It is through legislation that our executive welfare class is able to fill their pockets with silver and gold at the cost of Canadian freedoms and liberties. Legislation, apparently for the purpose of protecting or benefiting Canadians, rarely does. By considering “Who Benefits?” we are able to see through the illusion that it is not the majority of Canadians, but instead the few - the executive welfare - government and bureaucrats who benefit.
From the very get go of all legislation there is a cost to bringing proposed legislation into becoming law. Proposed legislation having been made into law creates further costs of make work projects in maintaining and studying the impacts of the law on Canadians. These make work projects employ Senate committees and sub-committees, House of Commons committees and sub-committees and further bureaucratic committees and sub-committees. All of these committees and their expenses are put in place supposedly to ensure Canadians are being well served by the legislation.
What these make work projects really achieve is nothing more than an excuse to have meetings so that the executive welfare on the committees have a place to go and feel important. This is the reason why most legislation is filled with flaws. Every time a Canadian is adversely affected by flawed legislation the individual demands that government do something about the injustice of the flawed legislation. We have now set in motion not only the make work projects of studying the flawed legislation, but also we have enabled government to be able to say that they are working on our behalf.
The most indigestible part of this gruel Canadians are forced to swallow is finding out that a flaw in the legislation can be studied by the executive welfare for decades. Worse is the fact that even after decades of make work projects studying the same flaw, nothing is done about it. It may now be beneficial to understand how flawed legislation leads to make work projects and the social club it creates by looking at a few case studies. Hold in mind that these few case studies are among thousands.
CRTC legislation gives marketing companies the right to invade your privacy in your home without any action you can take to immediately stop the unwanted harassment. Canadians never had any problem with unwanted marketing calls. If a Canadian were to receive an unwanted call at home, it only took phoning the police and/or Telephone Company and that was the end of the problem. There was no legislation needed, so why create legislation where none is needed? Although Canadians didn’t need legislation for unwanted marketing calls, the executive welfare’s insatiable need for make work projects is paramount to the needs of Canadians.
The marketing companies had no legislative right to invade the privacy of the individual before and if they did they could risk their phone service being cut off with the possibility of being charged by the police for harassing phone calls. The CRTC legislation gave the marketing companies the legislative right to invade the individual’s privacy with no consequence of interruption of their phone service or charges of harassment by the individual. The executive welfare’s brainstorm to remedying this problem after 20 years of studying the matter proved worthless and marketing companies still continue inconveniencing the individual. If a person doesn’t want a marketing company phoning they have to inconvenience themselves further by writing to the company and to the CRTC. If after 3 months the marketing company continues phoning, then the individual can write the CRTC again and supposedly then a letter will be sent and sometime later if the company doesn’t stop then the CRTC will do something.
The effect of the CRTC legislation was their need to hire more people to offset the increased workload of replying to harassed Canadians (make work projects). Canadians are taxed more for less and last, but not least Canadians lose their right to privacy. The most hurt from the loss of home privacy are the individuals who have loved ones in hospital and are expecting the phone to ring with the bad news of their passing away or are about to. Each and every time the phone rings their hearts jump only to find out it was a telemarketer. The elderly who painfully make their way to the phone and the mentally ill who become frightened with the pressure unleashed by the telemarketer.
Another brain dead piece of legislation that only benefit the executive welfare and this time the effect is to suppress small and medium sized businesses. In the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) there is a clause that states that if the importing business imports a product into the country and that product was made from at least 62.5% of materials from Canada, the U.S. or Mexico, then the importing business doesn’t have to pay the import tariff on the product.
The purpose of this legislation is supposedly to promote more use of North American made parts thus creating more jobs. From the outset, this all sounds good, however, it is anything but good. To qualify for this zero rate import tax on the product being imported into the country, the Canadian business must provide CBSA with a Certificate of Origin (CO), which has to be acquired from the manufacturer. The problem is found in the 2 clauses strategically placed by the executive welfare that proves lethal to the small business. The first clause is that the manufacturer only provides the CO on a voluntary basis and the second clause is that when a manufacturer does provide the CO, which proves the product was made in North America, it can only be used confidentially on only that one import.
The problem with these 2 unsuspecting clauses is that it allows big companies to dictate to the manufacturer who the manufacturer provides the CO to. The consequence of this to the small business is that now the small Canadian business has to pay the Canadian government an import tax that the big company doesn’t have to pay because the manufacturer won’t provide the CO. This creates unfair competition grounds for the small business because the product being imported cost the small business more.
You might think that if the CO provided to the Canadian government by the big company were valid, then the Canadian government would be able to allow the small business to import the same product without paying an import tax. No such luck because the second clause I mentioned above states that the government is only allowed to use the CO for the import of the big company. In a nutshell, the Canadian government will charge the small business an import tax on the product even though they are well aware that the product being imported is made in North America.
These 2 clauses (and there are thousands) create make work projects for the executive welfare. The small business owner will complain and want something done because the situation is unfair. All the committees of the executive welfare have now studied these 2 clauses since 1982. For 28 years and at the cost of billions of dollars, the executive welfare has filled their pockets with silver and gold at the expense of people with a dream of having a small business. These 2 clauses have caused many small businesses to go out of business. These 2 clauses have cost the Canadian taxpayer billions of dollars.
The last example I will give you really sums it all up. In 2008 the federal government announced that it would be pledging 2 billion dollars into a green campaign. The federal government announced that it would be providing an initiative of tax credits to companies that cut their CO2 emissions. If a business were to purchase equipment that lowered CO2 emissions, then the company would be able to apply for tax credits. Again, from the get-go all sounds good, in fact, it sounds so good that David Suzuki announced that he would make both his foundation and himself available to the federal government in advising government on how to best spend the 2 billion dollars.
A couple of days later it was announced on the news that the 2 billion dollars was to cover the cost of creating a formula for the tax benefits that would be given to the qualifying businesses. It was also announced that the 2 billion dollars would be for the cost of committee reviews and maintaining all of the appeals that businesses might have when trying to claim the tax credits. This one program represented 2 billion dollars of make work projects for the executive welfare and not one penny would ever be spent on a green initiative.
