My Dream Of An Empty Toronto

The United States always makes bigger headlines than Canada in Canada. The elections only proved it. Ask any Canadian their opinion on the Canadian election of 4 weeks ago and you'll get some mumbled stuff about Harper (that's the prime minister), and Stephane What's-His-Name (Dion, leader of the Liberal party, no relation to Celine) and that's about it. But ask them about the US election and man, are you in for a ride.

The two elections are an interesting case study in the phoniness of Canadians. On the one hand, they elect Conservative Harper. On the other, they praise the tax-and-spender Obama. Holding a political discussion with a Canadian is like being in a room full of bipolar weirdos. Then again, it gets harder every day trying to nail down exactly what Canadians believe is "liberal" and "conservative."

Toronto, however, is different. They know liberalism only too well. Toronto is one city in Canada where it's all tax-and-spend all the time and they love it. They must, because they don't do anything to stop it.

A few weeks ago I was renewing my driver's license. I was behind some guy getting registration for his car. This was in Burlington, about 50 km from Toronto. The lady handed him the bill and the guy said, "Whoa, whoa! $145?" And the lady said, "You live in Toronto." The guy said, "Yeah, so what?" And the lady said, "There's another $60 charge for having a car in Toronto. It started this year."

So the guy said, "To hell with this," ripped the bill in half, tipped over the computer, trashed the place, got on his cell to the mayor's office, gave them hell...

Wait a minute. Sorry. That was only in my dreams. What the guy actually said was, "Oh." He reached into his back pocket, handed over his credit card, and that was that.

I loved him for that "Oh." That is the perfect slogan for a Canadian: "Oh." Not, "Oh, yeah, you sonofabitch?" Not, "Oh? And when did they decide to give me another financial enema, pencilneck?" Just, "Oh." As in our national anthem, "Oh Canada."

Today I was driving on the unfortunately named Gardiner Expressway. It's the ramshackle road/bridge that goes across Toronto. The speed limit is listed at 90kph, but you seldom get there. They have digital signs on the Gardiner that say things like, "GARDINER MOVING SLOWLY TO LOWER JARVIS." We are expected to believe that some guy is sitting around keeping an eye on the highway, but we all know it's a crock because the Gardiner is always moving slowly to Lower Jarvis. It has for years, and it will forever. If I was the guy writing the digital sign, I would at least have some fun with it. How about something like, "ENJOYING THE $60 YOU SPENT? WE ARE. RATHER THAN SPEND THE MONEY ON WIDENING THIS HIGHWAY, WE'RE THROWING A KEGGER AT THE MAYOR'S HOUSE. WE'RE PARTYING WITH STRIPPERS WHILE YOU'RE STUCK IN TRAFFIC. LOSERS."

On the Gardiner this morning I heard the radio announcer say that Toronto residents will now pay an extra 9% tax on water. The newsman said that the water tax would go up 9% every year for the next five years or more. The DJ also said that the mayor's office was going to begin publishing a quarterly newsletter for Toronto residents. In other places, this is known as political propaganda, but in Toronto it's called "useful information." The newsletter will be translated into almost a dozen languages, including Chinese and Urdu. The cost? $800 000. The DJ said all this, then threw it over to the weatherman, who made no comment and instead told me that it was a beautiful day outside.

Oh.

One city councillor said the newsletter is very important. He can foresee people cutting out the newsletter's articles and putting them on their fridge. I hate to break it to him, but any man worth his salt (if there's any left) will be cutting out articles from the newsletter to save on toilet paper.

Last week I was sitting at a red light on an absolutely gutted Bloor Street. It's down to two lanes and nobody can move anywhere. It's an operation to beautify Bloor Street for your grandkids; in the meantime you'll have to live with a scene reminiscent of Beirut.

I killed time listening to more Toronto news and found out that Toronto residents have to put their garbage in city authorized garbage bins. It went into effect this week. No more garbage bags allowed. Every household will receive a grey box. If you don't put your garbage in the city's special garbage bin (and when the hell did we start using "bin" instead of "can?"), your trash will be left at the curb.

Says the Star: "Pick a small garbage bin and get a small refund of $10 a year. Pick a medium bin – it holds about the same as 1.5 garbage bags – and you'll pay $39 a year. There's a big jump in fees if you pick the large bin (equal to three garbage bags): $133 a year. Using the extra-large size will cost $190 a year."

In other words, if you have a large family to feed, you're being punished by the city for something that you already pay taxes on. That simple.

But wait, it gets better: 70000 people have yet to receive a garbage bin. Too bad. If you use garbage bags then your trash will rot in your driveway and you could receive a fine...unless you use city approved twist ties. In a gesture so satirical it makes even me uncomfortable, the twist ties are pink. The city will mail you the pink tags for a fee, but if you run out, you can always run over to Home Hardware. They're selling them.

Oh.

In other news, the Toronto government recently said they are going to demand that Tim Horton's stop using plastic lids on their cups. They say the lids aren't recyclable, while Tim Horton's says they are. The National Post: A city report on the proposed packaging policy said Toronto could buy an optical sorting machine to separate the two materials, but the equipment would cost $3-million and the processing could run about $1-million a year.

I've got an idea, buttheads. If you're so keen on green, how about you take the 800 grand from your propaganda rag, and 3333 of your $60 car registrations. Guess what? There's your million dollars/year for recycling plastic lids. Or you could continue to hose businesses until they decide it just isn't worth opening new stores, giving people jobs, and offering people products to buy.

All of this is just a sampling of one fine year in Toronto. A water tax hike of 9%. A vehicle registration hike of 60 bucks. A pay-as-you-go trash collection system that leads you to believe that none of your taxes ever went to trash collection before.

Toronto is a microcosm of what can happen under a socialist system. The city is determined to nickle-and-dime its citizens until they're completely bankrupt and dependent upon the government teat.

And what do the citizens do? Buy their little pink tags and say, "Oh."

There must be some kind of wrath brewing beneath all of this. Don't citizens remember that Toronto is a city and not an empire? My advice to every citizen of Toronto: move.

Someday, maybe, the people of this once great country will grow their balls back. We will recall that politicians are not gods. They are just people, and they are supposed to do our bidding. They should be afraid of us, begging on hands and knees for every dime we see fit to give them to pave the roads, pick up our garbage, replace streetlights, teach the police how to arrest criminals, and then stay the hell out of our way while we make a living and enjoy ourselves.

My dream is to one day get on the Gardiner and find it empty. I'll drive into Toronto and see empty roads, a few unrecycled coffee cups, a dozen empty construction yards, and the mayor, begging for change and offering pink tags for sale.

I will laugh, and finally have hope.