Willing To Pay More

According to Dalton McGuinty it appears that I am willing to pay more for government services. This is news to me.

My first question is where are these so called 'townhall' meetings that he has been having? I can't count the number of times I've read in the papers that a particular government has been given the go-ahead to raise my taxes or to change social policy by whoever it is that attends these meetings.

I've never been invited. I've never seen a notice for one either.

The second question is should governments be creating policy based on the comments received at these meetings? More to the point, do governments use the meetings to formulate policy or to provide justification for a policy that they know the general public will be against? My hunch is the latter
is the case.

Regardless, if the McGuinty government wants me to believe that people want to pay more for government services then at least use the fees that are collected for their intended purpose. If he wants me to pay more for registering my car then ensure me that the increased fee will be applied to improving our highways or other transportation infrastructure. Don't tell me that the increase covers the real cost of the service and then throw my added money into general revenue. Same goes for health care. If a government wants to implement user fees for health services then prove to me that the added revenue will be applied to health care. Is that asking for to much?

Mr. McGuinty just tell me that you are raising my taxes. Don't do it by stealth or by telling me the idea came from some townhall meeting. And if you are so noble as to be responding to the people's wishes at these townhall meetings why not do it right and put these increased fees to a plebisite? I suspect that would be a bit too democratic wouldn't it?