The New "Utopia"
Well.
They finally got their way.
The "Utopians" finally won.. sharply increasing tax on incomes over $150,000.00 to 75%, and inducing the Federal government to prevent the import of any manufactured product.. the "Anti-Outsourcing Act". It worked, for a short while. In Guelph, a new Apple factory was churning out iphones and ipads as fast as you can imagine - with 200 new jobs in the first week.
Problem is, however, the price of the iphone increased from $400 to $1,200.
And then sales dropped. Seems that while there were new jobs, there weren't enough new jobs to justify enough sales of the domestically produced ipads and iphones, and then the layoffs started. Finally, two years after the anti-outsourcing legislation, the Apple plant shut down, and the Apple stores closed shortly after.
No big deal - for a while, the black market exploded and the underground sale of iphones and ipads was an industry unto itself, generating an estimated $210 million per year in an underground economy that didn't pay tax.
But you know how that story ended.
The Federal government, emboldened by their foray into internet snooping in the "get tough on crime bill" of 2012 simply passed an order in council to allow for sharing of information with the CRTC.
Sure - there was the obligatory effort by the Alberta government to challenge the Federal authority over a piece of trade legislation, but the Federal Government convinced the Supreme Court that the massive evasion of income tax required the law under Federal powers of taxation, and also under their criminal law jurisdiction.
Minimum sentences, all the rage, were then imposed on anyone found using a foreign-manufactured electronic communication instrument - two years in jail.
Suddenly, the use of tablets and smart phones dwindled to a trickle.
And - while the underground electronic economy dried up, oddly enough, tax revenues didn't increase.
In fact, they went down - with the precipitous drop in the electronics manufacturing industry, the collection of Federal Income Tax dropped 12% two years after, and a further 9% the year after that.
The so-called "1%" saw it coming and moved their assets out of the country before the banks started to shut down. With the improved standard of living in most third world countries, there was a run on attracting foreigners with investment capital. Suddenly, lower tax rates and tax deferrals for capital investment projects turned places like Equador and Panama into thriving economies.
And - while many warned the Federal government it was coming - there was, in fact, a "trickle-down" effect. With the increasing reliance on digital intelligence contributing to everything from televisions to automobiles - Canadian manufacturing dwindled away rapidly. The manufacture of digital intelligence in Canada simply made new technology too expensive.
Schools began to close down computer labs, digital television gave way to a new wave of analog channels in local markets - for easier and cheaper to manufacture analog tv's.
Oddly enough - the economies of what were formerly depressed foreign economies boomed as a result of U.S. and Canadian anti-outsourcing legislation. The "New East" as it has now become know has become a world powerhouse, with massive increases in the standard of living everywhere from the Philippines to, ironically enough, Afghanistan.
For a while, resource revenue from B.C., Alberta and Saskatchewan propped Canada up - however, when the manufacturing industry dried up in Ontario, those who couldn't move to Alberta induced the Federal government to bring in a draconian "New National Energy Policy". Amazingly enough, it was initially supported by former Alberta Premier Alison Redford, who won her first and only election based upon the negotiation of what she called "Alberta's New Deal" - premised on promises of committed purchase of oil and natural gas via the new "transCanada pipeline" from Fort MacMurray, Alberta to Windsor, Ontario.
Problem was, with massive increases in the federal tax of this "interprovincial undertaking", Alberta's Oil Industry soon began to falter, and what production continued was eaten away by Ontario's new "pipeline tax".
Eventually, Fort MacMurray's population dropped from it's high in 2015 of 240,000, to a ghost town of 23,000 people.
Edmonton, already Canada's perennial "murder capital of Canada" became, effectively one massive new Canadian ghetto - with crime rates increasing 200%. The massive Alberta deficit necessitated significant cut-backs - firstly in health care, where "optional medical care" became pure user-pay - including, initially, joint replacements and reproductive assistance - to more recently, any non-emergent treatment that was unlikely to cause death within 36 months. Finally, police forces were cut all over the Province - and the criminals took over.
While the "get tough on crime" legislation of the Harper government sounded good at the time, without police to enforce the law, and with massive cutbacks on prosecution - eventually, the government gave up trying to enforce most provisions of the criminal code, and kept their hands full just handling the growing incidence of domestic terrorism which reared its ugly head in the wake of the massive economic depression.
The net result, was a re-invigoration of the small rural community - where people who were able found their way to places like Barons, Alberta and Mazenod, Saskatchewan.. small enough to be able to build walled barriers and to police their streets by armed volunteers.
With the diminished power of the Federal government, while the Charter of Rights wasn't actually rescinded, it was effectively ended with the closure of the Human Rights Commissions and with the policing of rights violations taking a significant back seat to just keeping up with massive increases in murder and domestic terrorism.
The new small communities - fearful of "outsiders" created isolated homogeneous societies - with most towns limited to only one or two ethnic groups - for fear of allowing dangerous "outsiders". Concepts like "Human Rights" took a quick backseat to preventing attack from rogue criminal gangs and to maintaining food and clean water.
Welcome to the "Utopian Canada".
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