from spending.” The Conservative government’s first budget called for Ottawa’s expenditures to grow by 5.4 per cent in fiscal 2006/07. At the end of that year government receipts had jumped by 7.5 per cent. The 2007 budget plan announced an additional 5.6 per cent spending hike. The real amount in 2007/08 was a 6.9 per cent increase. Canadians were initially assured a Conservative government would be more disciplined. On November 23, 2006, Finance Minister Jim Flaherty scolded the previous Liberal government for spending tax dollars recklessly, telling Canadians, “The government is committed to keeping the growth of program expenses below the growth of the economy over the medium term.” In Parliament he repeated, “...our new economic plan proposes to keep the growth rate of program spending on average below the rate of growth in the economy.” And why is this important? The minister provided the answer when he said, “To the extent spending growth is kept below the growth in the economy, this will contribute to further reductions in public debt and in taxes given the commitment to dedicate interest savings to tax reductions.” Williamson concluded, “The message is clear. Tax and debt reductions are conditional on spending restraint. The Conservatives have gone on a spending binge that hamstrings their ability to lower personal income taxes and reduce debt.” And: JIM PRENTICE, CANADA’S PRESUMPTIVE FINANCE MINISTER? It is no secret in Ottawa that Industry Minister Jim Prentice wants to be Canada’s finance minister. Before the last Cabinet shuffle there was a quiet but steady effort to publicly highlight Mr. Prentice’s managerial talents and disparage Jim Flaherty’s reprimanding of high-taxed Ontario to change policies or risk becoming a have-not province. If Minister Prentice had his way he’d be running finance and Mr. Flaherty would be punted to a second-tier ministry, like industry. It didn’t matter that many mainstream economists agreed with Mr. Flaherty, Mr. Prentice was offering himself as a kindler, gentler Conservative. Last week, the industry minister took another run at Mr. Flaherty by wading into budget territory. He told reporters the federal government has not determined how to allocate proceeds from the recent auction of wireless licences that resulted in an unexpected $4.25-billion windfall. Mr. Prentice said the cash might go to tax cuts, debt repayment or even spending programs. If Mr. Prentice is determined to audition for the finance minister’s job he might want to first reflect on the state of Ottawa’s finances. Because there should be no confusion in Conservative ranks about what to do with the revenue. The finance department reported last Friday that Ottawa posted a deficit of $517-million in the first two months of the 2008 fiscal year. This news is worrisome even after a decade of Ottawa lowballing its surplus projections. It was no surprise that tax revenues dropped by 4.1% since the Conservatives cut the GST another point and lowered the tax rate on businesses. If Ottawa’s financial position is worsening it is the result of poor management and over-spending, not modest tax relief. The 2008 budget claimed Ottawa would limit spending growth to 3.4% this year. Yet, expenditures in April and May grew by 7%. If this continues, Ottawa will be on track to overshoot its budget target by an astounding 100%. Do Mr. Prentice and his colleagues believe the federal government should increase spending further this year? And how important is reducing the federal government’s monster debt? Since 1997, the debt has been cut by $106-billion. That’s a good start. But each year $34-billion is still spent on interest charges to service Ottawa’s outstanding $457-billlion liability. That amounts to $93-million each day. There is clearly more work to do. It is folly to suggest a one-time revenue gain – such as the $4.25-billion generated by the wireless auction – be used to increase spending. Whatever new program might be created will live long after the cash raised from the auction is spent. As Milton Friedman said, “Nothing is so permanent as a temporary government program.” Whenever a government sells an asset – in this case wireless spectrum rights – the additional income should be used to reduce the country’s debt liability. Ottawa has the option of allocating the auction revenue at once or spreading it over a decade. The latter move would boost revenue by $425-million a year, however leaving this money on the table increases the likelihood that some of it will be spent instead of going against the debt. Applying $4.25-billion to the debt will reduce interest payments by approximately $225-million every year. Under the Conservative government’s new tax-back guarantee law, all debt-interest savings are used to reduce personal income taxes. This is another good reason why the auction revenue should be used to retire the debt now. Debt relief today will result in lower taxes tomorrow. Minister Prentice deserves tomatoes from taxpayers. He opened a discussion on increased spending where none is necessary and offered more evidence the federal government doesn’t tax to collect the revenue it needs but that politicians always find ways to spend whatever money is collected. Taxpayers can expect spending to spike unless the real Finance Minister, Jim Flaherty, is ready to overrule his Cabinet colleague, reduce debt and keep a lid on spending. If he does not, it won’t matter much to taxpayers which Jim is the finance minister after the next shuffle. This is not the fault of the coalition or the Liberals or even the recession. Harper was on a reckless spending binge and was steering us into the red long before any of that.

