Prime Time Crime
Spaceship Canada
By Joseph Pope Jr.
A Monopoly, is defined as an economic situation in which only a single seller or producer supplies a commodity or a service. For a monopoly to be effective, there must be no practical substitutes for the product or service sold, and no serious threat of the entry of a competitor into the market. This enables the seller to control the price. When technological advances enabled a handful of large firms to satisfy the demand in many markets the results are not a complete monopoly but, rather, an economic order known as oligopoly, in which a few firms dominate production. While these oligopolies can't dictate price and availability like a monopoly can, they often turn into friendly competitors, since it is in all the members' interest to maintain a stable market and profitable prices.
Oligopolies are involved in everything we do in everyday life from the media/entertainment industry: which includes the movie industry, music industry, television industry, book publishing, radio and the newspapers. The food industry, which would, includes the beverages industry, the beer industry and agribusiness. To the Telephone companies, the Pharmaceuticals and the Banking industries.
As we all share the same planet Earth a world economy has become the reality for all people on the planet. What takes place on one piece of the planet has an effect on what takes place on other pieces of the planet whether you like it or not. Along with this global economy has come a one-world awareness. While fundamentalist in religion and nationalist attempt to bring order to their world by conformity to doctrine (as defined by them) and trying to convert others to that doctrine, change is loose about the world.
Those individuals and organizations that are best equipped to deal with these changes will be those that benefit. Those that not not equipped will go the way of the dinosaurs while creating havoc as they die off, as no organization, be it a government, religion or business goes peacefully into the night without creating external casualties.
As the world economy has grown, one of the activities taking place is for national governments to take on more of the characteristics that had been found in businesses. The government's interests and those of these businesses become the same. One main reason being of course, because of these businesses being the cash cow that allows those running the government to stay in power.
This is not as much a factor in Canada as it is in the USA, as the various levels of government in Canada have created a situation where they are the source of income for the majority of people. According to Statistics Canada the population of Canada in April 2004 was 31,825,416 with a labour force in July 2004 of 17,695,800 or 55.6% of the total population.
Over 4 million of the total population were over the age of 65 and could qualify for the Canada Pension Plan, while just under 6 million were under age 15 and could qualify for Child Tax Benefits. These are not included as part of the labour force because of age. This is about 31% of the total population. There are about two million on welfare. This leaves just over 2 million of the general population not accounted for and while I would like to suggest the missing 2 million are the lawyers, politicians and criminals that nobody wants to claim, I don't have any data to prove this so we will have to move on.
Of this labour force 1,040,900 are in Educational Services, 1,733,600 are in Health care and social assistance and 823,200 are in Public administration most of which is paid for by the taxpayer. The government says elsewhere that there are 3,104,500 public sector employees but this number seems to be a bit short. Most likely as they don't count all of the jobs that are dependent upon government funding as public sector as this wouldn't be in their best interest. Then of course there is the 1,655,700 that are collecting unemployment. None of this takes into account the amount of jobs in private sector businesses dealing with the governments that do more than 50% of their business with the governments. Nor the non-profit/charities business where charities actually get 56% of their revenue from the government and seem to spend at least half of that on wages and salaries.
Now, given a situation where over 50% of the general population are getting money from the government in one form or another does this make the Canadian government in a world market a monopoly or an oligopoly? What about the government workers with their job security benefits and pension plans that the non-government Canadian's could only hope to have, but can't afford because they are paying so much in taxes, are they a monopoly or an oligopoly?
This also makes the government workers' cries of under funding in whatever area questionable as that statement now equals "we want larger wages" and since half that money would come out of the pockets of other people benefiting from government largeness, it creates a unique situation of the government hurting it's own to help it's own.
In an attempt to be able to always have a feasible denial the governments have created a system where there are so many levels of government that when backed into a corner they can always say it is the other layer's fault. They have also broken themselves into groups called parties. (Which gives you an idea of how much they are benefiting from this system that they would call themselves a party as they are having a really good time). The federal government blames the provincial governments, the unions and of course the other parties. The provincial governments blame the federal governments, the municipal governments, the unions and of course the other parties. The Unions blame everybody as they want to be seen as workers and not as having a party at the expense of others.
This has created a country made up of special interests broken into groups of Anglophones, Francophones, natives, immigrants, heartland, hinterland, age and sexual lifestyle and whatever groups you belong to, that has moved away from the idea of a common good to one of take care of the special interest groups. In a world economy this may not be a bad thing as everyone is a minority, but it does create the question of what value is being added and is it worth the cost.
There is another question that is coming into public awareness, that of just who is going to be around to pay for this government largeness in the future. In July 2003, about 13% of the population was over 65. That group will increase by 30% in 2007 and will have doubled by 2015. The group between 20-64 which will be paying for this is largeness is increasing at 3-5%.
This will have such an large effect on the already stressed health system that things are going to get interesting. Since most Canadians fear post retirement poverty, the idea that they are going to be paying a lot more for less isn’t going to be seen as a positive.
Of course there are possible solutions:
Create the conditions where jobs aren't dependent upon government funding and the road to riches isn't government contracts.
Get rid of a few layers of government. (My vote would be for the Federal but then I am a Westerner)
Stop spending money on special interests groups and spend money only on those things that serve the common good for all Canadians, no matter their race, sex, age or language.
Restructure the wage structure for all jobs getting government money down and remove layers of management.
These are only potential solutions as I am sure there are enough of the best and brightest left in Canada to come up with some really great solutions.
They just don't work for government on any level and they aren't lawyers.
UPDATE: As of July 1, 2004 the population of Canada was 31,946,300 according to Statistics Canada. Public sector employment 2004: employees states there were 2,934,263 public service employees in 2004. In other words 9.18% of the population was taking a government paycheck directly.
OTTAWA - Senior citizens may soon outnumber children in Canada, according to a Statistics Canada projection that also says the country's overall population will top 40M by 2036. (CanWest)
Taxpayer support for federal political parties and candidates since 1988