Today I had the honour of delivering nearly 20,000 signatures calling for school tax relief in Saskatchewan. Saskatchewan Party MLA Yogi Huyghebaert was on hand to accept them and will table them in the legislature when the time comes. A great time was had by all.
We did, however, get some blow back from the government who pretended to be offended that we didn't deliver the petitions to them. Three things:
- We made a conscious decision in the Regina office NOT to deliver petitions to them. It’s somewhat insulting to go the the government cap in hand when they simply ignore or discredit the people who signed the petition.
- In the past when we have presented petitions, the government has refused to receive them. One example is last year in the lead up to the tax hike budget.
- As an organization we have to give credit where credit is due – in this case the Saskatchewan Party deserves credit for at least saying the right things.
29 comments:
Archie, you've crossed the line. Keep posting though, it's entertaining.
We're not going to allow people to make personal attacks.
Archie is one of those guys with head injuries that live in the 80's. It's quite sad. He should get help.
You show no respect for our government.Everyone makes fun of Mr.Calvert and the NDP. Mr'Calvert has more class in his little finger than you and Sask party have.Go kiss ass the Sask party because no one else believes in what you do. Why should farmers have to pay property taxes? They don't pay anything else. All the other taxpayers that really keep the ship afloat should carry the farmers too. As always. They are so damn important.........ask them they'll be glad to tell you.They should be ashamed of themselves. If I had their income I'd give mine to charity. What the hell do they want? They right off everything including every tax they pay. They get a fuel rebate. What the hell do the rest of us get? They bitch about people on welfare and they also get a GST rebate. If they don't want to support the schools that educated most them and their kids who's gonna pay? Most(I grew up with them) get a good accoutant and don't diddly squawk for taxes.I for one do not feel like subsidizing them. They are not as imporant as they think they are. Mining,oil,lumber,manufacturing and taxpayers foot most of the bills in this province. It isn't farmers that keep us going anymore. We cannot depend on an industry that literally owes everything to the weather. And it's been going that way since the 60's.You better think before your mouth goes in gear. The whole Sask Party are farmers so why as working person who actually pays taxes(1250.00 Education tax on my lot) vote for the SAsk party. And another thing most of the agricultural programs that protect farmers were started by Tommy Douglas and the CCF/NDP. But they empowered farmers to be able to sell grain to Russia and China...........big markets that were opened up by the NDP. Now they bite the hand that helped them. Not with a blank cheque.........sorry that didn't work 15 years ago it's not going to work now. Someone has to foot the bill and sure as hell ain'the farm community. They don't subsidize themselves........do they?
Nobody asked you to vote for the Saskatchewan party. Nobody is saying they shouldn't fund schools. Do you realize that only Saskatchewan pays for schools off property taxes to the extent that we do?
Several provinces don't have school taxes to begin with. Manitoba is gradually reducing theirs, and Alberta has a province-wide mill rate.
While the petition has been signed by rural and urban people, rural people say they are happy to pay higher taxes because of the cost of maintaining schools.
Your school tax bill is too high. Get with the program. It's only Sask that taxes that way.
Other forms of taxation are more efficient and more progressive. But you don't seem to understand this.
The Saskparty is a Tory Party nothing they phases me. Dragging a terminally ill cancer patient into the legislature to try and get a drug that adds 5 mos to his life if he's lucky.........that crosses the line. Now the Saka-tories are trying to get a makeover and to make people think they are defenders of medicare. There are still some of us out there that remember the wasteland Canada was under the Tories......you probably weren't born. Harper is doing the same thing as Mulroney and the others did. Promising anything to get elected. Mostly cash bribes to us stupid tax payers. You're right this ain't the 80's and we don't have double digit unemployment or double digit intrest rates.Thank whatever. Tory times are hard times history has shown that.
We have as a province cut taxes just in Regina alone,the buisness tax by 15,000,000.00 a year!! What taxes are fair? The only tax I see as fair is the one I pay,no one else wants to pay.Farmers don't want to pay .............businessmen don't want to pay.Oil companies don't want to pay.......Who the hells left. The rest of us are footing the bill.
I think you are mistaken. This is not a "tory" website. I think we've made that clear.
Start a business and hire 20 people, and you can pay all the taxes you want.
