What about a Child-LESS Benefit Plan? Canadian Elections 2008

NDP’S CHILD BENEFIT PROGRAMS ONLY THE BEGINNING (Sept 28/08) TORONTO -- The NDP rolled out a $51.6-billion menu of promises on Sunday, releasing a campaign platform that introduced a new child benefit as its centerpiece that would see all families with children under 18 receiving non-taxable monthly cheques of up to $2,488. The New Democrats would spend an extra $4.4 billion annually by 2012-13 on the non-taxable payments, which will replace and enhance three existing programs, including the Harper government's $100 monthly payments for children under six. "The New Democrat's Child Benefit will give every middle-class and working family a raise," Layton said in a statement. The party would also implement a new national childcare program, to be phased in over four years at a cost of $1.75 billion annually by 2012-13. The new proposal would be income based, with no families with children receiving less than they do currently. All families earning less than $188,000 annually would receive more, with a middle-class family of four with two children, earning a household income of $40,000 - $75,000, receiving monthly cheques of $2,140. JACK LAYTON MAKES A COMMITMENT TO UNIVERSAL DAY CARE FOR FAMILY PETS The debate about how, where and by whom young dogs should be looked after has occupied much social policy and media attention in recent years because the decline of family values is held responsible for a range of social problems. That the chore of looking after the family dog should fall upon women is unacceptable to the New Democratic Party. They have therefore proposed state intervention in this critical area of our lives. Once again, the NDP, committed to the belief that there exists a social program to remedy every problem, has stepped into the breech, with a bold initiative calling for State Doggie Daycare Centres for Working Mothers. The concept is simple. Working mothers must have the reasonable chance of career advancement and independent living by leaving their dogs at daycare while working a 37 ½ hour week. All dog care expenses will be picked up by registered taxpaying dog-haters, and by a punitive capital gains tax on known dog-hating CEOs. Eventually, should the economy improve by the exploitation and degradation of yet more of the natural environment, the revenues which will flow from clear-cutting and open-pit mining will fund yet more daycare centres for parakeets, cats and tropical fish which liberated working female pet owners will drop off on their way to their mind-numbing, tedious jobs that Gloria Steinem tells them they are so fulfilled at doing. During their ten minute coffee breaks while they stand shivering outside office buildings furtively chain smoking while thumbing through their John Grisham novels, they can feel secure that “Fifi” is being looked after by the nanny state at someone else’s expense. NOW HERE IS MY PRESS CONFERENCE: On behalf of the neo-malthusian Canadian Population Reduction Party I would like to introduce our Child-less Benefit policy to reward those people who were altruistic enough NOT to introduce any more consumers into our highly unsustainable economy. Each child born in Canada will be projected to emit 23.8 metric tonnes of green house gasses and consume 3.7 million pounds of minerals, metals and fuels in his lifetime. I propose a generous benefit to be awarded to each couple or parent to the amount of $1070 per month for each absent child less than the Canadian average. The scheme will be financed with a draconian tax on those with the most children, particularly those who claim that they can afford them, since those are the very children with the highest ecological footprint, due to their conspicuous consumption. Surplus revenues can be set aside for the research and development of the robots which, according to MIT professor Rodney Brooks, will in less than five decades, be so intrusive in so many areas of our lives that they will obviate the necessity for immigration or birth incentives to fill any labour or skills shortages, particularly in the delivery of health care to the elderly. One day, of course, robots may win the franchise, and vote to terminate living Canadians, deciding that they are unsustainable in ANY numbers, as they have never proven that they can acknowledge limits or constrain their appetites. Should that happen, foreign visitors will not notice any difference in English Canada though. We are already born dead on arrival, programmed with a PC mind-set and conditioned responses with no personalities to speak of and waiting for a public broadcasting corporation to down load its world view on us. Tim Murray September 29/30