de·moc·ra·cy de·mocK·ra·cy
the old man in the hat
Democracy is a tricky thing. Our particular version, even more so, as a representative democracy, carried out in the style of a parliamentary constitutional monarchy.
So…..We, The People, do not directly control the action. We elect others to act on our behalf. I do not think it is particularly unreasonable to expect, on balance, that what our representatives legislate, are laws and regulations that are in the best interest of the citizens that do the electing.
Now, we have been told by our Finance Minister, Mr. Higgs, that the pot is dry pot has a big hole in it and we all must do what we can to patch it up. I don’t say fill, because whenever we are told that progress is being made on eliminating the current account deficit, we receive word that, in fact, things are getting worse! Therefore, the only logical assumption is that the pot, if in fact it exists at all, has a hole(s) in it!
Fair enough.
Seems that the retired Civil Service pensioners helped patch it up.
It appears that the Teachers of the province are going to help out.
Everyone who lives out in the country has donated and donated and donated- lost services, closed or moved government offices, diminished access to local health care, roads that can scarcely be called goat trails.
Fair enough.
It has now been brought to our attention by CBC investigative reporter, Robert Jones, that our current Progressive Conservative government led by David Alward, considers that some voters in the province are more equal than others.
Mr. Jones reports that during the election campaign of 2010, Davie ALL promised to freeze senior citizens property tax rates.
However, after the election the new Finance Minister said that such largesse was too expensive to the public purse. As an alternative, a program of tax deferment was offered- a program so popular that the sum total of 60 seniors have taken the Tories up on their offer.
Fair enough.
The new government had a look at the “real books” (apparently, the government of the day has another set of books that they show to the opposition each year, year after year- and give new meaning to “double entry book keeping”), and the cupboard was bare.
Now we are told by Mr. Jones that while telling the seniors that helped get him get elected that their needs were too expensive, Davie ALL “quietly” rolled out property tax relief to cottage owners, landlords and businesses.
Cost?
The deal offered and then withdrawn to seniors had a 10 year cost of $173 million in lost revenue to the province. The deal given to the other group- currently implemented- $400 million in lost revenue over the same ten year period.
Mr. Higgs constantly harps about the fiscal challenges facing the Province. No doubt. However money management seems to be the least of his problems. It would appear to me that he should start with a government wide remedial math program to understand less than, more than and equal to, so that they can understand 400M is > 178M = more than double (see…. I can even multiply).
These guys are going to ask you for your vote again in September. Better hope than can pass their math course before then or we are just going to get more of the same; stated mathematically, = or < the status quo. p.s. It gets even better. According to investigative reporter Robert Jones, the Tories are insisting that the Senior Citizens of the province misheard the promise of property tax relief announced in Moncton during the last election campaign. “Wishful hearing”, I guess. Seems to me that our officially bilingual province is actually trilingual- French, English and Newspeak (see George Orwell, 1984). In Newspeak, “war is peace” etc and I guess in the case “no tax increase” really means “tax increase + interest”. Silly people- you thought the Tories cared about you!
