THE RECORD

May 19, 1999

Fiat Lux

by Ed Deak

Sometimes I wonder what politicians would do without the word taxes. They either impose them or complain about them, depending on whether they are government or opposition.

The one area all politicans carefully avoid is the question of hidden taxation. When our opposition parties bitterly complain against our high taxes and compare BC with Alberta and the USA they never talk about the overall costs of services to the public. All they can repeat is that if they were in power they would get rid most of government and bring in the private sector to deliver unregulated services at much lower rates. In reality it is not the taxes that are important, but how, where and what services people get as part of their standard of living. Whether a necessary service is delivered by govcernment or by a profit making business it is still a service and it is still a taxation either directly, or by permit.

If and when taxes are high, but they provide necessary services that people in other places have to pay through the nose for to private businesses, where's the saving? When politicians promise large tax cuts, how can they assure people that the companies that would take over the providing of services wouldn't charge them double or more?

They can't and won't even try, because they know the truth that on the long run all our privatized and deregulated services have cost us more. Which way did your phone bills go last year when the CRTC deregulated local phone services? Mine went up 30 percent in one month, but in the case of many people around here it was 50 percent.

In the bad old monopolistic BC Tel days when we had phone problems we called the local office and a repair man was out here in hours. Now it takes weeks to repair a simple broken line. I know a case locally where the phone of a family was out of order for weeks. The repair man is living across the street and is a good friend of them, but wasn't permitted to do anything to help them.

The same happened with installations. When we wanted a new phone or a line installed it was done within days at very low prices. We paid $800. for our phone line in 1987. Our neighbour was quoted around $1,200, which they could not afford. Now they would like to get an Email hookup for business reasons. The latest quote was $22,000, or an almost 2000 percent increase. There are 13 existing Hydro poles on which the line would have to be installed. At most, two days work for two men. But this is the age of deregulation and economic competition over which corporation can soak the public for more so their stocks can ride high on the markets.

BC Tel has now merged with Telus. Watch for new and more fee increases and more service cuts. It never fails.

Well, where is the evidence for savings by deregulating and privatizing?

A few years ago Peter Gzowsky did an interview with a Canadian doctor who was taking a four year advanced kidney specialist course in Baltimore. He laughed over the complaints of Canadian doctors about the red tape of Medicare. He had 2000 insurance companies with separate bureaucracies to satisfy. He had to argue with insurance agents in the middle of the night, begging for permission for an ambulance to pick up a sick child, instead of the parents taking him to the hospital. One case he recalled was a young woman on a kidney machine. Her family had a half million dollar policy. When it ran out the company called the hospital to pull the plug on her. The medical staff had to have a meeting to figure out how to save the woman's life within budgetary restraints.

Yes, people in the US may pay lower taxes, but at what costs? Over 40 million, more than the population of Canada, have no medical coverage whatsoever. If they get sick they have to beg for charity. 30 percent of the population, about 90 million, have no security whatsoever. They live from day to day in minimum wage jobs at the whim of employers.

Fraudulent cost transfers to hide real costs are dear to my heart so I shall return to this subject in the future.

Copyright (c) 1999, West's International