Mentally Ill Housing, Tax on Alcohol

Senate wants to nickel and dime Canadians

The plan sounds like it has merit, especially in areas of the country such as Toronto where the city mothers seem perfectly content to let the mentally ill homeless call a heating grate on a sidewalk at a downtown intersection, home. What is troubling about the committees recommendation are not the merits or lack of it but the proposed method of funding the creation of the commission and the care of the mentally ill.

The Senate committee is proposing to fund the program by levying a specific tax on alcohol. The tax would amount to 5 cents on a bottle of beer, 25 cents on a bottle of wine and 85 cents on each bottle of spirits that is sold.

Although many of the mental illnesses that Canadians suffer from are caused or exacerbated by substance abuse including alcohol, there is no real connection between drinking and mental illness. Why should drinkers be the only ones who are required to fund the care of the mentally ill and provide housing for them? Why should those who drink more, be required to fund this particular program to a greater degree than those whose consumption of beer, wine and spirits is more moderate? And more importantly, why cant these funds come out of the governments general revenues; revenues that because of our high rates of taxation permitted the previous Liberal government to run surpluses in the billions of dollars year after year?

The method of funding is nothing more than social engineering by the Liberal dominated senate. Proof of this can be seen by the committees recommendation that together with these tax increases, the excise tax on light beer is to be decreased from 4% to 2.5%. These are the same Liberals that fought to prevent the word "light" from being used to market cigarettes. There is essentially no difference between cigarettes and beer in this regard; light beer has all of the inherent dangers that are found in regular beer; you just have to drink more of it. Yet the committee seems to want to use taxes under the guise of funding mental illness to get beer drinkers to switch their preferences. As noble as this might be, it has nothing to do with the problem of mental illness.

The danger of this proposed method of taxation is that "a nickel here and a nickel there" doesnt sound like very much. But if these taxes come into being, theres no telling where it will end. If this proposal is allowed to go through, the days of "the nickel tax" will just be beginning. Next will undoubtedly be a five-cent tax on hamburgers to help the nation combat obesity.

In a world where gas often reaches over $1 a litre and people regularly pay $3 and $4 for a cup of coffee, five cents does not sound like much. But it all adds up for an already overtaxed population.

If the Harper government does agree to introduce programs for the mentally ill along the lines proposed by the Senate committee, lets hope they wont nickel and dime us.

Arthur Weinreb is an author, columnist and Associate Editor of Toronto Free Press. His work has appeared on Newsmax.com, Men's News Daily, Drudge Report, Foxnews.com, Glenn Beck and The Rant. Arthur can be reached at: Columns 2006 '05 '04 '03 '02 '01 '00 1999 Media 2006 '05 '04 '03 '02 Toronto 2006 '05 '04