Are they to live in the forest like animals ?

The sheriff

On September 22 last, there appeared in the New Brunswick newspapers a public notice signed by Mr. Jean-Paul Chiasson, secretary-treasurer of the municipality of Gloucester. This notice gave warning that after 21 days, that is, on October 13, the property of Edgar Roy, John Daigle and Elizabeth Boudreau, respectively, would be sold by the sheriff for arrears in taxes. To the date of writing, we have not yet heard what the outcome has been.

John Daigle and his family live at Robertville some 12 miles from Bathurst. There are ten children in the family ranging from 16 years and down. The father, mother and the children all sleep together in one room measuring 14 by 16 feet. They sleep on boxes which are piled in one corner of the room during the day and at night arranged to form beds. Clothing, is hung on cords which are strung across this single bedroom. The one other room measures 16 by 20 feet. This is the kitchen. In spite of the difficulties of keeping house in such cramped quarters, the whole is as neat and tidy as a pin, immaculately clean.

This shanty is located on a farm of some 41 acres, of which only half is arable. There is no firewood and they have no animals. The farm is taxed by the municipality at the rate of $41.46 a year. The father works elsewhere when he can find the work. He is 58 years old and sick. Unemployment is specially severe in that section of the country. He is unable to find enough work during the summer to enable him to benefit from unemployment insurance during the severe winter months. The mother gets a family allowance chegue of $62.00 a month. That's about all they have to live on. Each month, during the days immediately preceding the arrival of the cheque, there is nothing to eat in the house.

Immeasurable courage

Here's how Mrs John Daigle announced the news to our offices in a letter she wrote on October 5.

"l am enclosing you a clipping (the notice of sale for tax arrears which we mentioned above — Ed.) carrying a bit of joyful news. Evidently they don't consider the weather too cold to throw us out into the road. Actually I am convinced they are doing this because we are such active Crediters. There are plenty of others who owe more than we do as much as $300 — and they are not being pushed to pay. The costs for which they are assessing us are more than just arrears in taxes; they are adding on the costs of serving this notice, and other costs as well. I think it must be the devil who is inspiring them: he must be furious to see Social Credit making such progress in this part of the country. Well, it's good to know he's losing ground. We knew this was going to happen to us because we just simply couldn't find the money to pay. They insist that we can do better than we have done. Of course they're better judges than we are, the bureaucrats; they all have degrees! When we haven't enough money, of course, they say it's all our fault. They are quite happy to make a spectacle of us before the world. What a gang of robbers we have in our system! In any case, as my husband says, whatever they may do to us they are not going to stop us working for Social Credit. Of course, it's going to be hard on the children, but I am trusting the Blessed Virgin to look after us. The most fiendish aspect of the whole affair is that the seizure was published officially in all the papers and we didn't know a thing about it. The only paper we get here is Vers Demain (the French-language Social Credit paper of the Union of Electors — Ed.). My husband went over to the Boudreau's to borrow $10 to buy food for the weekend. It was there that he had the news. It was like a bolt from the blue!"

Like hungry wolves

The voracity of the financiers is like the appetites of famished wolves; it has no limits. They even envy the poor people their miserable little shanties! Horses and cows have their stables; the wild animals have their caves. But women and children and men haven't the right to their poor sheds, the only shelter they have from the elements. And who is responsible for this iniquitous law? The financiers. And our governments, with their hosts of bureaucrats and functionaries, skimming the cream from the countries wealth, hasten to do the bidding of this financial Frankenstein which is running our society.

What is even worse in New Brunswick, there is there, a horde of tax collectors who visit every house each month collecting property taxes and other taxes, In New Brunswick automobiles are also taxed by the municipality. In the county of Gloucester, for example, a man who owns an automobile must pay $90.00 a year in addition to what he pays the provincial government for his license. Moreover, in this same province, since last July 1, each person is taxed $26.00 a year for hospital insurance. The municipality is charged with the task of collecting this particular tax.

This army of tax collectors constitutes a veritable plague in the province of New Brunswick. They are like leeches, reaching down and sucking up the last cent from the little reserves of pennies that people carefully put aside to buy milk and other like nourishment for their children.

