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Blupete's Weekly Commentary


August 15th, 1999.

"Benevolent Government."

I noticed from the case reports that come across my desk that a group of animal breeders have brought on an application before the federal court. It seems they do not like paying all these taxes which our free-spending politicians have levied. I think the nature of the court application is that these farmers should not have to pay tax on money spent on the raising of their kids. (I speak of human children, not sheep, -- though all too many children of the past generation, us, think like sheep.) Now, I forget exactly which particular sections of the Income Tax Act which this group of breeding gainsayers seek to impugn, but they plead constitutional law, you see they think their constitutional rights have been breached by the tax sucking government. Well, if they are against taxes, I'm with them all the way, 100 per cent -- "Dam right." But they probably have no problem with the government collecting taxes, they simply would like to pay less than the rest of us. As I have now declared, I'm all for less taxes; but, my sense of British justice leads me to think that any one particular group should not have an edge on the rest of us.

I am told that this group pleads section 15 of the Canadian Charter of Rights & Freedoms, "Every individual is equal before and under the law, etc., etc." This is a section from a law "we" made and which took effect back in 1985. Well, I think, -- speaking as a lawyer with 25 years of private practice and one who has had a particular interest in constitutional law -- this section is, as law (worse yet as constitutional law) an abysmal mess; it contradicts itself out of existence. (Same can be said of the entire bill. The people who wrote or promoted this bill back in the early part 1980s, knew nothing of constitutional law and, in particular, little of constitutional history.)

The fact of the matter is that any group who wishes some favour from the government, seeks, in fact, a favour at the expense of the rest of us. Government is not a mystical fountain spurting gifts, a boon to seeking supplicants; the government, by means of its coercive collection methods, takes real goods and services from you and me, -- without so much as a "please and thank-you" -- And throws it into the air, so to speak, for the quick and stealthy to grab. All too many think that the goods and services being supplied by government is pumped in from another universe or dimension; it is important for one to keep in mind that everything, I mean everything, is run on the savings and the work of ordinary Canadians; and, when, the savings run out and "we all have gone a slumming," misery in the land will be much increased.

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Peter Landry

August, 1999 (2019)