The Middlesex County Candidate

Last week I aided a friend of mine in the buying of one car and the selling of another. Reflecting on this experience, I find that the government is far too invasive into the private lives of citizens through means that people accept with the inevitability of the American invasion of Iran (Soon to be the secular republic of Iran brought to you by Nike and McDonalds, I’m loving it while I just do it). Some might accuse me of being Orwellian, facetious, childish or just slow to think a thought that a hundred people have thought before me. But let us begin this adventure into the dark place that you don’t want to think about. If the movie Grease was any indication of the simplicity of times past, transferring ownership of a car was simply a matter of losing face before a rival gang and handing over your pink slip in shame. Now, the process begins with a safety inspection. A smarmy mechanic telling you that you need a new flux capacitor, starboard power coupling and four new tires before the car is road ready. Several hissy fits later comes the provincially legislated emissions test. Assuming it passes that, to the Ministry of Transportation where you present the aforementioned information to a disgruntled provincial employee who, while only doing their job, will appear to be doing all that they can to foil your transaction. After presenting the safety and e-test, the ownerships are transferred, wherein you provide the government with your personal information, a receipt of transaction, pay the provincial used car sales fee, buy new license plates and assuming that you have made your insurance company aware of the auto you are attempting to purchase, you can drive away in your new, used car. Driving forth into the mid afternoon traffic, DJ prattle spouting from the factory built sound system, you can rest assured that you are a good citizen who plays by all the governments’ rules on transfer of property from one person to another. But why should you? Regarding a car, the government, both provincial and federal have received tax on the sale of the car when it is new. Not only that but they taxed all the means of production that went into the construction of that car. Why should they get to tax the transaction of two private citizens making a private exchange? The King’s tax collectors never got a cut when one farmer sold a horse to another two hundred years ago, why should he now? Fact of the matter is that those fees and taxes that were assessed upon my friend, were not taxes for king and country. Some will say that they fund the maintenance of roads and other such renewal projects. I say that it is taxation that goes to finance the self perpetuating un-elected bureaucracy that exists within our country. Ask yourself, do you remember voting in any elections where sales of car taxes were on the party platforms? I have voted in every election, federal, provincial and municipal since I was first enfranchised nearly seven years ago and never once have the nickel and dime fees that crop up in organizations like the ministry of transportation been on the platform. The fees that you pay when you renew your driver’s license, purchase vanity plates or sell a used car to a friend, fund a branch of the government that you did not elect. Even more disturbing is that this bureaucracy is so entrenched within the infrastructure of the province/country that it can not be ousted…at least not quickly. An homage to Guy Fawkes targeted against the M.T.O. would not get rid of this cancer within government, in fact, it would strengthen the system. There would always be more forms to fill in triplicate, committees to decide on the rebuilding contracts to be outsourced and, land requisition and rezoning permits to be filed all of which is fodder for the machine. No, friends, Romans and country people, these unelected oligarchs of orthodoxy can only be dislodged by attacking the sinews of power, the coin purse of the government. I’m not encouraging anybody to break the laws of their province, but suggesting that people make use of the grey matter to find ways around the system such that the unelected branch of government administration is rendered insolvent. For example, if I were to sell my car to a colleague of mine, I would do so for one dollar. All paper record of the transaction would indicate one dollar being paid for the car. Naturally, my partner in non violent social protest would have given me a substantial cash donation prior to the sale of the aforementioned car. When the tax man came around to assess me, all that I would have to report is the purchase of a car for one dollar and I can spare the fifteen cents tax albeit begrudgingly and having spat on the coins before handing them over. I’m not so naïve to think that it would make a difference. Perhaps if everybody did it maybe the system could be changed, but even then, probably not. Bureaucracy seems to be one of those organisms that reproduces asexually and with reckless abandon. But, people should be more aware of the fact that there is a branch of the government that exerts great influence over your life (If you do things above the board) and you have absolutely no say in how the execute their affairs. And if you didn’t vote for the minister of transportation, nor any of the middle managers under his or her command, perhaps there are more elements of your government that are in power without your permission. All this time you thought you could plod through life, never thinking for yourself beyond who you want out of the big brother house and because of that the virus of bureaucracy has prospered. Shame on us. It is all too easy to grumble about things that we don’t like with respect to national and provincial administration. But, we should take a page from the mafia and remember that nobody gets away with anything, they only do what you allow them to do. Government only does what we allow it to do and the more apathetic people are towards the way they are governed, the more you legitimize the unelected elements of government. Because if you won’t find a way to change the system, or at least a way to cheat the system, then maybe you deserve to be herded through that line like sheep and talked to like a child for not filling out for 10A-16.