Dick, you lucky B@$#&%!

Here is a ‘what-if’ for you. You and your wife build up a family business running a campground in a busy tourist trap in beautiful British Columbia. Day after day, you clean the garbage, maintain peace and good order within the campground boundaries. Collect stall rent, sell confectionery, small plastic toys for the kiddies and at the end of each day, thank your staff for putting in a hard days work.

Each month, you balance your books and calculate GST and PST. Use your payroll tables and pay your staff. You then remit the payroll taxes, and your portion of CPP, UIC. Pay your WCB, utilities, insurance and all expenses. If you are financed, you prepare a financial report and submit it to the account manager assigned to you by the bank. Each year you file your corporate and personal tax return. For all this hard work and responsibility, you feed your family and employ your neighbours. Sounds mundane but this is the life of the independent businessperson.

Years later a letter comes from the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA). Which informs that you owe one million dollars in personal taxes. At that instant, your bowels vacate, and you excuse yourself from whatever you are doing. Your fight begins, when you recall that you have filed your taxes properly and conducted your business in accordance with proper business practices. You and your spouse find yourself in a fight with what is considered the most powerful government agency in Canada.

So if that were you, what would be your next move? Most folks would pick up the phone and engage in a conference call with your accountant and the CRA. Maybe you would fire off an email to your Member of Parliament pleading for help. Whatever your action, time would pass and you would find yourself facing interest charges from the ‘tax man’ causing you to liquidate your assets such as your home, business and savings. Sounds like a good start to a Roger Corman Drive-In horror flick.

In walks Conservative MP Dick Harris, who receives the call for help from former campground owner Irvin Leroux and Irvin’s wife Jill Moore. Yes, this story mimics real life, which was reported by the press on April 25th. (Tory MP compares taxman to terrorsts- Ottawa Citizen, April 2009) The details could be different, but the end result is the same.

According to the Irvin’s, the CRA have lost older records that would show that they do not owe one million dollars in back taxes. Since the CRA made a complete computer system change over the past six years, could this really have happened? Has something similar happened to other taxpayers? Does anyone even dare make a similar claim public?

In the process and passion of the handling of the plea, Dick Harris is quoted in correspondence with the Irvin’s as writing, “Hang in there, I am on your side and will keep fighting these bastards.”

Bastards you say! Oh but Dick does not stop there. He then equates the CRA with the terrorist organization Hezbollah. An organization that only two years earlier conservative MP Jason Kenney compared to the German Nazi Party under the leadership of Adolf Hitler. A year earlier MP Steven Fletcher used the descriptor ‘bastards’ when referring to Second World War Japanese soldiers. An act that caused considerable embarrassment for the Federal Conservatives, which sparked the opposition’s anger ultimately leading to a public apology. Should Dick not apologize?

Should Dick get away with calling the ‘taxman’ a bastard and a terrorist? Is not the onus on Dick to prove his statement true?

Lets just break this down and see where it goes. The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines “bastard” in part as being “something that is spurious, irregular, inferior, or of questionable origin” or “an offensive or disagreeable person.” Of course the standard definition is “an illegitimate child.” That would be hard to prove, but the first two don’t necessarily seem to be a real stretch.

Having established Dick’s first assertion as plausible, lets take a look at his latter. That equating the CRA to Hezbollah. Here is where I have to draw the line. Canada Revenue Agency has NO record of planting bombs or killing people. I believe Dick is offside at this one. But as far as causing terror in a persons life, I think a few Canadians may be able to step up to the witness box and testify that calls and letters from the CRA has “coerced funds from a bank account as a result of feeling terror” which according to Merriam-Webster fits a definition of a terrorist.

The real issue here is that the CRA is a public agency established by the people’s government. As a public agency they have the mandate of a servant. Servanthood implies a subservient position to those who are being served. This relationship should be in the best interest of all the citizens of Canada. This includes people whom are being sought after for outstanding taxes. It is also in the best interest of the citizenry to properly investigate cases where procedure or possible lost records may have caused an error detrimental to a taxpayer. To assume that the establishment is right and does not make errors is foolhardy. No entity is one hundred percent right, one hundred percent of the time.

I believe on the weight of probability that the Irvin’s deserve proper inquiry and their case should be carefully re-examined.

In the mean time, if a member of parliament whom you have petitioned for help has in the course of his investigation formed an opinion that your adversaries are bunch of bastards, well, then so-be-it. An organization the size and scope of the CRA should be able to let such a comment roll off their backs.

I doubt the average citizen could get away with such a comment. Dick, you lucky B@$#&!