Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site ubc-cs.UUCP Path: utzoo!utcsri!ubc-vision!ubc-cs!acton From: acton@ubc-cs.UUCP (Donald Acton) Newsgroups: can.politics Subject: Re: tariffs,shoes: a source Message-ID: <56@ubc-cs.UUCP> Date: Sun, 20-Oct-85 23:38:11 EDT Article-I.D.: ubc-cs.56 Posted: Sun Oct 20 23:38:11 1985 Date-Received: Mon, 21-Oct-85 01:42:20 EDT References: <2650@watcgl.UUCP> <52@ubc-cs.UUCP> <2663@watcgl.UUCP> Reply-To: acton@ubc-cs.UUCP (Donald Acton) Distribution: can Organization: UBC Department of Computer Science, Vancouver, B.C., Canada Lines: 56 Summary: In article <2663@watcgl.UUCP> jchapman@watcgl.UUCP in the continuing debate on the cost of shoe tariffs writes: > My point is that out of all the money "removed" from me (people like > the Fraser Institute estimate half my/your yearly income) by the > government $0.01/day is totally insignificant - or put another way: there > are a lot more important things to gripe about. > I disagree, it is the government nickel and diming us to death that results in about half our income going to taxes. (If I remember the Fraser Institute's calculations correctly it is only British Columbians and Albertans that are taxed less than 50%, everyone else is lucky enough to be taxed more than that.) Every little tax, quota, and tariff no matter how insignificant it may seem contributes to us turning over about 50% of our incomes to governments which then proceed to mismanage it. Since I am fundamentally opposed to quotas and tariffs any amount is too much but that doesn't mean we can't gripe about the other things too. > ............ The only socialist >government in BC's history left office with a surplus - care to state >how big a debt the Social Credit party has run up? John, you are just plain *wrong*! The NDP were removed from office in the late fall of 1975. According to Statistics Canada report 68-207 which covers that time period, the deficit for the fiscal year ended March 31st 1976 was 460.5 million dollars. Since the Socreds had only been in power a couple of months by that time, the deficit is a result of the spending patterns and targets put in place by the NDP. Since you asked, I will tell you that the budget speech for 85-86 predicts a deficit of 890 million dollars which would bring the total BC provincial debt to 2.3 billion dollars. The following is a summary of budget surpluses or deficits for the provinces of British Columbia and Ontario as of March 31st of the year indicated. 1975 1976 1978 1979 1980 1981 1982 (projected) BC 16.8 -460.5 161.2 204.1 592.8 -20.7 560 ONT -730.0 -1439.0 -1464.0 -1211.0 -685.0 -833.0 -616 All figures are in millions of dollars and taken from the same report cited above. (The actual title of the report, which is issued yearly, is "Provincial Government Finances: Revenues and Expenditures".) I was unable to find any Statistics Canada Reports that reported anything after 1982. I don't judge a political party by its name but by its actions. Consequently I hardly consider the Ontario PCs to be very conservative. They pursued policies like equal pay for work of equal value, purchased a 25% interest in SUNCOR, were against free trade, instituted rent controls and ran up huge deficits. Unfortunately, the federal tories seem to be blundering down the same path and are bowing to every special interest group that gets within ear shot of Brian. (By the way with all the SUNCOR and PetroCan/GULF service stations that I saw when I was back there a couple of weeks ago where can you people buy gasoline from non-government sources? I might have to push my crate more than a mile if I ever run out of gas in Ontario.) Donald Acton