After all, there is no limit to the amount of taxes you pay.
Go ahead and write them a cheque for another thousand if you think they are cash-starved.
Unless, of course, you think OTHER people should pay more.
Why don't you start a business. You know why you don't? It's easier doing this blog. Right from the safety of your house......No overhead. Also 85% of new businesses fail. Another thing with all the tax cuts to businesses here in Regina/ How many more jobs were created? Not many. Why didn't you speak out about the hours legislation the NDP tried to implement. It would've created more full time jobs and these workers would've payed taxes,but oh no. The Saska-tory party said it would all businesses. The only businesses that would fall under the legislation would have to have over twenty employees. Over 80% of businesses were not affected. And why did you not give the tax petition to a government MLA. That shows you are tory. You say one thing but your actions betray you. People like the benefits of working and farming in Sask but think someone else should pay for it. I've been on community Assoc in the past and have seen the mentality of people and gov'ts.You would not believe how far in debt Regina is. I've heard it's more tha twenty million dollars in the red. Go down to city hall and see what these elected officials are doing. As far I know the biggest mistake our NDP made was spudco.This is not what I call scandal you may disagree. What the Liberals did is bribery and scandal.What Devine and his buddies did was a scandal.What the Ralph Klein did was scandalist. Do you know what he did? He walked into a homeless shelter and threw money and told them to get a job...........oh yes he was drunk and still is.That's scandal. Who the hell in the NDP benefitted from spudco!!?? The farmers did, and they went in fully knowing the risk.They smelled money. No mutual fund or bank would bail them out but the taxpayers bailed the farmers out again. That was a waste of my tax dollars to the farmers. So what in your infinite wisdom do you look at when deciding what is waste and what is not. Tax cuts are not wise when we are in such high debt. The auditor says our taxes are high.........okay. But what doesn't say is if we cut taxes where is the money going to come from? Do like Mayor Fiacco and his buddies in city hall did one year. We're going to freeze taxes and still have the same services.Right. So you know what they did? They didn't budget for snow removal. Their plan??? Don't move the snow. Their rocket scientists. Next dumb idea. The pension shortfall in the city pension plan was highest for mangagers............60,000.00 a year help. How do we pay for it?Well we give the managers and city council a 4% raise( 1 year) and pickup the pension shortfall for themselves. We then penalize the unionized workers with a small raise. And tell everyone we're looking out for the taxpayers. This does not compute to me. That's city halls brilliance. One of these days Fiacco gonna be gone. He makes 84,000.00 a year. In the last 3 years he got close to a 10,000.00 raise. Now you tell me you're the taxpayers federation.Why in the hell don't defend the real taxpayers.Did you even look into this. No. You have no insight. And next year they will probably get another raise,the managers that is.
Archie: you are definitely not an economist. You are a disciple of Tommy Douglas, maybe even a peer, but you are definitely not an economist. I would also venture to guess that you draw a government pension, and that you have never been in the private sector, at least no self-employed. I've met your type before, angry old men that have told me to "move to Alberta if you don't like it here" when it's pointed out that the SK socialist experiment doesn't work. And I am thinking about it, as jobs leave, old friends that moved away no longer come back for Christmas... the only hope is that Archie's generation .... well, I stay here becasue things will get better: but not by returning to socialism, by freedom, by encouraging people to reach their potential, and I think that the current atmosphere in SK is just the opposite, this gov stiffles initiative and innovation; Archie, its Christmas! Let freedom ring! Archie, have you ever tried marijuana? Seriously, it might help you lighten up and see things from a new perspective.
You're not an economist either.I'm not angry I want justice .........smoking reefers has nothing to do with it.It hasn't done you any good.It's clouded your thinking. You're still an angry young unemployed tory.
Archie, I'm not unemployed. "Young" and "angry" are relative concepts, and I can safely state that, compared to you, I am very young and not at all angry. I'm also presently sobor. And spare us your "justice", it's more like envy and hate, and your type is so zealous that the destructive and redistributive ends justify the means, causing nothing but mediocritry, poverty, disappointment (and line-ups).
p.s: Merry Christmas, Archie!
