No Brad. There is an extremely vocal minority that are holding the rest of us hostage.
This has got to stop.
Really SKT: Can you indicate
any government policy being rammed down our throats that doesn't fit that bill?
I used to think that the "government" was serious in using things like carbon taxes and gas taxes to actually achieve their GHG emissions reduction target. Silly me. Now that you see the economists coming out with the actual figures of the taxation levels that would be required to achieve that objective and how far below we are - even though highly taxed - I cannot help but think that it is the governments that are on drugs: The drugs of high taxes revenues (knowing it will
not change behaviour) for their side pet projects at the expense of not openly taxing the citizenry for those pet projects. If people could see how much they are "taxed" to provide all those pet projects, they may rebel at election time so they rather hide the taxes.
P.S.: Most people today don't remember that, but one of the primary driver behind PM Mulroney's GST was that items in Canada were sold to consumers filled with various hidden "excise" type taxes, included in the price but hard to track. The GST eliminated all those hidden taxes and forced them in the open. This created pressure to either reduce the taxes, or at the very least not increase it. It's what let PM Harper reduce the tax by two points and cut down on government spending: People could immediately see the connection between the two.
Imagine what would happen if your gas stations were forced to advertise their prices as follows:
Regular: 0.85+ taxes
Taxes: 0.42
I think many people would get on the government's asses to explain why the tax is so high. (I think the same thing could be done for good measure with alcoholic beverages

- I positively hate the concept of "
sin" taxes).