CollingwoodToday welcomes letters to the editor at [email protected]. Please include your full name, daytime phone number and address (for verification of authorship, not publication). The following letter from Barrie resident Peter Bursztyn is in response to 'LETTER: Approach by taxpayers federation 'unproductive',' published Jan. 8.
I agree with John Stillich’s letter criticizing the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.
However, Stillich could have gone even further.
First of all, the (compulsory) Canada Pension Plan (CPP) payment every employed person is required to make is not a tax. It goes to ensure the individual isn’t completely without financial resources when they stop working. Sadly, the current CPP pension benefit has become far too small. It really needs to increase.
It is better to look at the CPP contribution as enforced savings; it’s definitely not a tax because you get it back.
Much the same could be said about Employment Insurance (EI). Unfortunately, self-employed people (as I was for two decades) are required to contribute, although it would have been impossible or very difficult for me to claim the benefit.
Regarding the carbon tax, Stillich should have said that Canadians are reimbursed for this when they file their income tax returns.
Having made our home very energy-efficient two decades ago and having driven battery-electric cars for over eight years, I get back far more than I pay. Others who choose to drive large, heavy vehicles to work and refuse to lower their thermostat setting are probably out of pocket. Perhaps they will get the message and reduce the amount of fossil fuel they burn.
How many more flood events, crippling droughts and hurricanes must the Earth experience before climate-change deniers become believers?
Peter Bursztyn
Barrie
