Why I Ride My Bicycle

A few months ago, Eric Rempel posted a column about why he biked. This motivated me to share my story.

Were I to choose a personal zodiac, 2011 would be the year of the Bicycle. Last summer I found my self completely smitten with a mode of transportation that was simply too intimidating and/or inconvenient a few years ago.   This epiphany occurred because I had become increasingly aware of the effects of “unconscious living” and that such a lifestyle was destroying the very environment I love.  I realized that I had a responsibility to do something. I also needed to save money.

In the past few years, some friends at the University of Winnipeg have opened my eyes to the concept of sustainable living.  I have become alarmed by the realization that our lives are completely dependent on petroleum, a resource that is finite and non-renewable, causes wars, and is becoming increasingly expensive. I had been living in ignorant bliss for most of my life and suddenly I became painfully aware.

This awareness placed me at a fork in the road, with a map and no compass. I knew where I was and where I wanted to go, but had to find a way to get there. I had friends who were vegan, others were dedicated winter cyclists, and some attempted to follow a 100 mile diet.  That was all too extreme. I was overwhelmed but decided to take baby steps. I have begun by composting, noting where food I buy comes from and riding my bike.

I have never been athletic and the mere thought of biking exhausted me at first. I had no leg muscles, no endurance, was terrified of cars on the road and did not know what traffic laws to follow. 

Then I decided I would like to travel, and go back to school.

I hate to make it seem like money is the ultimate motivator, but a tight budget is.  Driving my car less was an easy penny saver and that meant biking more. And then I began to love it! Biking was actually exhilarating! Not only was I saving money, I was gaining muscle. It was like I was on Body Break – staying fit and having fun!

When I returned to Steinbach this past June after a two-year hiatus, I needed to share my new discovery with my old town. Some friends and I organized group bike rides. I wanted people to realize that riding a bike doesn’t have to mean that you can’t afford a car, or that you are an athlete. It can simply mean you like riding your bike and want to consume less gasoline.

Hey, give it a go! Start small. Next time you need to dash to the store or return a movie, ride your bike. January may be a difficult time of year to start, so maybe you wait till spring. But now is the time to resolve to ride your bike more. The city of Steinbach has done a great job of making the city bicycle friendly. For cycling information check both www.steinbach.ca and southeasttrasniton.com.

Hilary Klassen

Too Many Disposable Diapers

“We pick up thousands of [disposable] diapers on a daily basis,” states Eldon Wallman from the Steinbach landfill. This calculates to around half a million diapers being delivered to rot in our own small landfill every year. Imagine the numbers worldwide!

Many parents choose disposable diapers because of simplicity. Disposables can be bought in bulk, they hold a lot of waste, and they make for quick diaper changes.

All this convenience comes at a huge expense. Most parents are innocently ignorant of what happens after the disposable diaper leaves their hands. That diaper travels to a landfill where it will sit for many thousands of years. Much of the diaper is made from plastics that will not breakdown. These chemicals, along with the human waste products contained in the diaper, leach from the landfill into the water system. We are voluntarily polluting our earth with raw human waste and untreated chemicals. Is there an alternative? Yes there is.

Cloth diapers are an environmentally friendly alternative to disposable diapers.  The cloth diaper system allows parents to wash and reuse diapers repeatedly throughout their baby’s diapering lifetime. The waste is removed from the diaper and deposited in the toilet where it can be properly treated along with the rest of the family’s waste. Additionally, cloth diapers can be used with multiple children before being retired. Many parents actually keep the diapers for rags after all their children are potty trained.  Only when these cloth diapers have been thoroughly exhausted do they end up in the landfill, once there, they break down quickly because they are made from natural materials such as cotton, wool, or bamboo.

Some parents are hesitant about switching to cloth diapers because they have seen the complicated folding and pinning required from the older styles. However, current cloth diapers are more user-friendly involving snaps or Velcro with no pinning required. Current cloth diapers are made from fun and funky fabrics with all sorts of luxurious textures.

Not only are cloth diapers environmentally friendly, they are economically friendly as well. The average family spends about $2500 to disposable diaper one child until potty training. Conversely, a child can be totally cloth diapered for as little as $200, less if the diapers are handmade from recycled materials or purchased used. Furthermore, subsequent children in the family will then be diapered for free using their older sibling’s diapers.

The bottom line is that disposable diapers pose a dangerous risk to our environment by filling up our landfills and leaching hazardous chemicals into our ecosystems.  Conversely, cloth diapers are reused for many years and human waste from cloth diapers is properly treated through the sewage system, majorly reducing the impact on the water systems of the community. Coupled with the fact that cloth diapers can save you over $2000 per child, we should all make the switch to cloth.

