Alone With My Questions

Why do I feel so alone? It's not that I don't have people around me. It's not that type of alone. It's just nobody thinks like me. If I were to give my opinion most of the time I would be considered a very negative person. I'm not really. I simply see what is wrong with our society and I don't want to blindly follow the norm.

I'm always asking questions. Why do we do this? Is this the best way to do it? What might be another, more efficient way of doing this? The problem seems to be that most people can't get past the first question. "It's just the way it is", "That's the way it's always been", or "Just do it and get it over with." Those are not appropriate answers. My point is, if society does something and there is no reason as to why we do it, maybe we shouldn't be forced to do it. Or more importantly, if society does something and there 'is' a better way to do it, why would we continue to do it the old way?

For example:

Why do we have to pay for the only things we need to survive when such a high percentage of our income is taxed?

The only thing a human being needs to survive are;

1. Shelter

2. Water

3. Food

4. Heat

Shelter

Shelter is number one on the list because you wont make 3 hours in Canada during a -40 degree night here without some form of shelter. I can't speak for any other countries directly but I know I have to pay for any house, condo, apartment, trailer home, motor home or anything else I choose to live in. And then on top of that, anything I do buy will have a tax applied to it. That doesn't matter if it's property tax on a house or vehicle registration on a motor home. It's all taxed and it's a basic necessity required to survive. Even if you live in an apartment you're paying the tax because that cost is factored into your bill each month.

Water

Water is second on the list because you won't make it 3 days without being able to drink water. Living in Canada we have a fair bit of fresh water. Okay we have a lot of fresh water. We have access to 20% of the worlds water supply. That number jumps down to 7% because the rest is in lakes, underground aquifers, and glaciers. But a 7% global supply of renewable fresh water is quite an amount of water for only 36 million people.

Water is pretty affordable here. I don't pay very much for it to be delivered to my house. Maybe $125 a year. That doesn't mean everybody has it easy like I do. There are thousands of people across Canada without access to running water. Many of them are First Nations communities. This is not right and this country pays enough taxes to be able to pay for everyone to have access to fresh water.

Here is a video from CBC with some good numbers and interviews on the lack of fresh water in some areas of Canada.

Food

Food is next because you could probably last about 3 weeks without food if your lucky. Eventually though, you will need it. I'm sure it's not just me but the price of food is skyrocketing lately. Not only is the price going up, but the quality is going down. All of this food made from chemicals, GMO's, and fake sugar. I don't think you would even want to know what natural flavor could be.

Why do all of our cities have landscaping done with trees and plants that don't produce any food. This is insane and it often feels like I am the only one to realize this. Why isn't there a row of apple or plum trees running down a sidewalk instead of an ornamental tree. Wouldn't it be nice to be walking down the street and just pluck an apple off a tree for a snack. There could be blueberry bushes, raspberry, blackberry, strawberry, etc. The sad thing is we are already paying for the landscaping, just not the free food that comes with it.

Heat

Heat is last on my list because you can survive for quite a long time without it. Even in the winter. But eventually something will happen. You will get wet and need to heat yourself up rather quickly. Without heat things could go very bad, very quickly.

The heating costs throughout Canada are amazingly high. Weather it be electricity, natural gas, furnace oil, wood, or pellets. The cost is about the same no matter which direction you go. It makes no sense that corporations can come in and cut down all of "our" trees for profit and only have to pay a small fee. These companies should have to pay a tax that covers the cost of heating for everyone. Heating by electricity is madness because every province here has a monopoly corporation and they can charge whatever they want. Sure their price is regulated by the government but when they make billions of dollars in profit each year there is something wrong. I know they pay money to the government from their profits but that is the problem. Essentially that money is coming from tax payers who have already paid their taxes. It's a win win for the tax collector.

Electricity

Electricity isn't on my list of necessities to survive but it certainly makes life a whole lot easier and with the technology we have today it should be considered necessary for everyone to have at least some.

Like I said, you don't need this to survive (unless it is your heat source). But, it allows for better hygiene, cooking better meals, lighting during long winter months, heat, communication, and much more. What blows my mind is the monopoly corporations. It just doesn't make sense. Quebec sold 30 TWh in exports last year. Just Quebec. That was extra electricity that could have been given to the people here who can't afford to pay their bills. Sure the company needs to make a profit. It did! 3.1 billion dollars in profit. Some money goes back to the government for them to squander away on wasteful things. Other money went into investments which will make the corporation even more money in the future. This is all good but the citizens of the province need to be taken care of first. It's funny this silly province brags about having the cheapest electricity rate in North America but it also has one of the highest tax rates. It's all just proportioned so every person has to pay the same in the end.

The wasteful spending.

I really can't stand paying taxes. I wrote a little about this last week but it really is on my mind almost all the time. Probably because I'm always paying a tax in some way or another. It's not that I would mind paying for things if I knew exactly what I was paying for. Or if I had a choice. That's the part that really bugs me. If the people who make the payment could somehow come together and decide what we really needed to pay for, I'm sure every person, in this country at least, could be well taken care of. Instead we need all these politicians making departments for services we don't really need because they're buddies with the guy who will get the contract.

There are things that we don't "need" that are a good service to pay for. Some of them might include education, sanitation, transportation, health care, some defense (which would probably be much more efficient if it were privatized), and there is probably more but you get the point. These services shouldn't be mandatory. They should be a choice. If someone doesn't like to support the military then they shouldn't have to pay for it. That system seems to work on a global scale, why not on a smaller one. If a country doesn't want to be part of the United Nations they don't have to. But don't expect the UN to help out if something bad happens in the country that didn't pay the entry fee. Why couldn't that system work at the municipality or provincial scale?

In my area here there are like 4-5 school boards. Each board has their own group of criminals at the head of those boards making well over an average salary I'm sure. Can the people who pay for these boards decide to consolidate into one board since all the rules are the same and there really isn't a need for all of them. No! The law has already been written that there will be 5 boards and they can make whatever rule they want. It's so bad for schooling here, apparently you have to pay a daycare fee during lunch hour because the teachers aren't responsible for the students at that time. My son is only young so I haven't had to deal with it first hand but I know many people who are stuck paying fees and taxes for services they don't even want just so their kid can get an education. I have to pay a school tax because I own a house. Okay I can agree with that. Children should get an education and this is a way to pay for it. But I don't want to pay for all these boards that just sit around making 4 times as much money as me because it's written on some piece of paper that I have to pay for it. I'm really just sick of it.

To finish off, it really just boils down to getting our priorities straight. We don't need a very large proportion of the things we pay taxes for. Canada hasn't even been paying income tax for 100 years yet. It started at 4% and now, with all the taxes factored in since then, is getting around 48-50%. It's really not necessary and we would probably all be much happier not having to run around working trying to pay for all these services we don't even need. While at the same time trying to pay for the services we do need with the little money we have left after half has been robbed from us.

Until this change can happen, I'll just keep my thoughts to myself, continue to do what I can to change what I can, and hopefully everybody will eventually follow.