Maybe I’m a little punchy because I just finished doing my taxes, but I nearly fell out of my seat laughing when I saw the juxtapostion of these two headlines on Google News.

I’m thinking that the problem in the second headline goes a long way towards explaining the problem in the first headline. In which case none of us should expect action from Ottawa on the second problem any time soon.

Ah, whatever. I’m getting $8640.48 back. Me so happy. 🙂

I don’t suppose anyone visiting this blog knows where one can obtain a list of the people/organizations who didn’t pay their taxes? It would be interesting to see if any prominent lefties, the ones who are staunch advocates of more taxes, made the list.

OTTAWA (CP) – The Canada Revenue Agency has written off almost $2.4 billion in taxes owed but never paid after an internal audit found there was little likelihood of ever collecting the money.

The writeoff is the largest in Canadian tax history, and almost $1 billion higher than last year.

Much of the money struck from the books was for stale accounts, many older than four years, which an internal audit said have been piling up unpaid since 2000.

So the CBC has found a way to recycle their old archives. Not only that, but they’re going to do it in such a manner that they also get to poke right wingers in the eye with the pointy end of a stick.

Niiiiice.

Maybe it’s just me, but I figure that the best way to get Canadians interested in the CBC’s archival materials is to give Canucks the complete right to use them in their own projects in any way they see fit. After all, it was all bought and paid for by Canadians, right? Wouldn’t it be cool to see a new generation of Canadians going through the raw footage and interpreting our history for themselves, and others?

Except that ordinary Canadians can’t be trusted to tell a story that is in line with ‘Canadian values’ (Liberal values, that is). And giving the power to the people would take opportunities away from the CBC intelligentsia to insult those foot their bills.

Can’t have that.

Six o�clock – tv hour. don�t get caught in foreign
Towers. slash and burn, return, listen to yourself
Churn. locking in, uniforming, book burning, blood
Letting. every motive escalate. automotive incinerate
Light a candle, light a votive. step down, step down
Watch your heel crush, crushed, uh-oh, this means no
Fear cavalier. renegade steer clear! a tournament,
Tournament, a tournament of lies. offer me solutions,
Offer me alternatives and I decline

It’s the end of the world as we know it.
It’s the end of the world as we know it.
It’s the end of the world as we know it and I feel fine.
— It’s the End of the World As We Know It by R.E.M.

So is it time to sell your home, pack your bags, and head for the hills? A commenter in the Publication Ban thread, HappyDaze, dropped this bomb on his way through:

I just returned from a function with high level corporate individuals. A fund raising golf tourney to be precise.

Profound advice is to move all financial assets off shore; out of Canada. Paul Martin’s own company CSL has already done this but my friend is now taking most of his assets to Australia; plotting his own personal move there and advising anyone who will listen to get all of their assets out of canada now!

There are many complicated reasons – one is that the federal debt has been understated by the Liberals by many many billions; the revenues over stated and that it is not only the UIC 50 billion funds that have been plundered but the pension funds are suspect as well.

Personal debt is now the highest of the G8 and the impending and inevitable raise in interst rates partially because of Federal Overspending in non-priority areas is going to put interest rates over the sustainable rates and cause thousands of bancruptcys’.

The financial community is already preparing for Canada’s demotion to a Banana Republic and quietly moving assets.

The Liberal destruction of Canada is well underway. Apparently it is easier to move assets to another Commonwealth country so if you can my friend advises Australia in the short term.

There is so much more he and numerous high level financial advisors told me tonight that my head spins – the conspiracy theories some of you have been musing about no longer seem in the least bit far fetched – and yes, China does have a role in some of this.

Changing the government from Liberal will not change the behind the scenes power mongers, it is too late.

Paul Martin, Jack Layton et al have no choice but to play along. If Stephen Harper cannot be bought or comprimised he will be replaced.

Notice the last few weeks, the drive to “replace Harper” – that is the real powers spearheading it. The next Conservative leader will have to be more pliable.

That is what is happening now. We have no say, no choice and no power to stop this.

Alarmist? Maybe. But he’s not the only one thinking in this direction. Jay Currie has a few words on the topic as well, sagely pointing out that an economic crash could be helped along by external factors:

For Toronto in particular and Canada in general, SARS was a wake up call and we seemed to have learned a few things. In particular we saw how quickly our high tech medical system can be overwhelmed by 50 or 100 cases of a deadly infectious disease. In Toronto, if avian flu hits, the number of case will likely be in the hundreds of thousands unless very strict quarantine measures are put into effect instantly. The same is true across the country.

However, and here is where the brittleness of the West and its economic and social structures kicks in. Assuming for the moment that Canada, because of the planning which resulted from the SARS scare and the decision to stock up on anti-virals gets off relatively lightly. Say 100,000 cases and 20,000 deaths – because we live in an interdependent world our good luck will not protect us from the economic consequences of an epidemic.

The worst case projections are that up to a quarter of a given population will be infected and, of those infected, 10-20% will die. So, to take our neighbour to the south, that would be 75 million cases and 7.5 million to 15 million deaths.

The harsh economic fact is that while those deaths will be concentrated in groups of already compromised people, children and the elderly, the already ill and, of course, the poor, enough highly productive people will be killed for there to be a real effect on the economy. An effect which a robust economy could absorb fairly easily over a couple of years; but an economy which is in budget and trade deficit and facing increasing competition for energy supplies? Much more difficult.

Worse, the loss of several million people is not without consequence for the booming housing markets which, in their turn, are underwriting the stacks of private debt Americans have been racking up. When five people on your cul de sac all die in the same week and that pattern is repeated throughout your suburb it is a pretty good bet that housing prices are going to fall – fast.

I’ve been picking up similar hints from numerous sources, many of them well placed enough to understand what happens when an immovable mass of ignoramuses collides with an unserviceable debtload.

My house is up for sale, and hopefully we’ll have a deal signed in the next couple of weeks. After that I’m heading for high ground and living the no rent, no mortgage lifestyle out in the country with a garden full of fresh vegetables.