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From June 1999 thru March 2000 I worked in Miami Florida. I worked for the Department of Environmental Resource Management, maintaining the computer system that collected a country tax. It was stormwater tax. Miami got all of its water from a series of wells. Covering land with impermeable something meant rain water drains through storm drains into the ocean instead of replenishing the aquafir. It proved to be impractical, so they charged a fixed fee per year for houses, regardless of impermeable land. That defeats the point. But it wasn't my job to critique the tax, just keep the computer system running. The manager told me they had a major court issue. The air force base was assessed major stormwater tax, due to runways, hangers, etc. The air force base claimed they're federal therefore not subject to county tax. The court case cost a lot, but the air force base lost.
Now Toronto. They get water from Lake Ontario, collected from the bottom one and five kilometres off shore. So what's their problem? Property tax pays for infrastructure such as storm drains. Are they going to cancel property tax? I doubt it. The mayor is just greedy. Cost of living is rising extreme. Causes are all government policies: COVID lockdowns put many businesses out of business, those that survived have massive debts they have to repay. And government just printing money to pay bills, causing inflation. And taxes. Housing costs have a 4th cause: massive immigration with insufficient housing. Canada went from 32 million to 40 million from 2005 to 2023. It went from 35.7 million when Trudeau was elected in the fall of 2015 to 40.7 million today. Yes, from March of last year to March of this year, that's 0.7 million population increase, all immigrats. Toronto, Vancouver, and Montreal are getting most of the immigrants since international flights enter the country there. Montreal speaks French so English speakers go to the other two. So the city of Toronto wants to collect even more tax? That would benefit city employees, but screw over everyone else.
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RobertDyck,
What's your proposed solution?
Do you want to start taxing the government when they make stupid fiscal decisions?
That would be an interesting idea, but not one that will ever be implemented. These cretins are war pigs guarding their spot at the slop trough. Ultimately, they're predators who prey upon people dumb enough to vote them into power. Imagine how a "no confidence" vote would go over. That is what I actually want for America, not another Republican, nor another Democrat, just a big middle finger to both political parties for destroying what so many better men and women spent their entire lives building. All our independents are basically more anti-humanist nutters, so they're no help, either. All in all, I'm sick of the dumbest clowns in America, Canada, the UK, and Australia running the place into the ground. Someone needs to mind the store- someone who isn't a political hack who understands that time and money are important governance concepts.
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The province of British Columbia passed recall legislation. If an individual Member of the Legislative Assembly performs badly, voters in that electoral district can hold a referendum. If a majority vote against the MLA, then a byelection is called to replace him. This doesn't force a change in government, but realize the legislature can hold a confidence vote at any time. If the majority of members vote non-confidence, it forces an immediate election. So if too many members of the governing party are recalled, they can't prevent opposition parties from voting non-confidence.
This has been proposed federally, but never passed. The federal government already has the ability to hold a confidence vote, what's missing is recall legislation. Members of the House federally are called Members of Parliament or MPs. We need recall legislation for MPs.
For now, I don't know. We have a minority government which means the ruling party has less than 50% of members of the House. However, they're so close to majority that only one opposition party has to vote with government to prevent non-confidence. If the NDP continues to support the government, next election will be September 2025. I think the Bloc Quebecois also voted to support the government, but they will likely vote to follow whoever appears to win. Polls show if an election were held today, Conservatives would win a landslide, they would win a majority. Yes, Conservatives did force a non-confidence vote but lost.
The budget is usually released in March, but the government decided to do it in April this year. The budget must be voted on, and if parliament votes against it, that's considered to be non-confidence. If an election is called after April 22, new riding boundaries take effect. New riding boundaries favour Conservatives, at the expense of NDP. So NDP would benefit from calling an election now. Liberals keep promising to implement policies of the NDP, but then don't actually do so. The budget will most likely be before the 22nd. If NDP vote against the budget, that will force an election.
My MP is NDP, but he said he will resign effective end of March. So his last day was Thursday considering the House doesn't sit Good Friday or weekends. So no one I can write. All I can do is hope.
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If a general election is not held, that means a byelection in my electoral district. I could try to run myself. However, running for the party I joined in 2004? That's the government. I disagree strongly with what they're doing. If I jump parties, chance of winning the nomination are close to a snowball's chance in hell.
If I try for the nomination for the party I'm in now, the electoral district association president is one of those progressives that support what the government is doing, so he would actively campaign against my nomination.
That sounds pompous, but I am a past president of the Electoral District association. And I won the nomination for the 2008 federal election. But things were done to bury me, I was replaced, my name did not appear on the ballot. My crew has not been active for a long time. Our candidate from 2004 & 2006 is considering voting against the party. Her significant other was ED president before me, and also has the same concerns. The President before him passed away a few years ago. His widow moved out of the ED. So those of use who believe in fiscal responsibility are out.
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7 of the 10 Provincial Premiers have lobbied the federal government to at least cancel the increase in carbon tax, ideally axe the tax entirely. Our federal government has nasty things to say about them for opposing.
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YouTube: Manitoba to as Ottawa to remove carbon tax from province
From CBC, one of Canada's mainstream new channels. Video is 8 minutes 51 seconds. Interview with the Premier himself.
