This is so true for so many people. It is only getting worse every year.

http://www.thinkgeek.com/product/b2ae/

Carbon Tax makes it worse…first the HST, maybe this regressive tax should be next for BC Residents to get rid of??

Oh so true,bleed the people then ask and recieve $120 million tax credit from the Government blood suckers. In the north we can’t just jump on a bus or train to work, but we pay the price over and over again for those that can.

The high cost of gas/fuel. High cost of groceries, high prices for other commercial goods and services, high cost of taxes, ie; Municipal, Provincial, Federal, and of course the high cost of Government in general, and the high cost of all services delivered by pseudo Government entities such as ICBC, BC Hydro, BC Transit, BC Ferries, etc; etc;, is breaking our backs, and will ultimately break the Province.

It seems no politician of any stripe will take any action to look out for the interests of the average BC/Canadian citizen. Why’s that???

All they can do is tax and spend. We can get monkeys to do that.

Its time we started to get some benefit from all this high priced help.

The days of feeding tax dollars to money hungry corporations has to end. We need some fairness and balance in the system. We are NOT here to be slaves of the corporate welfare bums, and the politicians who support them.

We need to get rid of some of these Government entities that basically are nothing more than holding pens for political patronage.

Why do we need Airport Authorities, Transit Authorities, Hydro, ICBC, who are nothing more than a front, and tax collection system for the Government. All the entities are set up to help fleece the average citizen.

These entities have the authority to charge us for the services that we alreay own, which is bad enough, but the real sinnnger is the fact that they can raise the cost of these services any time they chose, even though none of them have been elected to represent us.

All the people who run these entities are political appointments and dance to their boss’s drum.

That is just a small part of what’s wrong with this Province,. We need to make some serious changes, before these running dogs, kill of the goose that laid the golden egg.

Lets start with IPG. Shut it down. It has no useful purpose and costs us all kinds of money.

Palopu, these are interesting ideas, but what do you suggest we replace them with? You don’t want ICBC? Fine, let’s go back to private insurance that has to make a profit margin and does by gouging their customers. You don’t want BC Ferries? Fine, let’s go back to the old Black Ball Lines that used to ply the waters of the coast, who overcharged and had questionable safety records. You want to get rid of BC Hydro? Fine, privatize the electrical grid, but don’t look shocked (pun intended) when your electrical bill skyrockets.
I’m all for finding ways to eliminate a layer of bureaucracy where possible and IPG is a damned fine place to start, but to turn back the clock and privatize some of our provincial systems because you hate all government workers is insane. Don’t destroy some of the good aspects of crown corporations, whether built by WAC Bennet or the NDP, in your haste to lay waste to the government; just look for ways of improving the “golden goose”.

One way to improve the “golden goose” would be us stop govt from using them as a bank for general revenue. As Palopu stated they overcharge us [hidden tax] so the provincial government can withdraw those additional “earnings”. It’s no wonder they thought that it was a good idea to reduce corporate taxes by 1/3 while they were producing deficit budgets……

I am not saying that we don’t need these entities. What I am saying is, is it necessary to have them set up in such a way, that they can basically tax us, under the guise of needing the money to provide services, and then have the Government skim the money into general revenue.

What we end up with is a merry go round.

Perhaps it would be better to have these entities come under the Government with clear accounting practices, so that if they do not provide services, at a reasonable cost, then the Government and the Minister responsible is held to account.

As it now stands, the Government has downloaded all of their responsibility to these entities, and then sits back and collects the money. The Government gets a free ride, and the taxpayer gets it in the ear.

The people who run these entities are responsible to a board of directors, and the CEO in most cases is a Government appointment. However these people have the right to assess fee’s (taxes) even though they have not been elected, and this brings us into taxation without representation. Which is BS. The appointments to the Board of Directors, on the surface seems ok, however if you look into them you begin to see that they are in fact political.

Northern Development Initiative Trust is a good example. They were funded by monies from the sale of BC Rail, and now have a board of directors and a CEO, and they loan money to various and sundry organizations, and business’s. This money is in fact taxpayers dollars, and it is being loaned and spent, by people who have no elected responsibility to the people.

Could not the Government have seen to the distribution of this money. Is it necessary to have all these entities, with the high paid help, spending and collecting tax dollars without the attendant responsibility of answering to the taxpayers.????

Palopu,my apologies if I misread your previous post, but it sounded like you wanted to throw the proverbial baby out with the bathwater. Now, however, I can see that, like me, you appreciate the concept of a crown entity that provides a service or product at a cost that is reflected by the agragate wealth of the entire province. Who doesn’t, except those hair-shirts who still believe that “free” enterprise and only “free” enterprise can do so efficiently.

Of course, the problem is that there is no such thing as “free” enterprise: witness the billion dollar subsidies to the oil patch. Or the wailing and carping of local developers who are discontent with the outcome of their supposed “investment” in the bidding process for the wood innovation centre.

Yes, Polapu, changes are needed, on that we can agree. The wealth of this incredible province is not being shared equitably.