There's No Such Thing As Free

There is no such thing as free health care or government money. You pay for it handsomely every day by submitting to taxation. In fact, it's possible that you pay considerably more for health care than you will ever see in benefit in many cases. The government literally uses taxes (your money) to feed, clothe, shelter and provide health care to individuals who are in the country illegally while offering to incarcerate citizens who do not fund them by way of taxation.

If you have been in a Canadian coffee shop you've likely heard the rumblings; in Alberta it is more like a thunderous roar. Unless you are The Laurentian Elite or a CBC newscaster you are well aware of the state of the current Canadian affair. More and more, Canadians are growing increasingly unhappy with all sides of the political theatrics presented by those who continue growing further daily from their task of representing them.

You can't get a straight answer from any politician. So hungry are they for the other party's lunches they are devouring each other at a pace that can never allow for them to actually represent the "umbrella" they propose to. Because of that they are timid to speak the truth or to form a concrete opinion on anything that hasn't been vetted through microscopic scrutiny. Even then being sure to fancy dress their linguistics in such a fashion as to befuddle and confuse.

Andrew Scheer finally spoke the truth that is on top of mind inside those very same Canadian coffee shops when he talked about the illegal blockades and it cost him a seat at the table with the other puppets.

It's nice of Scheer to finally find his spine now that he's leaving but up till that point he was far too busy trying to sit at that same table, that he spent a lot of time patronizing the electorate as he attempting to woo Liberal voters to the Conservative tent.

Trouble is, they don't need Liberal voters to vote Conservative because the party upholds Liberal ideologies. This is supposed to be about effective policy not social media justice. Present an intelligent platform that is cost manageable and most Canadian couldn't care less what kind of socks you wear.

In absence of a solid plan though, socks will do apparently.

That's how far removed they have grown from the rest of us but we are not without the blame. Plenty of people did sure like those socks after all.

The fact that Scheer won the popular vote should say something about the way the deck is considerably stacked in favour of those who live in Ontario and Quebec. In fact, most of Canada can see it except those that tend to benefit from the stack.

The greater issue boils down to expectation versus reality.

It's nice to hear the promises made, to see money spent on the things that we personally like but we have been offered so many unlikely Utopian platitudes by these same politicians that we have an unfair expectation of what we should receive from the government in the first place. And, they bank on that to connive you into thinking you've voted in your best interest. When, in fact, it is simply the illusion of choice alone.

These days people are screaming about cuts in Alberta while Ottawa keeps cranking up the national debt. Ottawa in return is strangling the Alberta Energy Industry which creates enough corporate tax revenue to service that same national debt. In lieu of that tax input from industry we must make up the difference ourselves.

Most Canadians are paying somewhere between 42% - 48% of their wages to taxes. The remaining taxed at the checkout, the gas pump, basically every time you try to spend it in some way or fashion. The government takes so much in taxes that they might as well be holding your wallet.

Yet, we scream and beg the government to spend more on more and more.

Where does the money come from?

Gee, I wonder.

As the politicians scramble to keep their promises so as to keep your votes, they rack up debt, debt that they must somehow make up or fall to their debtors. The only way to do so is to increase taxes because none of the people that are in charge are actually using money to invest in anything that might be profitable. There is no investment for the purpose of income. They simply borrow from banks who are certain to profit from the interest on the loans and continue to plow more and more into the gargantuan expectations that taxpayers have, due in no small part to what they have been offered.

• There's no such thing as free. You pay for it in one way or another.

• There is no such thing as government money. It's your taxes.

As much as it might be nice to have a hospital on every street corner you and I can't afford to build one and neither can the government - not without our money.

As wonderful as it might be to have the best paid doctors in the nation it certainly hasn't done anything for the efficacy of basic care in Alberta. By limiting the amount of patients that a Doctor might see in a day it might just cut down on the practice of triple booking appointments and lead to longer time spent with patients.

Only time will tell, but in the meantime, you have to ask yourself - can I pay for it?

Can you afford for your taxes to go up so that a Doctor might keep his current wage or receive a 2% increase?

If you've recently lost your job or been forced to take a pay cut because of the the economy it may seem fitting that other's might also.

Adding to the stresses of the public service system is the fact that multitudes of people simply walk across the border on a regular basis and the government is quick to use "government money" to feed, clothe, shelter and offer medical assistance to them. That means that you paid for that to happen, your money through your paying of taxes.

Can you afford to pay for more people outside of your own family?

I simply can't state it enough. Too many people seem to think that government money comes from thin air. If you happen to be one of these people I dare you to prove otherwise - I'll gladly have every penny of tax I have ever paid back in which case.

The trouble with taxes are - if you agreed to pay them then pay them you must or face incarceration. Which makes sense, if you can't afford to pay your taxes you should probably be locked up at the expense of your fellow taxpayers.

Where is that facepalming statue again?

I'm not saying we can't afford to have the best health care. I wouldn't mind spending a bit of money to keep the ship in shape or help drive innovation, to have enough front line nurses to offer efficacious basic care. We can certainly, but, we might have to let go of a few administrators in the process or ask doctors to take a bit of a pay cut.

It also wouldn't hurt if we stopped the monetary bleed of outside foreign aid. Canadians are hardly seen to benefit from affordable housing units in India or a toll bridge in Chicago that barely makes enough revenue to cover the maintenance.

Not to mention the self-devouring national equalization system that is about as fair as the electoral one.

Instead we elect participants in a system that will see them attempt to charm the world by any means necessary instead of looking after the people who put them on the plane in the first place.

It's a vicious cycle that will continue until we change the way we view government.

Government should be the mechanism by which the day to day operations of the nation are maintained and continually seen to function. They should require as little taxation as possible to provide the basic requirements of the nation as per their human rights. The rest is up to us to provide without impediment.

The government should not be our babysitter or our parents, doling out the things that we need whenever we ask and we should stop asking for more than we can afford. It's time to move out of our government's house and high time for them to exit ours.

After all, the relationship isn't proving to be beneficial to either party, each one simply feeding on the other and their unrealistic expectations.

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