Archie you have been reading comic books so much you sound like Jughead or Moose. The farmers in Sask. pay almost 30% of the school tax yet are only 3% of the population. If you still want cheap food you better wake up.
Why should an 84 year old vet pay $3,000 in school tax when he lives in a 1954 2 bedroom house just because he has 1 section of land.
He fought for our freedom never had a paid holiday and never had anyone pay for a pension plan for him. His income last year was $12,000 excluding old age security. What a way to treat our seniors.
Is that equality?
Ya my heart pumps piss for all the poor land owners.........
I should say my heart pumps purple piss for all the poor farmers......
Archie, you are one sick old puppy.
p.s. Merry Christmas!
3% are farmers. Why do they get so much publicity? 84 years old and 1 section of land,12,000.00 income.................sounds like another rural legend to me.What the hell is an 84 year old still farming for? He should cut his losses and sell the farm.Retire before he hurts himself. There aren't many one section farmers left.Still this story sounds like it's from the twilight zone.
Archie: do you know the average age of farmers is close to 60 there are no young farmers. Most of those under 60 go to Alberta to work in the winter to pay their bills. I would like to send what you wrote about them to the Western Producer.
The Sask economy is depends on farmers.
Over 70% of our economy is ag based.
Should we shut down Potash Corp. Mitchell's and Flexicoil for starters.
Has Mr. class calvert done anything for the economy?
He thinks agriculture is only 8% of the economy so you have been to the same union meetings.
There is nobody to buy all those farms. The Hutterites and Indians can only buy so much. no one else can afford the school taxes they pay on $2.00 wheat and $1.00 diesel
Boy, some heat!
I grew up in Sask, but regrettably had to leave since there was no jobs/future for a young person (couldn't even hope for a job at the Safeway. Those were staffed by lifers).
Now I live in Alberta and am loving it! Jobs everywhere. Taxes are low. Education is outstanding. Medical care second to none.
Like me 3 of my 4 siblings left Sask in order to establish lives for themselves. I have only one brother left (he happened to get a government job) since even my retired parents left [didn't own a farm, just couldn't live on the little bit that he got in retirement. Coming to Alberta, everything (especially taxes) was cheaper and Dad could even find casual, part-time work at 12.50 per hour (nope he doesn't work very hard for what he earns, but I feel that is a tradeoff for the hard work and little pay that he received in the past).
I've been back to visit and it sure looks like a place where the last person to leave will hopefully turn off the lights. I am not an NDP supporter and can only say to those who do, look around. It sure looks bleak. Half of the towns are dying and the other half are run down.
Nope, I am not an economists either, however, clearly the fact that so many Saskatchewanites are still leaving tells me that things haven't improved since I left 25 years ago.
I don't know who the Archie fellow is blasting away on this blog, but boy, my advice to him is that with the NDP having run the show for SO LONG, he may want to consider this alternatives. Things sure don't look like they have been run very well in the last little while.
Merry Christmas from the land of milk and oil.
Ed the Hun
8 percent of our economy is farm based. Where in the world did you get 70 percent. Maybe back in the 30's. Mining is at 10 times more,oil is more,lumber is more,manufacturing is greater,working people paying taxes are greater. I have a Leader post article from March 2001 or 2 that breaks it down quite well. Get your facts sraight there are less 60,000 farmers in Sask. We are not dependant on farming any more, not as much.8 percent of our GNP is farming here in SAsk. That is a statistical fact. Look it up. Before you spout off at me check your facts out with Stats Canada. The Sask party tells farmers this to keep their support.
The article I quote was written by an economist from firm in Alberta. I can get his name. He's from a bond rating firm that asseses our provinces potential growth as compared to our deficit. It is one of the firms that give our province ratings,A+,AA,A- etc.He rated us high. I never saw another word metioned about it.I saved the article. It was very good. Go to the library they should have it on microfilm. Don't get on this blog and spout off about something the Sask party says. Get the real deal. No one is that dependant on farming anymore. They are a piece of the pie but are a small piece. The B.S. the Saskparty spouts off in the legislature is to keep the rural legend alive and to get votes. The NDP have never hurt the farm community. They have the approach that the rest of us should not write the farmers a blank cheque.This comes from the other 90 percent who pay 90 percent of the taxes to our government.........that farmers don't.
