A rchive Date
[ 18-05-2000 ]
Category
[ International Relations ]
sub-Categoy
[ Canada ]
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[Ms Stewart Is Watching
By GARY DUNFORD
Toronto Sun
May 18, 2000
WHO DO YOU TRUST? Dear Gary Martin Dunford. Do not be alarmed by scare stories that your government keeps a massive information database on each taxpayer. Your addiction to Diet Coke, most recent Visa payment of $121.34 and prescription for Zapocil are completely confidential. They will never be released to strangers or used against you.
Jane Stewart, the best damned human resources minister ever, has requested this special HRDC advisory to reassure each member of the media your PIN number (84567) and mother's maiden name (Margaret) are safe with us. Do not let the privacy commissioner's yap about our Big Brother database prompt needless hysteria in your columns.
The minister reminds news media that the collection of files on pension contributions, mobility, car movement and veterinary bills is completely legal. You gassed up on both May 10 and 11. With a 16.7 imperial gallon tank, your Jeep only gets 19.1 miles a gallon, Dunf. Get a new one.
While the HRDC is completely non-partisan and an ideal secret-keeper for your dossier, in the 1999 tax year you contributed $35 each to Reform, the NDP and the PCs, but only $25 to the Liberal Party of Canada. We know you contribute minimal amounts to multiple parties to receive idiot mailings from all of us. But why give the Liberals $10 less? It is almost as if you were trying to make a comment.
Minister Stewart couldn't help but notice that when you made a $160 withdrawal from Scotiabank ATM 23546 at 8:10 a.m. a day ago, the camera showed you looking particularly pasty. It was not just your $13.50 haircut - and believe us, it looks it - or your dirty Colorado Rockies ball cap. You bought 8.6 cans of tuna fish in the last two months. Are you getting enough iron? You haven't bought a multivitamin since November 1998.
Your pension contribution secrets are safe with us. You have unused RSP contribution room this year of $821. The projected pay-out when you retire does not appear to be enough to live on, Gary. We calculate you should contribute $2.8 million to your RSP in the next nine years. Be an ant, little grasshopper.
While you write often about Dr. Dave - your beloved dentist - no Visa or MasterCard entry for him appears in our database for 1999. Did you fail to have your teeth cleaned and bolted back in your head? Bell Canada's records show Dr. Dave has called your office repeatedly to make an appointment and those calls were not returned. Ms Stewart reminds you that a crooked smile is a terrible thing to lose.
We at HRDC offer our sympathies for the recent performance of your small, sad collection of tech stocks, shown on your most recent tax return. Still, you haven't locked in any losses so it's only paper, right? Ms Stewart prays nightly for you, Fairfax Financial and Trans Canada Pipelines. From her lips to God's ears, eh? Since when has your dog started eating sardines? Yes, we have your grocery tapes.
To HRDC, the confidentiality of your tax and employment history, education, marital status, social insurance and financial information is a sacred trust. All records are kept in sealed rooms in a vault in a whale in a hole in a hill at the bottom of the sea. We can keep a secret. But a word to the wise, buddy: you wouldn't believe what Blatch is making.
Most important: responsible media must help us quell privacy fears. It would be unfortunate if writers used the privacy commissioner's images of Big Brother to characterize our modest and quite necessary collection of citizen data. It's only by coordinating taxpayer factoids that good policy decisions are made. This database allows us, for example, to note that your April 13 column - ridiculing da PM's speech paddurns - is not as amusing as you think. Tho Ms Stewart did smile a week later to read Joe Clark is the Pee-wee Herman of Canadian politics.
In conclusion, please do not take this HRDC media advisory as any kind of veiled threat. Yes, we do know a great deal about you news people. Go ahead. Mock us. Knock us. Pick a fight with Big Brother.
Did we mention that the liquid Tide you bought for $7.88 on your Instacard last Sunday was on sale at the Valumart two blocks away for $4.75?
Not that we're watching ...
© 2000 Gary Dunford Reach Dunf at (416) 947-2246 or by e-mail at pagesix@aol.com
 World Fact Book (CIA)]
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