Food Banks

[Hecate]

The fact is we have UNIVERSAL healthcare that ain’t all that universal.

[jonny24]

Originally Posted by Xelebes

You could go pre-puritan and simply have drinks meted out by alewives and that would be the only way of getting alcohol.

Alcohol is so easy to make that it can never be controlled.

[YOWetal]

Originally Posted by jonny24

Alcohol is so easy to make that it can never be controlled.

I think the vast vast majority of alchohol consumed is taxed. Cigarettes however are smuggled so extensively that possibly the majority are not taxed.

[SFUVancouver]

Originally Posted by Hecate

The fact is we have UNIVERSAL healthcare that ain’t all that universal.

*Single-payer health insurance.

[Hecate]

Originally Posted by YOWetal

I think the vast vast majority of alchohol consumed is taxed. Cigarettes however are smuggled so extensively that possibly the majority are not taxed.

Yup a black market that really didn’t exist in Canada until… ridiculously excessive oppressive taxation. Our government literally created a more profitable black market for organized crime with less severe punishments than the drug trade. Recent stats suggest over 60 percent of tobacco sales in Ontario are illegal. Our government is corrupt.

https://www.cbc.ca/amp/1.6973677

[Hecate]

They are doing this with firearms too. The illegal firearms trade has skyrocketed under our governments ban.

[optimusREIM]

Originally Posted by Nouvellecosse

So then you're for complete legalization of all currently banned or restricted substances? Cocaine, heroin, meth, etc. a total free for all? For me, if there are some things that are so harmful that they should be banned to protect individuals and societies (such as what are sometimes referred to as "hard drugs") then it makes perfect sense that for others stuff that's also dangerous but with less severe danger we'd discourage them but not outright ban then. I don't personally see the issue.

This has nothing to do with puritanism where authorities like the clergy or theocratic governments forbid things on "moral" grounds. Like it being illegal to be gay or expose your head in public. We're talking about something that has well documented, scientifically verified and quite serious risks. Moral purity has nothing to do with it.

The attitude we have towards alcohol and its taxation are 100% a hangover of our government's roots in presbyterianism and other protestants from Britain. Abuse of alcohol is bad. Abuse of any substance is bad. How does that justify taxation to discourage it. Spare me the pearl clutching.

[Nouvellecosse]

Originally Posted by Hecate

Yup a black market that really didn’t exist in Canada until… ridiculously excessive oppressive taxation. Our government literally created a more profitable black market for organized crime with less severe punishments than the drug trade. Recent stats suggest over 60 percent of tobacco sales in Ontario are illegal. Our government is corrupt.

https://www.cbc.ca/amp/1.6973677

The government is corrupt because other people are breaking laws? I don't think you know what the term corruption means. It does not just mean that a government has a policy you don't like or don't feel is effective.

Something being either more expensive or illegal does act as a disincentive. But disincentives just discourage people from doing things rather than totally stop them. Every law has people doing different things to get around it and therefore there's more criminal activity than if the law didn't exist. That in itself doesn't make the law a failure.

The success of a policy like a tax meant to discourage something isn't based on the percentage of people illegally contravening it, but rather the overall percentage of people doing the harmful activity. And the rates of smoking in Canada have never been lower since its peak popularity decades ago. In fact, the rate of smoking in Canada is one of the lowest in the world, and lower than the US, Aus, NZ, and all countries in Europe except Iceland. So the various things we're doing to discourage it seem to be working.

https://ourworldindata.org/smoking

You can see a list in that link by scrolling down to the "Share of adults who smoke, 2000 to 2020" section, selecting the table format, and sorting in order for the 2020 column.

[Nouvellecosse]

Originally Posted by optimusREIM

The attitude we have towards alcohol and its taxation are 100% a hangover of our government's roots in presbyterianism and other protestants from Britain. Abuse of alcohol is bad. Abuse of any substance is bad. How does that justify taxation to discourage it. Spare me the pearl clutching.

