Aptenobytes

Election 2006 second post

OK, so I haven't been posting much. Sue me. I'm a jeweller in December swallowed up in the busiest season of the year, combined with having to fight two simultaneous battles. The first battle I've already discussed, the handgun ban. The second is also a reason to want to see the Liberals go down in flames, but it's more business oriented.

On November 25th, Bill C-259 got royal assent. That means it became law of the land. The act was entitled "an Act to amend the Excise Tax Act (elimination of the excise tax on jewellery)". One would assume that such an act would actually eliminate the excise tax on jewellery. Just one teensy little problem. The Budget Act of 2005 amended the Excise Tax Act also. After Bill C-259 passed in the House of Commons, the Liberals passed the budget act, which then leapfrogged past Bill C-259. Bill C-259 then stalled in the Senate until it passed in the dying days of this parliamentary session.

The amendment from the budget act did was two things. The first was to set out a schedule to reduce the excise tax on jewellery by 2% a year for five years until it disappeared. The second thing it did, and the truly nasty bit was to renumber the sections that apply to jewelllery from Schedule 1, Section 5a through 5b to Section(s) 5 - 5.3.

What did this insidious change do? It allowed the bureaucrats in the Excise Tax department to claim that since Bill C-259 changed only Section 5 of Schedule 1 of the Excise Tax. Not Sections 5.1 - 5.3 that the net effect was that it raised the excise tax on clocks back up to 10$, and removed the tax only on watches. Not any other type of jewellery.

Will the interpretation of the CRA stand? No. Any judge will interpret the will of parliament clearly, but in the meantime it is a clear example of the Liberal bureaucracy at work, obstructing the will of the elected members of a minority parliament.

I am so fucking incensed at yet another example of a bureaucracy that is willing to say 'fuck you' to parliament, that I shake with anger every time I think about it.

This is typical of how the Liberal Party operates. They have appointed these bureaucrats over the last umpteen years, and they do the bidding of their political masters.

As repugnant as the Conservatives are, I'd like to see them shake up the entrenched bureaucracy a bit.

Another reason that I'm going to bite the bullet and vote for a party I hate. :(

Election 2006 first post.

Unlike many anarchists, I vote. I'm not proud of it, and I understand the many arguments to be made for refusing to vote, but I don't agree with them. The government has too much control over our lives to not use one of the few tools we have to affect them.

So, you might ask, who are you going to vote for this election. It pains me to admit, but this election I am going to vote for a politician I hate, in order to defeat a politician I truly detest. I am going to vote for Laurie Hawn in order to defeat Anne McLellan.

What's that? What the hell is an anarchist doing voting for a right winger? That's just fucked up.

Yes. It is.

I am voting against the Liberal Party. I am voting against the Annie "get your guns" McLellan. There is no more perfect example of the statist than Ms. McLellan. Our Minister for Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness is pretty comfortable not only banning handguns, but also instituting all sorts of intrusions into our daily lives, like Bill C-74. It's a difficult decision for me, but it was sealed when Paul Martin announced that he was planning to ban handguns.

I've posted previously about my stance on the right to bear arms.... What the end result of this intrusion into my right to own guns will be I don't know. I do know that it affects me in a very direct way, and it is so much at odds with what I believe about personal responsibility, justice, and all of my core beliefs, that it trumps all for this election. I know that Denise Savoie will win in the other riding I am eligible to vote in, so if I could only vote here, I'd probably vote Green, or spoil my ballot.

However, with a race as close as the one in Edmonton, I feel compelled to do my best to oust the nasty piece of work that is Anne McLellan.

Blech. I suspect that on January 23rd I'll need more than one drink before I go to vote. Trading a larger evil for a smaller one leaves a nasty taste in my mouth.

I may change my mind, but right now I am so mad about the handgun ban, that I am spitting tacks.

Another december 6th

And I feel the way I did last year .

Once again Wendy Cukier has popped her head up to take advantage of the deaths of the victims of L'Ecole Polytechnique. What truly has disgusted me is that Wendy has been completely silent on another similar tragedy;the underprivileged women of both Vancouver and Edmonton who have died at the hands of serial killers.

What all of these deaths have in common is mentally ill men who have projected their self hate onto women. That is the issue that has to be solved. How do we solve the problems of sexism and mental illness? How do we address the social issues that leave some women exposed to these kind of dangers?

The fact that 14 women died on December 6th was tragic. The deaths of at least 20 women around Edmonton, and 61 around Vancouver are just as tragic.