A few words in praise of our taxes

O Canada: Life in this country is better because of the services we get from government

The day of the tax collector approaches. Prepare for the irritations of paperwork, number- crunching and the annual avalanche of tedious griping about how we’re overtaxed to the point of robbery by incompetent government.

Yet business analysts tell us Canada now has one of the most competitive tax regimes in the developed world. The last time I looked we ranked first in the G7 and eighth globally. Rankings fluctuate but hey, in the tax competition we’re cruising at Own the Podium altitude.

I was initiated as a taxpayer 50 years ago. I then worked a 44- hour week — five weekdays plus Saturday mornings.

It wasn’t just federal income tax that I paid . I paid provincial income tax. And, even though I owned no real estate, I paid property tax for my landlords, too. That was clear from the incremental rent increases.

Then there were all the hidden taxes — the manufacturing tax, various import duties on consumer goods, luxury taxes, sin taxes — not that I could afford many luxuries with which to sin — provincial sales taxes, fuel taxes, medical insurance premiums, then value- added taxes and so on.

Over five decades, I paid taxes as a non- union worker, a union worker, a manager, an executive and, once again, as a union worker. I paid taxes hauling hay bales as a day labourer and taxes on the small royalties that writing books earned.

And here I am, half a century later, still paying taxes, considerably more of them in my dotage than my youth. I expect to pay my final taxes after I’m dead and boxed. Remember that, please, the next time boomer bashing arises. Even dead boomers pay tax.

I raise this not because I resent paying taxes. I don’t. I like taxes. I like them because I like what taxes buy.

I’ve never drawn a dime of the employment insurance I’ve paid for 50 years and, at my age, I never will. But I’m glad the fund is there for the two million fellow citizens who need it. In fact, I’d like to see coverage broadened, not reduced.

My footprint in the health care system has been small. My hospital stays total 12 days over half a century — once after I was hit by a car at 17; the second recovering from surgery. But, hey, I’m glad the health care system is there for those who need them more than I. I don’t let taxes define me. I leave that to the anti- tax zealots. Taxes do help define my ethical obligations as a citizen — and as a human being — toward my fellow Canadians.

My taxes provide our mostly peaceful, prosperous and safe society; a health care system that for all its flaws and glitches is pretty darn good compared to the alternatives; a policing and justice system that despite occasional hiccups is fair, merciful and trustworthy; a brave and honourable military.

My taxes provide income support for the unemployed, indigent, impaired and unlucky.

My taxes helped create educational facilities of exceptional quality and performance; public infrastructure that makes doing business in Canada stable, predictable and profitable compared to many other parts of the world.

My taxes keep cities clean, safe and full of life. They provide generally good government by mostly decent, hard- working public servants and politicians.

My taxes helped send Chris Hadfield into space; Carey Price, Hayley Wickenheiser and other wonderful athletes to the Olympics. They helped writer Alice Munro and scientist Gerhard Herzberg to win the Nobel Prize. They also paved B. C.’ s roads, brought electricity to remote First Nations communities and built bridges across the Fraser River that enable Vancouver’s prosperity.

Canada is far from perfect. Many social injustices remain to address. But life is better than it might be for most of us, even for the aggrieved.

Thank my taxes — and yours — for that.