Nobody is pearl clutching other than those using super-dramatic terms like "oppressive" and "corrupt" just because they don't agree with it. I simply pointed out why such dramatics don't make rational sense. The literal opposite of pearl cluthcing. And no it's not a holdover from anything because for decades, back when we didn't know the harmful effects of smoking the government didn't try to discourage it. It's simply a response to the contemporary scientific evidence on the topic.

[Nouvellecosse]

What I find interesting about all this "puritanical" talk is how our national alcohol prohibition era was only a couple years long and ended prior to the much longer US national prohibition. As a result we ended up being a major base for smuggling into the US. If we were so puritanical we would have kept it banned for at least as long or longer. But instead our cities became known as party centers and watering holes for visitors from the states in that era. We even have a recreational trail here in NS called "The Rum Runners Trail" to commemorate a historic smuggling route. And to this day we still have a lower drinking age than most of the US.

Even more telling is how we were one of the first countries to legalize cannabis for recreational use. Fourth in fact on a list that still only contains nine. And we were also the third country to ever make the "puritanical" move of legalizing same-sex marriage. But somehow, our government policies are just a holdover from prudish origins...

[Loco101]

Originally Posted by Nouvellecosse

What I find interesting about all this "puritanical" talk is how our national alcohol prohibition era was only a couple years long and ended prior to the much longer US national prohibition. As a result we ended up being a major base for smuggling into the US. If we were so puritanical we would have kept it banned for at least as long or longer. But instead our cities became known as party centers and watering holes for visitors from the states in that era. We even have a recreational trail here in NS called "The Rum Runners Trail" to commemorate a historic smuggling route. And to this day we still have a lower drinking age than most of the US.

Even more telling is how we were one of the first countries to legalize cannabis for recreational use. Fourth in fact on a list that still only contains nine. And we were also the third country to ever make the "puritanical" move of legalizing same-sex marriage. But somehow, our government policies are just a holdover from prudish origins...

Drinking ages in Canada were actually higher than in the U.S. until sometime in the early 1970s I believe. My parents told me that it was 21 in Ontario and 18 in Michigan. And Quebec was 20.

Just checked and the drinking age in Ontario was 21 until 1971 when it was lowered to 18 and was raised to 19 in 1979. And Michigan raised its drinking age to 21 around that time.

[ssiguy]

.........................meanwhile back at the Food Banks.

The problem I see with Food Banks is that the more there are, the more the demand and hence the more of them opening. They have allowed gov'ts to pass the buck from what should be a gov't service to a charitable one. The more Food Banks we have, the more people will be referred to them. It's an endless cycle that I think we must put an end to.

We should not be glad a new Food Bank has opened but rather outraged but were collectively not because they have become so normalized............we have to take the normal out of Food Banks and I think the only way to do it is to start closing them down with a set date for them to be completely gone. The short-term goal of Food Banks should be to provide emergency assistance and the medium/long-term goals should be to put them out of business.

The only way we are going to get our gov'ts to properly support our vulnerable citizens is to get rid of the alternatives. The best car is not the one with the best warranty but rather the one that functions so well that it doesn't even need one.

[Hecate]

Originally Posted by Nouvellecosse

What I find interesting about all this "puritanical" talk is how our national alcohol prohibition era was only a couple years long and ended prior to the much longer US national prohibition. As a result we ended up being a major base for smuggling into the US. If we were so puritanical we would have kept it banned for at least as long or longer. But instead our cities became known as party centers and watering holes for visitors from the states in that era. We even have a recreational trail here in NS called "The Rum Runners Trail" to commemorate a historic smuggling route. And to this day we still have a lower drinking age than most of the US.

Even more telling is how we were one of the first countries to legalize cannabis for recreational use. Fourth in fact on a list that still only contains nine. And we were also the third country to ever make the "puritanical" move of legalizing same-sex marriage. But somehow, our government policies are just a holdover from prudish origins...

lol, only for alcohol. How long was cannabis illegal? A century?

And sorry but no. Once the government realized its plan of sucking as much money as they could out of an addicts pocket wasn’t working and beginning to aid organized crime, they continued to Jack up the prices every six months anyway. So the government policy literally drove consumers to the black market. That is corrupt.