By Rebecca Hiebert

We Need a Resource Consumption Tax

Most taxes in Canada do not encourage the right activities. Behavior that should be encouraged is taxed, and behavior that should be discouraged has no tax. That was the assertion I made in last week’s column and applied that thinking to property tax. But this thinking is relevant to other taxes as well.

Most taxes in Canada are based on income earned, both for the corporation and for the individual. The more income the person or company earns, the more taxes are due. But why tax income? So many other things could be taxed: consumption, land, the use of resources, energy use, capital gain, inheritance, to name the most obvious. Of course, to a limited extent, all of these items are being taxed, but the heavy tax remains the income tax.

But why tax income. It only makes sense if there are no better options. But there are many better options. To make my point consider just one simplified example. A factory pays a certain amount of tax. Under today’s tax policy, most of that tax would be based on income. As the company becomes more profitable, it pays more tax; less profitable, less tax. It follows then, that there is only one incentive the tax gives to the company and that is to hire more accountants and lawyers. Their skill lies in finding ways to avoid the payment of tax.

But now assume our tax policy changes. The same amount of tax is paid, but the tax now is based on consumption. The tax could be on overall consumption (like our GST), but better would be a tax on a scarce resource, say oil. Note this tax shift would not affect the disposable return of the factory. The same amount of tax is paid. The firm still has the same freedom to invest and procure, but the more oil it consumes, the more tax it pays; the less oil it consumes, the less tax it pays. This tax shift creates a huge incentive for the factory to reduce its oil consumption and become more energy efficient. Conceivably the incentive would result in more jobs as the company re-focuses from energy efficiency to labour efficiency.

The simple tax shift from income focus to oil focus will result in other beneficial changes over time. Nobody forfeits any freedom. Those who wish to continue to consume oil at a high rate, are free to do so, but it will cost them more. Those who find ways to reduce their oil consumption, save. Obviously, factories become more efficient. Nation-wide, less oil is consumed, so more oil is left for future generations. Pollution generally accompanies oil consumption. There is less pollution. Transportation costs increase, so there is less traffic. Everyone walks and cycles more, with concomitant benefits to physical and mental health. The tax shift has redefined efficiency.

A tax shift away from income tax to a tax based on consumption benefits everyone. It is more fair, encourages more efficiency, and encourages conservation.

Tax Land, Not Buildings

Fundamentally, most tax structures in Canada are doing the very opposite of what they ought to be doing: they tax behavior that should be encouraged and don’t tax behavior that should be discouraged. This is the opinion of Frank de Jong, former leader to the Ontario Green Party. He outlined his argument at a recent meeting in Winnipeg.

De Jong’s critique could be applied to many taxes, but municipal property tax will be the focus of this column.  Property tax in southeastern Manitoba is based on property value. This means that if a property owner does something to improve the value of his property, his taxes will go up. This is true in the case of a businessperson who begins with a bare piece of land and puts a high value commercial property on it, or of a homeowner who finishes a basement in an existing house.

But ought the property improvement to trigger an increase in taxes? The property owner has just done a good thing. He has transformed a piece of land with minimal value into an asset with substantial value. This developer ought to be applauded and rewarded for that activity; instead our system penalizes him by increasing his tax bill.

There are two reasons to own land: it may bring the owner what he wants now, whether that be revenue or enjoyment; or it may be owned in expectation of an increase in value. Our current tax structure discourages the owner from taking steps to enhance the revenue earning potential of the land. By default then, the tax system encourages the holding of the land for speculation. I am not against the holding of land for speculative reasons. It has its place, but the tax system ought not to reward speculation at the expense of development.

De Jong asserts that taxing land rather than buildings has had a demonstrated good effect on cities, suburbs and towns. This has been observed in Pennsylvania, where tax on buildings is minimal. Taxing land rather than buildings has the effect of densifying cities, thereby making them more people friendly, walkable, bicycable. There is less unused land.

Taxing land rather than buildings, is neither tax relief, nor a tax grab. It is a tax shift.

Not yet convinced? Consider the new Credit Union building we will soon see in downtown Steinbach. I am not privy to the building plans, but basically the design could be one of two: the new building could be built very much like the current building, that is, two story with the entire building devoted to the business of credit unioning. Were that to occur, all the current business space in that block of Main Street would be gone permanently, taking with it all associated pedestrian traffic – probably somewhere north of the city centre. Our current property tax system encourages that kind of development – sprawl. It has been very effective. But without a tax on the building, there would an incentive to add an additional story to the building so the ground floor space could be devoted to small businesses: walaah – a more pedestrian friendly city.

By Eric Rempel