At long last the public is beginning to ask “where’s the money going?” in an attempt to find out where huge amounts of taxpayer money is being spent with no standard bookkeeping or accountability involved, on many reservations where Aboriginal people are living in poverty.
This not only applies to spending on various reservations, but also to money spent in our communities by various levels of our government. Due to the fact that we have so many levels — municipal, provincial and federal — it is easy for the regular taxpayer to get lost in the various financial statements. However, the statistic which has stated that about half of a working person’s salary eventually ends up in the tax pot, should ring a warning bell with most people. Of course, many taxes are spread out on every action, product or usage that you can imagine, so that no one particular tax stands out.
However on checking over my Hydro bills from about six years ago, I find that the basic bill increased by about 50 per cent, and now a further notice that rates will increase in April, 2013! Of course taxes are then based on the higher amounts as well. Truly another example of the saying “dealth by a thousand cuts”, and citizens should pay attention to every tax, before they “bleed to death” – certainly nobody got a wage increase of 50 per cent like Hydro over that short period of time.
Since our government must keep fairly detailed budgets, I have an important question to ask: (a) How much have their budgets increased over the last two election periods (six or eight years), and (b) What is the total amount of money donated to any groups, companies, etc. outside of Canada in those periods? Since we are becoming impoverished ourselves, it is time that various world governments begin to be responsible for providing necessities for their own populations.
Perhaps an important point to remember is that official justification for any project in this country, no matter how destructive, is that it will provide jobs, jobs, jobs, but that those jobs are better money-makers for politicians than for the actual worker since the government will ultimately get half of the workers’ wages one way or another.
Lila Rauh
Mission
