From 10,000 Feet

The birth of HST in Ontario has arrived. I doubt if anyone will be handing out cigars – on second thought, maybe Dalton McGuinty will. Compared to British Columbia, the first step in selling the HST to Ontarians has gone down like an Oceans 11 movie. The tax will probably have a longer life than any of us – sadly, taxes never die; and most of you will by now have received your “bribe cheque”, as many people are calling it. But I am wondering if a bribe today will quell the building anger over the next few months as people see the cost of living in Ontario go up yet again.

Brian Mulroney gave us GST. You may remember that he went from a majority government to holding his caucus meetings in a phone booth because of the hated tax. He never suspected that taxpayers were prepared to respond with such collective retaliation. He underestimated, or possibly misinterpreted just how strongly people felt about the issue even if they didn’t march in the street. It became a life lesson for every politician in Canada that we don’t always say everything we are thinking.

Although Wilmot Township’s taxpayers haven’t marched in the streets in a HST tax revolt (it just isn’t our style), I am convinced that the modest reaction to such a significant increase in taxes does not mean that we believe what we have been told about the tax. In fact, the most common response to questions about the tax is that people don’t believe the government about the personal impact of the HST. They are suspicious and cynical about the cost. They may have been reflecting on the Smart Meter Answer Book which Mr. McGuinty distributed across the province. We were told, as you may remember, that the new system was a way for us all to save money on our electric bill – NOT.  In reality, hydro prices for the same usage were increasing significantly. If you wanted to save money you would have to cook your meals and do your laundry between 9 pm and 7 am – a bit inconvenient for most of us to say the least. The “spin-doctors” where working overtime and what we were “sold” and what we got were very different.

With the G20 ending, some economists suggest that we have entered into a world-wide third depression which they are calling the Long Depression characterized by deflation and continued unemployment. Ontario’s manufacturing sector (our greatest strength) has been destroyed over the last 20 years by NAFTA and globalism in general. The challenges the province faces are of a grand scale and the remedies (if there are any) are multifaceted. Raising taxes seems like the easy way out again. But my conflict with Mr. McGuinty is that  we have been sold the HST with less than half truths; in particular, how higher taxes will increase employment and make all of Ontario more prosperous. If there was any truth to that, I would be the first to suggest doubling taxes. I understand the cynicism among taxpayers because what we are being sold and what we will get I think will be quite different.

Over the next few months the illusions about HST will fade and reality will become evident. If Mr. McGuinty has oversold his “product”  there will be a great deal of anger and possibly voter retaliation to a government which has “ zoomed” us yet again. Sadly, by then it will be too late for taxpayers. Rarely are bad taxes ever repealed even by the succeeding government. If nothing more, we will be reminded of the old adage: “if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is”.

For decades we have been told that modern man would overcome his/her problems through technology. There is a certain comfort in believing that the man in the lab coat really has our best interest at heart, he knows what he is doing, and he has a solution to our problem that we don’t understand or need to think about. Some of us believed the mantra but some of us did not. The irony is that we have invested heavily in the “technology solution” only to find that it has caused as many problems or more than it has solved – particularly in the environment. There are others of us that prefer a simple solution to a big problem because simple solutions have fewer “moving parts” that can mess up the intended results.

Recently, a friend sent me a link to a website where two “good ole” southern boys were demonstrating a simple solution for cleaning up the Gulf oil spill. In the opening seconds of the video, one of the guys explains how he had been thinking about a solution to the problem when he was struck with the idea. The video goes on to demonstrate, within the limited scope of their laboratory, a seemingly simple answer for what a few thousand scientists have worked feverishly and unsuccessfully for months to find. I can’t comment on whether their solution will actually work or not, but the cynic in me screamed at the top its lungs – “It doesn’t matter!” Even if these “outsiders” had a cure for cancer, or world hunger, they are not going to get anywhere. The powerful companies that advise and influence government and the media are not about to let a simple inexpensive answer to the problem put them on the side-lines. I can speculate that these forerunner-problem-solvers are not going to even get a hearing. If they do, every “hired gun” scientist is going to swear on his mother’s honour that these guys don’t know what they are doing and that their misguided idea of a solution will only make things worse.

I do believe there are solutions available for almost every problem. Forerunners all over the world are laying awake at nights thinking about solutions to problems we have never even heard of. Forerunners have proven over and over again that they can overcome problems of monumental proportion. Some of them are insiders, but most of them are outsiders. Like the guys in the video, they don’t have a bank of hired “experts” and lobbyists to sell their ideas to the people that matter. If they aren’t insiders or experts or have a qua-zillion dollars they won’t even get serious consideration. Where an idea comes from is more important to most people than the idea itself and that is a dangerous place to be because that eliminates many of our best people and ideas.

Problems persist not because there aren’t solutions, but because viable solutions often are disenfranchised by vested interests. It is a mystery to me why lobbyists of any sort are permitted since they obviously exist to get governments to do something they wouldn’t normally do without the lobbyist’s “influence”. Since most lobbyists represent private interests, they are in conflict with the fundamental concept of democracy. It is the special and private interest groups who have high-jacked democracy and pushed simple solutions to the outer fringes. Insiders don’t let outsiders anywhere near their gravy-train, and as long as they have the King’s ear, simple solutions will never get anywhere. The guys in the video deserve a “listen” by Obama and BP. They may have a simple solution to a very big problem.

Here is the link to the website. Let us know what you think: Will it work or is it just a couple of guys dreaming in technicolor?

http://www.wimp.com/solutionoil/