What a load of garbage. Harper utilized the EI fund to an even greater extent: http://briarpatchmagazine.com/criminal-com...uge-ei-surplus/ After accusing Liberals of using Employment Insurance fund as a ‘partisan piggy bank’, Harper Conservatives are now doing the same thing. National Union of Public and General Employees March 9, 2007 Ottawa - A criminal complaint has been filed against Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his Conservative cabinet for misusing the now-staggering $51-billion surplus in Canada’s national Employment Insurance (EI) fund. The surplus, which the Conservatives howled that the Liberals were abusing when they were in office, has mushroomed by $7 billion since 2004 and continues to grow at a spectacular rate - fed by ongoing worker contributions and interest gains. Yet the Tories are behaving the same as the Liberals behaved, putting the surplus into general revenue where it can be used for anything and not specifically for the benefit of unemployed workers as the law requires. The RCMP has confirmed that the complaint was lodged March 7 by a lawyer representing the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU). Larry Kowalchuk said on behalf of the union in Regina that he took the action in response to long-standing concerns that surplus EI funds are being diverted to uses other than providing unemployment benefits. Denounced by Auditor General Sheila Fraser, the federal auditor general, denounced the former Liberal government repeatedly for running EI surpluses beyond what was needed to meet payments to the unemployed, even during the most difficult economic times. Federal officials say the outside limit for this purpose would be a maximum surplus of about $15 billion. Despite accusing Liberals of using the fund as a “partisan piggy bank,” the Conservatives are now controlling a much bigger EI surplus as they embark on an unprecedented multi-billion-dollar spending spree in preparation for an election. It is widely expected that Harper, who is currently leading the Liberals in opinion polls, will find a way to precipitate Canada’s third federal election in three years sometime this spring. “There have been a lot of media talk shows about what the government should be doing with the $51-billion surplus,” Kowalchuk told the Regina Leader-Post. “I was listening to that and going: ‘Well you can’t do anything about it, it’s a trust. It belongs to the workers and government can’t spend it on health care or anything else. If they do it is a breach of trust.’” Criminal Code Section 336 Kowalchuk said Section 336 of the Criminal Code makes it an indictable offence for “every one who, being a trustee of anything for the use or benefit, whether in whole or in part, of another person, or for a public or charitable purpose, converts, with intent to defraud and in contravention of his trust, that thing or any part of it to a use that is not authorized by the trust is guilty of an indictable offence and liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 14 years.” He said the union is not making any specific allegations about particular federal programs or initiatives that may be benefitting from EI money. Instead, the union is asking the RCMP to investigate the general handling of the fund in relation to Criminal Code restrictions. If the $51 billion is not in a trust account, to be used solely for providing unemployment benefits, the union wants to know where it is and what it was used for, Kowalchuk said. NUPGE intervention The National Union of Public and General Employees (NUPGE) has been calling for years for Ottawa to use the fund as intended to benefit workers who are in between jobs. In 2001, when the surplus stood at $36 billion, NUPGE president James Clancy wrote to former prime minister Jean Chretien urging him to make major changes in the operation of the fund. Specifically, he called on the government to pay EI recipients a minimum of 66% of average earnings and to restore the maximum benefit period to 50 weeks. He also proposed better integration of federal and provincial training programs to help EI recipients get back into the labour force and called for abolition of provisions penalizing short-term and seasonal workers. Recipients are now required to work 420 to 700 hours, depending on local unemployment rates, to qualify for benefits. It has been estimated that 17% of workers who pay into the program never qualify because of the limited hours are they are able to work.