This is the premier of my province, and he is the 8th Premier to as the federal government to remove carbon tax.
January 1st he removed provincial excise tax on gasoline. It was 14¢/L, and federal carbon tax is 14.31¢/L so that effectively removes carbon tax. Two big catches: he added 7% Provincial Sales Tax to gas. Based on current gas prices, that PST adds roughly 8.75¢/L, so it doesn't help as much as you might think. And effective tomorrow federal carbon tax is scheduled to increase to 17.61¢/L. And the federal government gives revenue from carbon tax on motor fuel (gasoline and diesel) to the province. However, the federal government gives taxpayers a partial refund once per quarter for carbox tax, so not all of that revenue goes to the province. There GST (federal sales tax) that's charged on top of per litre taxes, and the federal government keeps all of that.
At least this now means 8 of 10 Premiers are asking the federal government to axe the tax.
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Canadian citizens are asking how we do the equivalent of the Boston Teax Party. My girlfriend just pointed out the tea tax was layered on top of all the taxes that existed previously. Canadian new has said the RCMP (Canada's federal police) have warned the government there is a chance of citizen revolt. Truckers already held a peaceful protest in January/February 2022. Result was the government invoked the emergency measures act and sent in police. Courts have already ruled that invoking the emergency measures act was illegal. This could get bad.
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Protests will be held tomorrow. That's when the tax hike takes effect. Vehicles will drive from outside Winnipeg to Ottawa. They will start in every major city of Canada. There should also be a protest within Winnipeg.
Hopefully the government will not try to order police to attack protesters again. The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms was embedded in the Constitution as a major amendment. It guarantees rights of freedom of expression including freedom of speech, freedom of peaceful assembly, and freedom of association. This means every Canadian has the right to protest, on whatever they want, whenever they want, for however long they want. No limit. The courts have already ruled that invoking the emergency measures act to get rid of Trucker Protesters in 2022 was illegal. One rule is if a politician gives an order to police to commit an illegal act, police are required to refuse. The Ottawa chief of police in 2022 did refuse, so they replaced him. What will happen this time?
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Friday, 3 senior MPs of the NDP party announced they would not seek re-election. One NDP MP resigned effective March 31. A couple other NDP MPs announced they will not seek re-election. That's 6 MPs, their caucus only had 24 members effective last month so that means 1/4 of their caucus resigned. This sounds bad.
New electoral district boundaries take effect if an election is called after the 22nd of this month. The MPs who resigned are adversely affect, so they must have been determined to force an elect before the 22nd. This year's budget will come out before then, voting against the budget would force an election. So sounds like the NDP leader wants to continue to support the Liberal government, but NDP caucus members are revolting.
::Edit:: Federal budget will be released with a long speech April 16.
Last edited by RobertDyck (2024-04-07 19:18:48)
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Budget day was Tuesday. Leaders of the Conservative party and the Bloc Québécois have said they will vote against it. Leader of the NDP said his party is reviewing the budget, hasn't decided yet. If the NDP votes against the budget, that would be a majority of the House of Commons. If Parliament votes against the budget, that would force an election.
Leader of the Green party also said she vote against the budget. But their party has 2 members in the House, so they don't matter.
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It's 2 weeks since the budget was tabled; however still no vote. The leader of the NDP party still has refused to say how he will ask members of his caucus to vote. Last week Parliament took vacation due to Passover. US Congress took that week off too but the Senste sat in emergency meeting to vote on foreign aid bills from the House. Canada didn't have an emergency. Parliament resumed Monday.
The Prime Minister criticized the Leader of the Conservatives for visiting protesters who object to the carbon tax. The PM accused all protesters of being white supremacists/nationalists, and accused the Conservative leader of being spineless for consorting with them. The Conservative leader was trying to debate the policy of decriminalizing hard drugs. The Conservative leader pointed out the number of times the PM dressed in blackface and called him wacko. The speaker of the house is required to be impartial under Canadian rules, but the speaker kicked the Conservative leader out for the remainder of the day. But the speaker didn't reprimand the PM. When the leader of the Conservatives was required to leave the House, the entire Conservative caucus left the house for a few hours. The speaker is now under being asked to resign for blatant bias. Well, members of the media and former members of Parliament including a former deputy leader of the Conservatives and former leader of the NDP. Calls for the speaker to resign have not come to the floor of the House... yet.
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A TV news political show interviewed the NDP leader today. I'm getting to love Vassy Kapelos, she doesn't pull punches, hard-hitting with all politicians. She challenged Jagmeet Singh (seriously, that's his name), whether he would have his party vote against the budget, forcing an election. Jagmeet said only the Liberals will call an election. (Sigh!)
He wasn't actually elected until October 2021. He has to serve 6 years to qualify for a pension. I had thought he wanted to drag this term so his junior members of caucus earned a pension, but now we think he only cares about his own pension. 1/4 of his own caucus has announced they will not seek re-election, all but one are the most senior members of his caucus. The rest of us want that party to kick out their leader. Right now it looks like 18 more months. (shudder!)
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