Recently I received a small parcel from Idaho. Postal cost: $5.99US ($6.25CDN). I asked the postal clerk how much it was to mail it back. She weighed it and said, "$11.40---over 75 percent more, but," she added, "it's going out of the country so you don't have to pay GST. If it were going to a Canadian address you'd have 13 percent tacked on."
I raised this issue with my MP, Peter Stoffer, and he explained the post office is no longer a government service but is now a Crown corporation. As such, they are operating to earn annual profits, which they turn over to the federal government. They have turned over hundreds of millions over the years. Canada postal service? Just another way to gouge the public.This great Canadian institution sells flat-rate shipping to the USA giant eBay but refuses it to Canadians and Canadian companies.
A newer outfit on the scene, the Canadian Internet Registration Authority, or CIRA, was deemed necessary and mandated into existence by Ottawa (but not paid by Ottawa). The extra $8 that it costs to register a .ca domain name goes to these people. They collect over $10 million a year from Canadians using .ca websites.
Last---in this letter---but not least: the combined $76 billion drained from UIC and Canada pensions. Successive federal governments have raided these funds, taking $56 billion from UIC and $20 billion from the pension funds. Illegal, you say? It would be in the private sector, but the politically appointed hacks on the Supreme Court ruled in Ottawa's favour in both these cases. How does Ottawa plan on covering these losses?
Easy: by going back into the bottomless pockets of the Canadian tax payer and worker. UIC rates will be rising shortly. Every day it becomes clearer that (a) there are two sets of laws, one for the masses and one for government, and (b) if the governments don't like the laws governing them, ignore them (HRM council), change them (provincial NDP), or have the courts okay what you did (feds).
Perhaps it's time we just all sat down and did nothing until federal, provincial and civic governments start sending our money with the dedication and care that they collect it from us.—Bruce DeVenne, Lower Sackville
