joe posts

Ah, John Baird. You tried hard with this one:

“Our government believes that the cost should be borne by those who use the service, not by Canadian taxpayers.”

That’s our minister of transportation explaining how the fifty percent increase in security fees (which we need to buy X-ray specs) are definitely not taxes. So it’s not a tax, because taxpayers won’t be paying it, ergo, people who fly aren’t taxpayers. Simple logic. Or did I get that wrong? It might just be some slimy fake-logic to trick us into thinking Canada’s New Government™ hasn’t broken yet another election promise.

True, not everyone flies. But Canada is a huge country and it’s a popular way of getting around. I guess they could use this same reasoning to introduce non-tax fees for anything – health fees are only paid by sick people, not taxpayers! Road maintenance fees for anyone who leaves their home, not the taxpayers! Policing fees for anyone who expects police help, not taxpayers! Income tax filing fees are only paid by people who file income taxes, not taxpayers! The great thing about flat fees to neoconservatives is that they are inherently regressive.

Maybe if we wanted a safer country we could stop spending billions following Americans around on their crusade against Islam. The fact is we’re at war; we should have no expectation for security. We’re killing people in Afghanistan, our government supports the Iraq war. It doesn’t matter if we’re polite people who only accidentally kill civilians. People will still fight back. That’s just a reality of war.