[MolsonExport]

Going camping just over the border from Quebec, where I lived at the time, I remember that bad old days of getting your beer at "Brewers Retail". Everything was behind the booth. Your beer came out on a conveyor belt. In the old days, you had to take it out in a brown paper bag. You couldn't get a beer anywhere on Sunday, not even at a restaurant. Toronto the Good/Boring. Nanny State.

[Nouvellecosse]

Originally Posted by Hecate

lol, only for alcohol. How long was cannabis illegal? A century?

And sorry but no. Once the government realized its plan of sucking as much money as they could out of an addicts pocket wasn’t working and beginning to aid organized crime, they continued to Jack up the prices every six months anyway. So the government policy literally drove consumers to the black market. That is corrupt.

Except the tax clearly does have an influence. And how long was Cannabis illegal in most other countries? It still is at the national level in all but 9. Yeah... sorry but no right back.

Look, I'm perfectly aware that reality just isn't very important to people anymore. Don't like the results of election? Just claim it was all rigged! Don't like climate change mitigation policies? Pretend it's all a hoax! Uncomfortable hearing about past injustices? Just pretend that none of them ever happened and ban any information about it! So it makes perfect sense that if people don't like a particular product being taxed, they'll just declared it a product of a corrupt oppressive puritanical government while pretending no rational scientific and economic justification exists.

Which hey, it's a free country so whatever helps you cope is up to you. But you can't realistically expect other people to go along with it.

[Nouvellecosse]

For anyone not familiar with the term, corruption refers to someone who is supposed to be performing a particular role in a system such as a government, company or other institution acting in their personal interest (or the interest of their friends or family) at the expense of the entity they're ostensibly serving. For example, if you're supposed to enforce a particular law or rule but allow someone to break it in exchange for them giving you something such as money or a favour. Like a corrupt cop or judge might let someone bribe their way out of a penalty. Or a corrupt building inspector might overlook building infractions if the construction company offers them some type of payment. It does not just mean making a bad decision.

While this situation doesn't involve one, a real bad decision can just as easily be caused by incompetence, philosophical bias, and/or poor judgement. But while those things are also bad, none of them on their own are types of corruption.

[YOWetal]

Originally Posted by Nouvellecosse

For anyone not familiar with the term, corruption refers to someone who is supposed to be performing a particular role in a system such as a government, government agency, or a company acting in their personal interest (or the interest of their friends or family) at the expense of the entity they're ostensibly serving. For example, if you're supposed to enforce a particular law or rule but allow someone to break it in exchange for them giving you something such as money or a favour. Or if you're supposed to represent a group of people but make a decision that harms that group and benefits another person or group to get something from that second entity in exchange. It does not just mean making a bad decision.

While this situation doesn't involve one, a real bad decision can just as easily be caused by incompetence, philosophical bias, and/or poor judgement. But while those things are also bad, none of them on their own are types of corruption.

Check your dictionary. In current parlance Corrupt means a politician I don't agree with.

[ssiguy]

Guys, this isn't a pot/alcohol thread so let's get back on topic.

[RHINO]

The real question is why are people using Food banks so much now? What has occurred in our country in the last number of years that caused this giant difference in the way things used to be and the way they are now? Government policy is the number one cause of our issues in this nation. If people refute that, they are lying to them selves and everyone around them. When shipping costs have tripled in all industries due to Carbon taxes and other measures by the government, these costs get passed on. A reduction in taxation and making life easier for Canadians is what needs to take place. Secondly, non residence need to go. Were full. I'm sorry, its not racist, its a fact. We don't have the room, not the capacity to look after 500,000 new people per year. We don't have the ability to get much built and we don't have the ability to attract new business to our nation, once again because of government policy. The government must keep going after the remaining business and people to make up for the lack of new investment. its a massive circular cycle.

[ssiguy]

I agree that the first step to getting rid of the need for Food Banks is to ban all non-permanent residents from using them. People who are here under temporary work visas and international students are suppose to be able live independently.