Buscaraons

27.10.04

Revenue Canada and churches' tax exempt status: contra Sassy

Yesterday I passed by Sassy's blog and I came across this post She praises the Revenue Canada's legislative authourity to revoke a church's tax exempt status if it become too political. I wrote a brief comment at her blog but I couldn't go into more detail in attempting to explain why Sassy shouldn't be too easily enthused by this policy.

First, the criteria to revoke a church's tax exempt status is rather subjective It's up to RevCan to judge. Right, I want an entity in charge of squeezing as much money from citizens and organizations as it can get, to decide if Second, Sassy is rather disingenious if she thinks that churches should become nothing more than national/patrotic churches that cheerlead every state decision as the summit of human wisdom; yet expect the faithful to keep their religious beliefs private.

That's contrary to reality. Most political issues have moral implications; case in point the normalization of homosexual couplings in Canada. It's simply not a political priority for Canadians. They want a less intrusive and corrupt federal government that doesn't wastes money on useless policies like the gun registry or engage in outright fraud like Adscam and cut taxes.

Third, contemporary concept of church separation is nothing more than the state's ability to constantly interfere in a church's internal affairs while the former is immune from any challenges by the churches. The Spanish socialist is ramming through a whole host of undebated social changes and demonizes the Catholic church in particular for its bishops' opposition.
Finally, so what if the churches get involved in the political process? What makes their positions and perspectives such an affront that churches must be neutralized into obedient cheerleaders or commit lése-majesté by simply disagreeing with the state on political issues?

La conférence de la péréquistion

Quelle perte de temps, un coup monté déguisé en grande messe. Il ne me surprend pas que Charest est très déçu des resultats. Lui et les autres provinces ont été obligés à avaler un pilule dure avec laquelle, le fédéral continue à s'enricher indûment de l'argent qui appartient à eux. Pis encore, le fédéral continuera à vanter de son 'excellente' gestion financière qui lui permet de rembourser sa dette au dépens de provinces. En outre, le fédéral continuera aussi à envahir de champs de compétences exclusivement provinciales. Il serait mieux que le fédéral s'en occupe de ses propres compétences exclusives en plus de veiller sur ses tendence succomber dans la corruption- comme dans le scandale de commandites- ainsi que gérer plus prudemment les budgets pour qu'il ne gaspille pas de sommes d'argent astronomiques dans des programmes d'utilité douteuse comme le régistre d'armes à feu. Le pays se conduit vers un centralisme jacobin que lui nuira beaucoup parce que contrairement à l'intention originelle des fondateurs du Canada, le pays sera toujours une fédération qui fonctionne mieux quand il se décentrailise à tous les niveaux politiques et sociaux.

¶ 16:18