Fairness.ca

This isn't a timely post in any way. However, I feel I've ignored it long enough. Also, I may as well take advantage of the snow day I have been awarded (Southern Ontarians continue to labour under the misconception that they must withstand brutal and punishing winters. I continue to encourage them to visit Winnipeg, where they will be humbled before the terrible greatness of God. At least we haven't called in the army yet.)

Fairness.ca is a website launched by the Government of Ontario. The intention is to educated Ontarians of the cross we all bear. It is one response to a multi-party resolution passed last summer that called on the federal government to address the fiscal imbalance. Simply put, it's the last thing Canada needs.

The website provides shocking factoids that will leave you breathless if you carry an Ontarian pulse. For example, that Ontarians pay 43 cents of every tax dollar collected by the federal government. 43! But don't we only represent only aprox. 40% of the country's population? That's slightly more than our proportionate share. Next someone is going to tell me that people in the +$100 000 income bracket pay more taxes than their proportionate share of the population. Nothing would surprise me anymore.

It also pillories the so-called cynics with hard-hitting myth expositions. For instance:

Myth: The main reason that provinces are facing budgetary problems today is because they cut taxes to unsustainable levels in the 1990s, not because of a fiscal imbalance between provinces and territories and the federal government. (A very reasonable explanation that has been argued convincingly)

Reality: More than enough taxes are being collected from the Canadian taxpayer to sustain public services.

We'll take their word for it, I guess.

If you aren't fully convinced yet supportive quotations are provided... by Maritimers! Ta da. If Maritimers feel Ontario ought to get back more of what it sends to Ottawa, than surely there are no grounds to disagree. Never mind that those Maritimers belong to the Atlantic Institute for Market Studies, a right-wing free-market think tank (Fraser Institute on donairs) that is ideologically opposed to wealth-redistribution schemes.

No party has opposed this little endeavour. I nevertheless find it embarassing that a Liberal premier is behind something so simultaneously conservative and provincial.

It's high time the Federal HOC passes a multi-party resolution asking that the provinces recognize and respect the concept of Canada.