Crown corporations

[Smurf]

Captain Awesome wrote:

If I was asked to make a choice between:

- Keeping income taxes low, and increasing user fees such as park fees, BC Hydro rates, BC Ferry rates and others to create surplus that goes to the government to make up for low income taxes

and

- Upping income taxes and giving crown corporations a break-even mandate to keep rates as low as possible

...I would choose the first scenario many times over the second simply because I (and everyone else) at least will have control over spending as opposed to higher income taxes just disappearing into the financial black hole we call "government".

So you believe it is okay that drivers who already pay carbon tax, fuel/road tax etc. also pay extra premiums to subsidize the rest of the people in the province for their health care, education, welfare whatever. Remember things like business's are going to recoup the costs of those premiums from their customers, us the taxpayers, by way of what they charge us for our groceries etc.. So we are actually paying for it more than once. Same thing for hydro but probably a high majority of people in the province use hydro. Do you really think that is giving them a choice or is it making them pay more than their fair share or would it not be much fairer to pay taxes where everyone pays their fair share.

higher income taxes just disappearing into the financial black hole we call "government

Where do you think the money they take from ICBC, Hydro etc. goes.

[Captain Awesome]

So you believe it is okay that drivers who already pay carbon tax, fuel/road tax etc. also pay extra premiums to subsidize the rest of the people in the province for their health care, education, welfare whatever.

Correct.

Where do you think the money they take from ICBC, Hydro etc. goes.

I think you completely missed the point of my post. Whether the money is coming from surpluses at BC Hydro/ICBC/Liquor Stores/etc. or income tax, they all go towards programs that benefit us. It doesn't make any difference, they'll get their money anyway - but I would prefer the money came from surpluses over income tax - simply because it gives me more control over how much I pay.

[Smurf]

I understand , I just don't know why you want to subsidize all the people who don't have cars, only have one or whatever. Remember if it was spread out over all taxpayers instead of a few you would probably paying less for the same money to end up in the public coffers. If you pay and I pay an extra $50.00 in premiums just think of what would happen if that was split up with 2 or three non drivers via taxes.


EDIT TO ADD:

Plus you should end up with lower premiums to help pay any increase in taxes. Your taxes go up, your premiums go down, and everyone splits the cost instead of some subsidizing the others. I'm sure the non drivers appreciate us paying higher taxes via the hidden taxes/subsidies coming from ICBC.

[Smurf]

Why should it be up to drivers, hydro users, whomever, to put extra money, a larger share, into the pot for education, health, whatever, than everyone else?

[NAB]

Just got my latest BC Hydro bill. As of April 1st Tier one charges went up from $0.06900 per kWh to $0.07520 per kWh.

Tier two went from $0.10340 per kWh to $0.11270 per kWh.

Basic charge went from $0.15270 per day to $0.16640 per day.

Of course timed for the beginning of the non-heating season so most residential customers will not notice much of a hit until heating season comes around again.

And we are all waiting to see the implementation of TOD billing based on the smart meters, whose accuracy is now subject to suspicion based on whether or not they can reliably obtain and transmit accurate readings on that frequent time of day hour by hour basis. Rumour has it that they are not always able to make a connection to transfer the readings.

Nab

[Captain Awesome]

Why should it be up to drivers, hydro users, whomever, to put extra money, a larger share, into the pot for education, health, whatever, than everyone else?

You will never have an absolutely fair system with equal distribution of intake and outtake. Some will pay more, some will pay little. Some things don't really make sense - for example if you make more money this year you're paying more - but your consumption of public services never went up. Why? I don't know. It's just the way it's set up.

I pay for someone else's kids to go to school even though I don't have any. I pay someone else's paycheck because they have none and draw assistance. Is it fair? No, but this is life and I'm ok with that.

I suggest you make peace with the fact that hydro users and ICBC users pay a bit extra to raise money towards our social programs through surpluses. Advocating for a perfectly fair system is somewhat futile. Besides, the alternative would be your income taxes going up - you'll pay either way for it.

[Rwede]

Possibly true, but how many people can actually afford RRSP's and investments. There are many who can't. At least when the money is in a Crown Corporation all the citizens of BC benefit from it, not just companies and shareholders, many of whom are not even Canadian citizens, let alone citizens of BC.

Everyone uses the CPP. Don't point upwards to the "rich" as the only ones with pension plans. Lots of people are on RRSP plans to put even $25 per cheque into an RRSP.

Stats Canada has the participation rate for those who are not on defined benefit plans and those who are not retirees already at 88% for RRSPs and TFSAs.

Not much we can do for the 12% who choose to buy beer instead. And the beer drinkers are in the CPP which derives income from utilities, too. That's non-discretionary.

[alfred2]

if you do not like the electric prices , use other way of heating, prices will go up wages are up etc.

