So recently the news headlines were awash with the tragic death of a pregnant mother trying to cross the border into Canada. The outcries from some of the protesters want the government to take responsibility for and I imagine pay some kind of reparation for her death. While I feel badly for this tragic death, and any other that may may occur, my opinion on who is responsible and who should pay is somewhat different.
Now I am probably going to get some flak for daring to air this opinion, but I have some questions for anyone who believes, that immigration to any other country than the one you were born in, is a fundamental right.
If that is your belief, you may also think that the citizens of the country you want to enter should not only welcome you with open arms, but be willingly to pay for whatever you need once you get here. Except here is the problem with that scenario.
The citizens of the country who already live and work and pay taxes here, cannot afford to welcome all and everyone who want to come here for free. Yes there are organizations that raise money (again from said taxpayers of the country) in order to pay for newcomers to come and live here. But the majority of the families already here can hardly pay for their own existence let alone pay for more people.
Unless the newcomers can also pay taxes and contribute to the overall maintenance and security of the infrastructure already in place and being paid for by the generations of current and past working tax payors of this country, everything will fall apart around all of them, newcomers and citizens alike.
This would mean perhaps that anyone wanting to enter this country, or any other tax heavy country, should have to pay to the government the same amount of taxes the average citizen has already paid over the past 50 years or so. I am averaging that out to be $1,000,000.00 per person.
That is the approximate amount each citizen of this country will have paid in taxes, over their lifetime, including, the Income tax, the municipal tax, the education tax, the infrastructure tax, the land tax, the federal sales tax, the provincial sales tax, the consumption tax, the fuel tax, the liquor tax, the garbage tax, the recycling tax, the carbon tax etc. etc. etc. Have I missed any?
50(years)x$30,000(wages per year)=$1,500,00.00 approximate income of a 70 year old over his or her lifetime paying most of it to taxes. Taxed when you make it, then taxed again when you spend it. Probably a lot higher for most workers.
As far as things falling apart here is my example of that.
All working citizens of this country pay huge taxes to make sure we all have access to free healthcare whenever we need it. Now, because of immigration, there are way too many people using the healthcare system than there are working people paying for it. Therefor it has become unsustainable, unreliable, and unhealthy for the citizens who have worked and paid taxes for generations to be able to rely on getting the healthcare they need in their old age.
My spouse and I have both worked and paid taxes in this country since the age of 17. Our whole family for generations were born here, worked here, and paid taxes here. Our ancestors worked in the coal mines, built the roads and the bridges and the hospitals here, worked as truckers, teachers farmers and carpenters, over the course of 100's of years.
For the past 50 years or so, my spouse and I had to work more than one job each to keep up with expenses for ourselves and our children. Now in our early 70's we will start needing the healthcare system more and more. Having hardly used much of it so far, since we are relatively both healthy, we feel that we are being cheated out of the system we paid dearly for.
Just one problem for us (and thousands if not millions of other born here citizens of this country) has been that both of our doctors (we each had our own family doctor from the time we moved to our current town) have quit. There are no other doctors taking their place and the current doctors are not taking any new patients. So neither one of use has a doctor we can go to in order to keep our health in check. Sure, we can still go to emergency if anything happens, but shouldn't we also have access to a doctor we can see for checkups in order to stay healthy in the first place?
How the heck did this happen? I would say that this is the same as you putting money in your bank for over a hundred years (50 years each for my spouse and I) and then being told that your money is being taken away from you and given to someone else, from somewhere else, who wants to live here now. So they get to use the money you have killed yourself working for instead of you.
If that would not enrage 99% of you I don't know what else would.