Its not quite that simple. First off, health care is a provincial matter so the federal government has little ability to affect change. At best they can publicly announce increased funding via transfers to the provinces and hope they follow suit. The other thing is they can directly fund specific hospitals but thats politically difficult. Its the medical institution itself that keeps the #s of Doctors low. Here in Ontario we only have a self imposed shortage and thats after Dalton paved the way for lots of new staff. Due to our capped funding the medical community wants to keep doctors at certain levels under the theory of the pie. More people = smaller slices. I know. I'd make double working in the states in my field. Of course that means that we get more cost efficient health care because more money goes to things other then salary. Another factor that most people don't realize is that under our system billing is capped. Facilities bil the government on a per service/test basis until they reach their funding cap. The kicker is that although they cannot bill anymore they are contractually required to continue to offer that test. For example. In my lab we get paid per test we run until we reach a set amount. After that we still keeping doing the tests but receive no more money. In Ontario that means the 3 private labs do about 150 million in unpaid work per year and its rising. Under a US system we would not do this. What this means is that in actuality Ontarians receive more services then they pay for to their net benefit. We are a private lab operating in a universal care system. If we were operating in a US system then not only would we make more but the free work would evaporate. That would mean a large cost increase to the patients without any increase in actual services provided. Something to think about when people talk about ditching universal care for a user fee system.

There was a great deal more to the Liberals bringing in a balanced budget that didn't simply include sitting back allowing the GST to do the heavy lifting. http://www.andrewspicer.com/article388.html Bill, at Bound by Gravity, has a posting in which he argues against Paul Martin's record as Finance Minister. He argues that it was really Brian Mulroney who did the heavy lifting in terms of shaping up Canada's federal finances, and Martin's role was "all smoke and mirrors". The argument is based on the idea that it was Mulroney's unpopular Free Trade and GST that saved the day. But looking at the numbers, I still am left with the impression that it was Finance Minister Paul Martin who balanced our budgets, while the Mulroney team showed little control. The numbers I spent most of my time looking at were this table of federal budgetary revenues as a percentage of GDP, and this table of federal budgetary expenses as a percentage of GDP. I assigned budgets beginning with 1984-85 to Mulroney and 1993-94 to Chretien. What becomes clear pretty quickly is what we know already -- in the Chretien-Martin years, the federal government performed dramatically better in terms of the defict/surplus. In 1983-84, the debt was 7.9% of our GDP, and the following year saw it hit 8.3%. At the end of the Mulroney term, debt had been reduced to 5.6% of our GDP, or $39-billion. Jean Chretien was elected, and about two years later, things began to change dramatically, and by 1997-98 we were in surplus, never to look back. Here's another way to look at it. If you take the surplus or debt from each year, and use the Bank of Canada's inflation calculator to convert them to constant dollars, the Tories borrowed over $400,000 in constant dollars, while Chretien's team borrowed under $80,000 (over one more year). Yes, in real dollar terms, Mulroney's final-year deficit was 15% smaller than the deficit in 1983-84, but that left Chretien and Martin to do the other 85% of the job, and then continue on into surplus. The overall accumulated debt, grew (as a % of GDP) in every Mulroney year, but fell consistently from 1995-96 until the present. In other words, Mulroney always grew the debt faster than the economy, and the tide was reversed only after his 9 years in office. So, how was it done? A closer look at the numbers shows it was not done on the revenue side. Under Mulroney, federal government revenues averaged 16.8% of GDP. Under Chretien, 16.4%. This was not a big change. It happened mainly on the expenses side. The Mulroney years averaged spending (including interest) at about 22.4% of the GDP. In 1983-84 it was 23.4%, the following year it was 24.0%, and the lowest in hit during the Tory term was 21.5%. In the Liberal years, the size of the government was never once as high as Mulroney's low of 21.5%. In 93-94 it was 21.3%, and in 2002-03 it hit a low of 14.8%. That's the lowest point for all the data I have, beginning in 1961-62. Some accuse Paul Martin of acheiving this result entirely on the backs of the provinces. Obviously, there were cuts there, but these were not the only cuts: * Transfers to Other Levels of Govt, reduced from a Mulroney average of 3.7% of GDP to a Chretien average of 2.8%, for a savings of 0.9% * Transfers to Persons, reduced from a Mulroney average of 5.2% of GDP to a Chretien average of 3.9%, for a savings of 1.2% * National Defence, reduced from a Mulroney average of 1.6% of GDP to a Chretien average of 1.1%, for a savings of 0.5% * All other spending, reduced from a Mulroney average of 6.0% of GDP to a Chretien average of 4.8%, for a savings of 1.2% * Interest on the debt, reduced from a Mulroney average of 5.9% of GDP to a Chretien average of 4.8%, for a savings of 1.2% So, basically, all spending was controlled, and shrunk as a percentage of GDP. Revenues were kept constant, and as a result, a huge deficit was melted away into a surplus. Mulroney failed to do these things himself. Now, I'm not going to argue that economically Mulroney was all disaster and Martin was the golden child. Certianly, Martin can't own responsibility for Canada's strong economy. However, Paul Martin's record on fiscal management is far from "smoke and mirrors" and actually is a strength he should be campaigning on. It's how he became popular in the first place, and (in my opinion) rightly so. Thats why Martins example is being touted as a solution by others: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/polit...ht-1741920.html

