The Price of Being Canadian

[cannuck]

Just now, cannuck said:

I think of that more like Erik Nielsen did: there are more than 1,100 programmes and departments of the Federal government, and I forget how many employees, but the vast majority of things that these people do are hardly "NEEDED" by people, but often wanted by many groups of freeloaders.  Or they are the product of some idiotic politico or bureaucrats who want to meddle in markets of business where they have no reason or right to do.  If you happen to be one of the very few who do some of the the work for the very few departments that really ARE "needed", that could be true.  But the odds aren't very high that that would be the case.

 

[Argus]

26 minutes ago, cannuck said:

I think of that more like Erik Nielsen did: there are more than 1,100 programmes and departments of the Federal government, and I forget how many employees, but the vast majority of things that these people do are hardly "NEEDED" by people, but often wanted by many groups of freeloaders.  If you happen to be one of the very few who do some of the the work for the very few departments that really ARE "needed", that could be true.  But the odds aren't very high that that would be the case.

That's a simplistic view of things. For example, I had a number of jobs when I worked for the government. One of them was a procurement clerk. My job was to buy/order supplies, office chairs, computers, etc. Was I helping people? No, but if I didn't do what I did then the other people in the directorate couldn't do their stuff. What did they do. Well, a lot of things. Mainly, they maintained a variety of tax programs. Did they help people directly? Not really. But if they didn't do their job the government didn't have the money to help people...

A know someone who works for the RCMP. Her job is to produce forms and to go through forms and decide which aren't needed, and which need to be updated. Does she help anyone directly? No. But if she doesn't do her thing then before too long the documentation the RCMP needs breaks down and they start having legal problems with cases, among other things. Someone else I know works for public relations, and his job is to get word out to the public about tax changes. Another works for health Canada. Now her job is as part of a system which provides transportation to sick natives on remote reserves, so I guess you could say she helps people directly, but she can't do it without forms, computers, etc....

 

Edited September 3, 2017 by Argus

[cannuck]

There are hundreds of examples, but let me deal with things I know very well:   What about the CWB?  This was done to farmers in the West to screw them out of the marketplace so that politicians and bureaucrats could play politics with food.  Yeah, that was what Canadians needed.  No need to get into supply management, as Canadians are DELIGHTED to spend $6 for four litres of milk when you can buy 3.89 in Chicago for $1.62US.  We needed that.   We needed to mine uranium, drill for oil, build airplanes. We "NEED" the effing buggerup dumbass development bank to come into the marketplace and steal tax dollars from us to set up competitors in our marketplace based on political expedience.   The list just goes on and on.

The business of government should be to govern - regulate and enforce.   Our government does far, far more things that IMHO it has absolutely no business doing - and it is particularly inept and doing them. You are not part of the solution, you were part of the problem.

[Michael Hardner]

Sorry, your post is confusing.  Dairy supply management screws producers AND consumers?

[Argus]

11 hours ago, cannuck said:

There are hundreds of examples, but let me deal with things I know very well:   What about the CWB?  This was done to farmers in the West to screw them out of the marketplace so that politicians and bureaucrats could play politics with food.  Yeah, that was what Canadians needed.  No need to get into supply management, as Canadians are DELIGHTED to spend $6 for four litres of milk when you can buy 3.89 in Chicago for $1.62US.  We needed that.   We needed to mine uranium, drill for oil, build airplanes. We "NEED" the effing buggerup dumbass development bank to come into the marketplace and steal tax dollars from us to set up competitors in our marketplace based on political expedience.   The list just goes on and on.

The business of government should be to govern - regulate and enforce.   Our government does far, far more things that IMHO it has absolutely no business doing - and it is particularly inept and doing them. You are not part of the solution, you were part of the problem.

I don't disagree that the government does things we don't need doing, and I don't support supply management either. That being said, even if you prune away a lot of stuff that is not needed you're going to be left with most of the bureaucrats you started with. Now if you could actually streamline government and get senior executives and managers to accept taking a little risk you could cut more, but that's pie in the sky stuff...

[cannuck]

2 hours ago, Argus said:

I don't disagree that the government does things we don't need doing, and I don't support supply management either. That being said, even if you prune away a lot of stuff that is not needed you're going to be left with most of the bureaucrats you started with. Now if you could actually streamline government and get senior executives and managers to accept taking a little risk you could cut more, but that's pie in the sky stuff...

I was once invited to be the token real business person at a ministerial announcement of something or another.  The 6 bureaucrats and lawyers at our table had the horrible misfortune of sitting with two business guys who did NOT take or seek any government money.  You should have seen the look on their faces when we explained to them how we could make their jobs accountable and performance based for remuneration (mostly NRC types).  It actually IS possible, but you would need someone on the government side who had the balls and brains to pull it off - and Eric was the last person I can think of who fit that requirement.

[August1991]

Cannuck,

Like a condo fee, or city property taxes, or a trip south - society is a "package deal/choice". 

For Canada to remain a sustainable/civilized society, I reckon that if you live in Canada, you accept the "package deal/choice" - and even, somehow, you pay.

====

After 1984, Pierre Trudeau largely remained in Canada - walking the streets of Montreal, even in winter - and presumably paying his property taxes for his place on av. des Pins, above McGill. (Like René Lévesque who chose a condo in Nun's Island, Trudeau was true to his country.)

Brian Mulroney decided to have two places: one in lower Westmount, and another in Florida - but avoiding certain taxes.

Paul Martin? Places? Taxes?

Or how about Michael Ignatieff - no longer in Canada. 

Edited September 4, 2017 by August1991

[cannuck]

20 hours ago, Michael Hardner said:

Sorry, your post is confusing.  Dairy supply management screws producers AND consumers?

Yes.   Consumers pay more money for products, but if you ever bother to research, you would find that butter and milk powder are hoarded by the government, mostly to be dumped at a massive cost to taxpayers.   Producers are removed from the marketplace (as prairie farmers were under the CWB) thus there were barriers to entry, barriers to free markets developing, barriers to developing the knowledge and investment base to participate effectively in free and productive markets.

ANY time that government sticks its inept, bungling nose into ANY market, it will screw it up - and EVERYONE stands to lose.  It is all about dispensing privelege: government instead of regulating and enforcing becomes the distributor of privilege, and only those chosen by the government to be the privileged individual or class benefits, and all at the expense of the rest of their industry or the country.

[Michael Hardner]

OK, well I never heard that dairy farmers are screwed by supply management, that's a first.  I'm not disputing it, but I haven't heard that.

[cannuck]

12 hours ago, Michael Hardner said:

OK, well I never heard that dairy farmers are screwed by supply management, that's a first.  I'm not disputing it, but I haven't heard that.

If you want to be a dairy farmer, you have to buy a cream quota.   That is a huge barrier to entry.  If you were a dairy farmer and had to survive in the real world, you would have no idea how the market works - since it is "supply managed" by the government.   Dairy farmers who HAVE a cream quota think it is just dandy (you might notice that the majority of said privilege to be able to farm dairy is granted to Quebec).

Under supply management (yet another government bureaucracy that costs us billions just to screw up marketplaces) the Feds determine prices and production.  They never even come close to getting it right, so skim milk, butter, eggs, powdered milk are are regularly dumped in the tens of thousands of tons.  Guess who picks up the tab?   Yeah, you and I.  Same people paying double to triple what our American counterparts are for milk.

As I said: the business of government should be to govern, regulate and enforce.   It totally fricks up at anything else it does, and doesn't do a great job of the former either.