by H. Snowborne

Created on: April 28, 2010   Last Updated: April 29, 2010

I pay for my internet service once a year, and tacked on to the cost of the service is a Goods and Services Tax amount of 5%, so,  in effect, I am already taxed for using the internet. Now, I'm not one to moan and groan about the concept of taxation:  I'm a grown adult, I want to live in a society and in a country where my standard of living is high-and that depends on taxes being collected. 

It should be used for things like keeping my roads traversable, making sure I can access public transportation to get from point A to point B wherever it is I live (and to make sure that transportation is highly affordable); it should be used for providing my health care, my education costs, my pension when I retire and any benefits I will need should I find myself out of work. 

My taxes, and everyone else's taxes paid in this country,  should go to building and maintaining a high standard of living for all of us here-because when they aren't used for these ends, society anywhere in this country will simply cease to exist because fixing these problems any other way is unaffordable.  But the tax I pay no longer pays for these fundamental and necessary services. 

Taxes should also go to things like creating, enacting, and enforcing legislation-I want to be sure that big corporations making a fortune off the resources here (human as well as natural) pay their fair share, and I want to  be sure that they, too, will be subject to regulations which restrict their illegal practices so that everyone who lives here isn't threatened by what they're allowed to do.  And by threat, I mean financial threat, and physical threat.  I expect to pay taxes because I expect they will be used to protect me and other citizens  too, and to ensure we all have access to the things we need to live our lives well. 

My own experience of the internet where I live is limited.  The largest phone company in my country is still allowed to dictate which areas will have access to the same standard of service available elsewhere in the world.  This will only change if legislation which prioritizes  community access to the internet as a resource over profit is put in place.  In other words:  unless Bell Canada is forced to
stop overcharging for service it limits in order to keep their competitors from offering competitive higher quality and more accessible internet service, Bell Canada will simply not allow citizens access

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