[Smurf]

I am not complaining about the rates only about the fact that my rates are subsid9izing everyone else. Everyone says ICBC is too high, well I wonder why. Possibly because the government is stealing all that money. People complain about their Hydro rates, we should privatize it. Well guess what, same thing again. The government will be even shorter and there is a very good chance our rates will be just as high. Hidden taxes so the government and it's followers can falsely brag about how low our taxes are. In my experience the rates will be higher. I have been in numerous places where there are private hydro systems and have never seen any as cheap as ours. If we are all for subsidizing the government with our rates then we should never complain about the rates.

[Rwede]

Do you for one minute think that ICBC rates will go down if income taxes go up?

How ridiculous.

Remember when we had the highest income taxes in the whole country under the NDP? Well, the NDP reached right into ICBC and helped themselves to many, many millions of dollars.

[Smurf]

GOVERNMENTS STEALING, IS THAT NOT WHAT I HAVE BEEN SAYING ALL ALONG IS WRONG. Thank you for agreeing with me for once.

[hobbyguy]

Smurf - you are calling yourself a thief. In a democracy the government is us, well - more or less depending on how active we are at maintaining democracy.

The dividends from crown corporation should go where? To the shareholders. Who are the shareholders of crown corporations? The democratically elected government. That is us. "We" get the dividends. If "we", through our elected representatives piddle those dividends away on junkets to China or...whatever use of funds you happen to see as wasteful, then that is not the problem of the crown corporations - that is "our" problem.

The notion of the government being separate from "us" is a narrative that promoted and propagandized by the "libertarian" far right. Divide and conquer strategy that is easy to implement. I might see a junket to China as a good trade investment, but someone else might see it as the pols just having their snouts in the trough. If you pick twenty such expenditure issues, you are bound to find 3 or 4 that I might disagree with. The "libertarian" far right loves that. They attack all government spending as wasteful, and some of that sticks with virtually everybody - just not the same "items". So we start to separate ourselves from our government, which leaves the door open for oligarchs - or whomever - to take over.

Corporate interests are constantly attacking government crown corporations and monopolies. Why? Not because they can really do a better job, but because they want to horn in to enhance their profits. That is not, by the way "evil" or anything like that, that is just corporate interests looking after corporate interests. They see market share that they want. They do what they can to gain access to that market share.

There are basically two options:

Private interests, in which case "we" will pay maximum achievable market prices, and the dividends go to shareholders - which generally concentrates the benefits with a small percentage of the population.

Crown corporations/monopolies, in which case "we" generally pay fair prices (political suicide if we aren't), and the dividends go to the shareholders, which through the government - "us" - spreads the benefits to all of the population.

The trick is determining which areas of activity work best for each model. And in some cases, where hybrids are appropriate. There are places where government/crown corporations are inappropriate, and places where private corporations are inappropriate.

Related fun facts: in 1952 Black Ball Ferries charged $4.00 one way for a car and driver from Horseshoe Bay to Gibsons ($1 extra for each passenger). Gasoline in 1952 was about .06/liter. A good wage in 1952 was $1.75/hr. The equivalent charge today by BC Ferries is $66.70 ($15.75 for extra passengers).

[The Rooster]

When you buy car insurance , you expect to be covered if your in an accident , especially when you are not held at fault , but it doesn't happen . You read about huge wages and golden parachutes and employees getting benefits and pensions , when you can't even get a doctor that has the balls to diagnose your injuries fully and properly because they are afraid of repercussions by ICBC . WCB expedites diagnoses , treatments , procedures to get you back to work as soon as , possible , ICBC doesn't , they don't want to help you build your case , because they believe it hurts them . That's just criminal . Governments should not be allowed to appoint their friends to huge salary paying jobs with better benefits than the victims that are supposedly covered by ICBC , and other crown corps .
The government running a company that decides whether you have heat for the winter is just wrong .BC ferries ? When you pay your fare to go on the ferry you expect that a portion of that fee will go to infrastructure of that company . We pay taxes with the same expectations , but a lot of times the taxes paid are stolen by the Feds . The Chretien liberals stole the gas tax collected from all the provinces , which historically was returned to the provinces for road and bridge and maintenance work , WASN'T . Paul Martin put it all into the general acct and it mystically disappeared. Just like the EI $46 Billion surplus that was stolen and used to show a BS Surplus in the 2006 election . Now absorb that . They accumulated a huge surplus in the EI fund , while reducing the benefits being paid out by 33% , then transfer it into aother acct , less than a year before a world wide financial crisis.

And what did we do ? We voted them out .

Now we have the left wing , CBC , media pushing for them to be back in power with another new leader that stated that "the budget will balance itself " . Do you not think that 13 years of that mindset running the country , would have any effect ?

The only commodity that is still fairly affordable is NATURAL GAS , and Christy Clark wants to export it and jack the price of it up . Who does she work for , who pays her wages ? We do , but we do nothing , except want POT to be legalized ? One seriously screwed up country . Special interests first , taxpayers last