{"id":4074,"date":"2022-05-03T23:51:37","date_gmt":"2022-05-04T03:51:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thisiswilmot.ca\/?page_id=4074"},"modified":"2022-05-03T23:51:37","modified_gmt":"2022-05-04T03:51:37","slug":"a-stop-sign-chat","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/thisiswilmot.ca\/?page_id=4074","title":{"rendered":"A Stop Sign Chat"},"content":{"rendered":"

Bacon Scrapins<\/em><\/strong> \u2013 \u201c<\/strong>A Stop Sign Chat\u201d<\/h4>\n

by Barry S. Wolfe<\/p>\n

Bacon Scrapins<\/em><\/strong> are the little bits of meat left in the greasy fry pan. They\u2019re tasty, but the \u2018nutrition\u2019 needs searching for. This tale is a bacon scrapin<\/em><\/strong>.<\/h5>\n

Warm days with clear blue skies are not to be wasted and this one brought me, and several others, out for a walk around our \u20189-stop-signs\u2019 sized neighbourhood. You can walk it in about an hour if you keep a steady pace, but stops to chat could take you all day. Which is how I met up with Harold at a corner stop sign.<\/p>\n

Harold is retired from a successful career in business and is deemed by those in our community to be a steady, usually discreet, well-informed gentleman. So, after the required courtesies about weather, I was surprised when he said, \u201cI guess they won\u2019t be replacing these stop signs anymore if that fellow at Queen\u2019s Park has his way!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat? No stop signs? What are you talking about? I asked.<\/p>\n

\u201cWell he\u2019s decided to not charge for car license stickers. Just in time for the election coming up in June. Those license renewal fees were to help pay for building and maintaining roads and vehicle infrastructure \u2013 like stop signs.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI heard something about, \u2018You know better how to spend your money than the government.\u2019 so he\u2019s giving it back.\u201d I mused.<\/p>\n

Harold was getting unusually wound-up. I could tell by his eyes. \u201cGiving it back? We know better? We know better how to design, build and maintain roads? I ran a business of over 200 people and none of us knew how to build a road, or run a hospital either. Government isn\u2019t a business!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, if government isn\u2019t a business, what\u2019s it for?\u201d I probed.<\/p>\n

\u201cHumph! A business picks a target of select customers and it\u2019s designed to make a profit from them, as large a profit as it can get away with on the market. Business won\u2019t provide many of the services that only governments can take the risk on for everyone. A business is accountable only to its owners, stockholders, and investors. They want profit. Governments have to provide their services to everyone and they don\u2019t need to make a profit. In fact, in many cases, they don\u2019t even break even on their costs through user fees, so we pay taxes.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cUser fees and taxes!\u201d I added.<\/p>\n

\u201cSure. You pay taxes at a rate that your income puts you at. The more you make, the higher the rate you pay, it\u2019s called \u2018equitable by ability\u2019. Not equal, just \u2018equitable\u2019. In return for taxes, everyone has equal access to essential services, like hospitals, freshwater, police and fire and emergency services, roads \u2013 and stop signs. Fees are paid by some users!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, what\u2019s the problem with eliminating car license sticker fees? It will just come out of our taxes we pay.\u201d I suggested.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll out of our taxes. The users\u2019 sticker fees were intended to be paid as a top-up by those who drive on the roads. It helps pay for the small government offices nearby where you can get government documents completed easily. No fees, you watch they\u2019ll start closing offices, making it harder to get service. Then they\u2019ll privatize it so some insider can make a profit \u2013 like the 407 toll road. License fees subsidize road signs that have to be replaced. We\u2019ll have to pay more in taxes to make up for the $1.1 billion lost user fees. Nothing\u2019s free!\u201d Harold exclaimed.<\/p>\n

\u201cIsn\u2019t it all just the same amount of money all coming from the same place – us?\u201d I asked.<\/p>\n

\u201cAbsolutely! Except, this blonde guy in Queen\u2019s Park is trying to \u2018buy our vote\u2019 with Ontario\u2019s money. It\u2019s the old con of \u2018bait-and-switch\u2019 by a Con. politician\u201d he concluded.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat\u2019s next?\u201d I mused.<\/p>\n

Harold had a suggestion. \u201cWhat\u2019s next? These guys will use the no fee for a dangerous item like a vehicle, as a rationale to eliminate any fees to register things even more dangerous \u2013 like guns.<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, Harold, that makes my day warm and fuzzy!\u201d I commented as I turned, waved and continued my walk with a scowl.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bacon Scrapins \u2013 \u201cA Stop Sign Chat\u201d by Barry S. Wolfe Bacon Scrapins are the little bits of meat left in the greasy fry pan. They\u2019re tasty, but the \u2018nutrition\u2019 needs searching for. This tale is a bacon scrapin. Warm days with clear blue skies are not to be wasted […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":4072,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-4074","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thisiswilmot.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/4074","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thisiswilmot.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thisiswilmot.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thisiswilmot.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thisiswilmot.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4074"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thisiswilmot.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/4074\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4075,"href":"https:\/\/thisiswilmot.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/4074\/revisions\/4075"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thisiswilmot.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/4072"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thisiswilmot.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4074"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}