Oh there were some doozy posts that went far beyond that. I must admit it did get entertaining sometimes. Tedious at others.

Oddly enough that was a common observation about him there too.

As I surmised he is the same guy and making just as many friends here as he did there I might add.

Ah, benoit from CKA. Your buddies miss you.

Again, you mean to say you don't care. You have no choice but to believe what I'm saying unless you are actually trying that pathetic religious dodge where you delude yourself into believing that us Atheists actually do believe in your god its just that we won't admit it.

I think you meant to say you don't care. Make no mistake though, your belief in a supernatural deity is no different then any other god delusion. You just compound your error by making ridiculous statements like "my religious message is inclusive while others are exclusionary".

No. My reality listens to your statements of believing in fictitious beings no different then then those that believe in any of the other deities you reject.

No, your belief in jesus is no different then a child believing in Santa Claus or the Tooth fairy.

Imaginary men can't die except in imaginary land. I live in the real world.

Nope. Xtianity and its various flavours espouse rigid dogma designed to install fear and that fear is if you don't follow along blindly you were suffer for all eternity. Commerce isn't about enslavement to money although certainly some do. Its simply a way for society to exchange goods and services for compensation. Religion doesn't seem to care that much when they demand tithes.

The rule in commerce is we accept anyone with money. Thats their business. What somebody believes or what their values are, are immaterial. Religion, especially Xtianity is a "believe what I do or I'll hurt you". Comes from believing in a faith that says "believe exactly what I say or I'll torture you for eternity". Santa Claus while a commercial construct still has his "naughty and nice" rule. Good kids get toy soldiers and bad kids get coal. I bet life was different in the days when coal was an important commodity.

Funny. I can think of nothing more accepting then commerce and nothing more narrow-minded then religion.

The commercialization wasn't an intentional one, more like one that creeped in over a long period of time. They actually can apply for and receive funding from all 3 levels of government depending on where they are and how big they are. Pride parades are legitimate receivers of such funding and they themselves also get commercial backing. They also are a large tourist draw and bring business into the country/city. Like the creeping commercialism theyare also evolving from a strictly homosexual affair to an all inclusive festival and celebration.

What about things like the Santa Claus parade or Easter parades? They are arguably based on exclusionary religious beliefs even if they have become a lot more commercialized.

Actually now if you think about the GST hike makes even more sense what with us not refunding it to visitors. More revenue garnered from them that doesn't need to be garnered from the tax paying citizenry.