This region nearly ran out of water. Locals and experts say other Canadian towns should pay attention
This region nearly ran out of water. Locals and experts say other Canadian towns should pay attention
It's hard to believe that having enough water is an issue at Banditry Cider in Gibsons, B.C. The craft cidery is on a rural property with rows of apple trees, a huge pond filled with ducks, and as James Armstrong surveys the place on a rainy spring day, his boots are covered in mud.
"I assumed because it was Gibsons and we bought this place in the winter, I was like, 'it's always wet here.' And I grew up here and there were never water issues."
In five of the last eight summers, the Sunshine Coast Regional District (SCRD) has implemented stage 4 watering restrictions, the highest level, which ban all outdoor water use. That means no watering lawns or gardens or washing cars. Since 2021, farms have been given a two-week grace period once those restrictions begin, after which they can't use municipal water on their crops.
His advice to other municipalities is simple.
"It's easy to stick your head in the sand and tout and praise and brag about your zero to two per cent [property] tax increases. But the fact of the matter is, with doing that, you're just kicking the can down the road."
This is true for most if not all tax cuts. Taxes aren't the government taking your hard earned money to do shit you don't care about. It's using the power of large numbers to bring the greatest good to the widest number of people in the most efficient way.
You can either save a few tax cents and spend thousands a year on a car including insurance, maintenance, gas, and other little things that you forget you need to pay for, or you can get someone else to drive you and thousands of others a day for the same few cents a year of taxes. You can spend thousands or tens of thousands out of pocket every time you need to have a checkup at the doctor's, or you can spend like five bucks a year on taxes to go in at zero extra charge as many time as you want. You can spend two hundred dollars a month on insulin, or have the government buy it in bulk and receive your dose for ten bucks a month.
By pooling your money with millions of others, you get a massive discount on every service you need. Sure, maybe some of the services doesn't help you specifically, but the cost to you is a drop in the bucket, yet you still get massive discounts on other stuff you use daily.
And this applies triply so for those in rural Canada. The cities are paying for your roads, your sewers, your electricity. If you live in rural Canada, there's a high chance that either you get almost no public services (including road and utilities maintenance) or you're being subsidized by cities that do pay high taxes.
While I wont' say turn a blind eye to leaders that use your taxes poorly or funnel them to the already rich (looking at you Ford), don't jump on the anti-tax bandwagon. Every dollar less you spend on taxes makes you spend a hundred somewhere else where people are incentivized to gouge you for every cent they can.