It’s rather appropriate that Rodney “Fiddler” MacDonald and his apostles would choose to announce a bunch of new taxes on Maundy Thursday. Let’s face it, these guys (provincial governments) have been nailing us for years.
I can’t remember the last time a politician knocked on my door and, while asking for my support also said, “and by the way I’ll be raising your taxes and hiking user-fees.” Yet, since I cast my first vote in 1958, governments have, if nothing else, been ununcompromising in their relentless pursuit of my money. “Would you please cross your legs - we only have one spike left.”
Google Maundy Thursday, and you will get “Holy Thursday , in the Christian liturgical calendar is the feast or holy day falling on the Thursday before Easter that commemorates the Last Supper of Jesus Christ with the Apostles,” among other things. Hey, it beats thumbing through the Bible.
We all know in these days of political correctness we might bring down the wrath of the Human Rights Commission if we were to suggest such a thing as reading the Christian Bible. Maybe even a Jihad.
Speaking of the Last Supper, if they keep increasing user- fees (a nice way to raise taxes without saying the two dreaded words) the poor, the working poor and those of us on fixed incomes will soon forget what a good supper tastes like.
I recall covering the Dartmouth courts for the Dartmouth Free Press when the late and legendary Judge Martin Haley sentenced a young man to six months. Standing with his head down, he suddenly looked up and smiled, saying Six months without Kraft Dinner.” I know the feeling. I digress.
Governments, and I make no distinction between political labels, also like to slip things past us on long weekends. In this case, a four day weekend. They think our minds will be elsewhere and we will quickly forget the bad news. In this case, they extended the numbing period an additional eight days, with this last line of a Michael Baker 20-line Department of Finance news release, “A detailed summary of user-fee increases will be available at www.gov.ns.ca/finance.ca by April 1.
I have a question, Rodney, Michael, et al - why April 1? Who’s the fool in this exercise?
For the non-believers and those who get their politics through genetics, and bleed blue no matter what, the charade was even extended to the Province of Nova Scotia’s website. The March 20th Maundy Thursday edition listed the following news stories of note:
- Public Input Invited for water safety
- Weekly Traffic Advisories
- New Investment Opportunities for Homegrown Companies
- Sea Monster Exhibit Extended at Maritime Museum
The announcement of user-fee increases, taking an additional three million hard earned dollars out of our pockets yearly was nowhere to be found. I did a search to thwart their chicanery and came up with a copy of Michael Baker’s announcement..
The Senate along with another fiddler killed ancient Rome ….the Provincial Government is slowly killing us.
(Al Hollingsworth is a retired journalist who, in paraphrasing one of his heroes, Will Rogers, believes that when Joseph Howe started out, the purse was empt,y and that is as close as we have ever come to being even)
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