By Arthur Weinreb
Thursday, August 2, 2007
The Ontario government has just announced a new program to entice smokers to quit the habit. The province's Nanny-in-Chief, Minister of Health Promotion Jim Watson announced that the PST of 8% will be removed from nicotine replacement therapies (NRT's) that includes patches, gums and inhalers. Yippee!!!
It is a fairly simple principle of economics that when prices are lowered, demand goes up. Some people will inevitably decide to acquire these NRT's at the cheaper price. Of course if the government truly wanted to encourage smokers to quit, they would have brought in these tax reductions in long before this. When they were smiling and congratulating themselves for enacting the Smoke Free Ontario Act, the toughest measures in the world to combat smoking, would have been a good time to introduce measures to help smokers kick their habit. But then when that Act was introduced we weren't just a couple of months away from a provincial election. These guys are so transparent.
The elimination of the 8% tax on NRT's is a perfect example of how governments on the left operate. This tax reduction has nothing to do with health of either smokers or the zillions of people that the elites claim die from second hand smoke. It has everything to do with the politicians. It makes them feel good about themselves to know that they are protecting the citizens of the province who are simply inept lower life forms who are incapable of looking after themselves or making their own choices. The unwashed masses can't possibly make decisions that they feel are in their best interests and must rely on Nanny Watson to make those decisions for them. This has little if anything to do with health and everything to do with power. The politicians want power and control. And they want to be seen as "caring". They feel good when they can feel that they are taking proper care of their inferior constituents. And of course this "see how well we take care of you" is foremost in their election platform. After all they can hardly run on honesty and integrity, right Mr. Colle?
If the government was in fact honest, which is an oxymoron in McGuintyland, about caring about the health of Ontarians they would see to it that every smoker was able to obtain nicotine replacement therapies at no cost. That would of course be totally consistent with the Liberal Party's ideology that the health care system remains public. Not making smokers pay for aids to assist in quitting would be in line with their ideology that saw the government spend the taxpayers' money to buy back MRI machines from private owners where it made absolutely no difference to the patient's care or how these tests were paid for. Keeping the health care system public is more important than the health and lives of Ontarians. After all, pimps who make money from women who prostitute themselves are a couple of steps up from physicians who even dare to dream about receiving cash for medical treatment. It is the duty of Ontarians as well as all Canadians to sacrifice their lives for their country by dying on a waiting list. It's the Canadian way. Yet Ontarians are expected to prostrate themselves and give thanks to the province's chief nanny because he knocked a lousy 8 per cent off of the purchase price from items that could conceivably save lives. If Dalton could only realize how amusing these types of actions are he would impose an entertainment tax on Ontarians every time Jim Watson makes an announcement.
The reality is that apart from the feel-good factor, the government of Ontario has no wish for people stop smoking; at least in any significant numbers. As addictive as tobacco is, and there are studies that say that it is more addictive than heroin, smokers are not as addicted to cigarettes as the Liberals are to revenues. If all the smokers woke up tomorrow and quit cold turkey the government couldn't handle the loss of tax revenues from the sale of tobacco. They'll have serious difficulties buying ethnic groups. The premier would end up going to Toronto Mayor David Miller and begging him for money. Dalton would have to impose a new tax or raise another one and then brag about how he just had to lie about not raising taxes again. This would all be for the greater good of course. As Yogi Berra would say, it would be dj vu all over again.
Okay, let's play the game. Thank you Daddy for making all these NRT's only cost 92% of what they did before. You're caring; you're wonderful. You're saving lives. We don't know what we would ever do without you.
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