The article I quote was written by an economist from firm in Alberta. I can get his name. He's from a bond rating firm that asseses our provinces potential growth as compared to our deficit. It is one of the firms that give our province ratings,A+,AA,A- etc.He rated us high. I never saw another word metioned about it.I saved the article. It was very good. Go to the library they should have it on microfilm. Don't get on this blog and spout off about something the Sask party says. Get the real deal. No one is that dependant on farming anymore. They are a piece of the pie but are a small piece. The B.S. the Saskparty spouts off in the legislature is to keep the rural legend alive and to get votes. The NDP have never hurt the farm community. They have the approach that the rest of us should not write the farmers a blank cheque.This comes from the other 90 percent who pay 90 percent of the taxes to our government.........that farmers don't.
I think tht "Archie" is a pseudonym for Calvert: no-one else could be so venal or detached from reality! And his hate of farmers is totally pathological, I think summed up by the slip about "land owners". In SK, it's easy to contrast private land ownership to the alternative (communist system), as we have both. Archie, I think that you and your kind are keeping SK poor and backwards; you do a disservice to future generations.
The insane hold the levers of power! Like Cuba, but with worse weather. This is your legacy, Lorne/Archie.
Bushman
Your Tory ideas are backward.The tory party has no new ideas, they are meant to keep us devided. I heard Brad Wall make a speech that we should look 30's and 40's for inspiration.Ya back when we were totally dependant on agriculture.That's forward thinking. There are no new ideas coming from the PC's.
Dear Archie (Lorne ;)), I don't know whether you deliberately lie or not, but either way, you are a zealot and need some professional help; please consider the following thoughts:
Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from mistaken conviction." --Blaise Pascal
"An attitude of permanent indignation signifies great mental poverty. Politics compels its votaries to take that line and you can see their minds growing more impoverished every day, from one burst of righteous indignation to the next." --Valery
"In political discussion heat is in inverse proportion to knowledge." --J. G. C. Minchin
"Faced with the choice between changing one's mind and proving that there is no need to do so, almost everyone gets busy on the proof." --Galbraith's Law
"A fanatic is one who won't change his mind and won't change the subject." --Winston Churchill
"The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts." --Bertrand Russell
"It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it." --Aristotle
"Moderation in temper is always a virtue; moderation in principle is always a vice." --Thomas Paine
"Liberty means responsibility. That is why most men dread it." -- George Bernard Shaw
"Most bad government has grown out of too much government." --Thomas Jefferson
"The fundamental error of socialism is anthropological in nature. Socialism considers the individual person simply as an element, a molecule within the social organism, so that the good of the individual is completely subordinated to the functioning of the socio-economic mechanism" --Pope John Paul II
Look up the Leader Post from March 3rd 2001. There is a whole section on what industries do what here in SAsk. I don't have to lie. The truth is stranger than fiction. You're not a lier just, misinformed. Farming is still important but not 70% important only 8% important. That 8% controls half the legislature. Is that fair? What about the other 93% ? I thought it was representation by population. What happened? Where else do you have 8% of the Population dictatng to the rest of us. The Tories devided us 15 years ago and the Saskatories continue the cause. No one else but the Sask party tells everyone how rotten Saskatchewan is. It's not bad here. The person who's Dad was retired and moved to Alberta and has a 12.00 an hr job. You didn't go to Alberta because it's cheaper. According to Stats Canada Sask is one of the cheapest places to live. Your family is there. You probably could've got a job here just as easy. Employers like older workers. That's your choice. Not because it's cheaper.
Archie, you are one crazy guy.
And yes, it is relatively cheap to live in SK: but not as cheap as say, Mexico or Cuba, or Siberia, or Sub-Saharan Africa.
And I think that it is you socialists that divide people, and especially in SK: and your type has always hated farmers, and businessmen, and self-employed professionals, and churches. Archie, maybe some people leave SK to escape your ilk? They go to a place where success is rewarded and appreciated, and not just envied and attacked by you and Lorne.
I know alot of well off NDPers and alot of poor tories. Jealous of what or whom?
I think a lot of you guys on this blog suffer from S.P.S............................small penis syndrom......and are anal retentive...........Is that true. Go out an get laid it might put a smile on your face.
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