These tax collectors are absolutely without mercy. They are inspired with the same greed, the same cold ferocity as the financiers whose rule they follow and whose slightest whim they obey. They haven't the slightest qualm about slapping high taxes on tumbledown houses which are tottering on their last supporting beams — houses with gaping chinks in the wall, open to the rain and snow, floors gaping with holes, roofs opening so that one might just as well be sleeping under the stars! And the Crediters who attended the congress, at Allardville and visited the district of Robertville know that this is no exaggeration. And yet these collectors of taxes are not ashamed to force their way into these poor hovels each month and threaten the father or mother with seizure of their property, or prison even in order to try and get the few dollars they imagine are hidden somewhere in a house where this is not sufficient food to ward off hunger nor sufficient clothing to keep the children warm!

Collection costs

And this monthly visit of the tax collector, believe it or not, costs at least $5.00, plus other travelling expenses, which must be paid by the poor taxpayer.

That's right! Each time the tax collector visits one of the poor people, he adds to the amount of their taxes, $5 in addition to another amount which varies. And he comes around regularly once every month — uninvited. This gang of tax collectors is one of the blots on the fair face of New Brunswick. What other province can boast of such a swarm of parasites making their living sucking the life-blood of these poor unfortunates? This is how they make their living, these collector squeezing from the people, by one means or another, their last nickel. They are the great shame of New Brunswick. Knowing them, one can easily understand how the tax collectors of the New Testament — the Publicans — were held in such contempt.

This shameful class of bureaucrats must disappear from New Brunswick if that province is ever to hold up its head among its sister provinces!

Illegal papers

One of the happy activities of this gang is the serving of illegal papers upon their victims. They arrive at the homes of the poor man who is in arrears, armed with these documents signed by some simple-minded and quite uneducated justice of the peace; usually seizure a rural type. Those who will not pay up their arrears are threatened with seizure of their property and prison. Some of these collectors — the more hardened type — even go so far as to practice, themselves, seizure of property and have even been known to arrest individuals and have them thrown in jail. Now this is completely illegal. No seizure or incarceration can be made without a judgement by the court, even in New Brunswick. These collectors seem to have very little respect for court judgements.

A good law in New Brunswick

However, there exists in New Brunswick a very excellent law which came into force in 1952. It comes under the Municipal Tax Act of New Brunswick and can be found under Chapter 14, Revised Statutes of New Brunswick, 1952, section 30.

"At any time by reason of the death, removal or indigence of a taxpayer or for any other cause, the assessors may cancel the whole or any portion of an assessment against a taxpayer by giving a written direction for the cancellation to the county secretary and collector." The above is presently in force in New Brunswick, writes T.E. Duffie, solicitor, of Grand Falls, N.B., on August 9, 1959.

It is more than seven years since this law was passed in New Brunswick. It would be interesting to know just how many times the tax collectors have taken advantage of this law to free the poor people from the insupportable burden of taxes. Possibly those who have managed to strike up a friendship with the collectors, have been able to benefit from it. But the poor, for whom the law was instituted, how often have they experienced relief through this measure? This law was legislated by statesmen who understood that their role was to protect the people from robbers and not vice-versa.

This law is still in force in New Brunswick. Why do the-tax collectors and assessors not make use of it to bring relief to John Daigle and his family and to others in like misery?

In other times, in the province of Quebec, the government gave a well-supplied farm to families with twelve children or more, rich or poor, And at that time, land owners were not plagued by taxes. This was true humanity.

All families of ten children or more should never have to pay property taxes. It is only just and humane.

A law providing just such an exemption already exists in New Brunswick, for the measure quoted above stipulates, "for any other cause". Raising a family of 10 in these times very easily qualifies as a cause under that phrase.

Let us hope and fight that the rights and privileges of families may prevail over the incursions of these tax assessors and collectors.

May the municipalities and the government of New Brunswick finally see the light and banish forever this shameful horde of collectors. It is the Bank of Canada which we must approach for a solution to our financial problems. For it is the source of money, not the individual paying taxes.