6 THE DAILY VOICE, TUESDAY, APRIL 3, 2012

EDITOR SHAWN GILL

No joke:
Passe
Fools Day
not OK

pril Fools Day is the holiday
Ae stopped being funny about
00 years ago.

The humour associated with April
Fools is about on par with dad
humour, knock-knock jokes and bad
puns, which is why it’s no surprise
that serious corporations have
joined in on the “fun.”

Yes, they have somehow found a
way to turn this
holiday (that was
barely a holiday
to begin with) into
another excuse to
manipulate
people into
buying their
products.

For example,
WesiJet sunk to
joking about child
abuse to attempt
to sell more plane

OPINION

CARA McKENNA

tickets this year.

The airline announced on Sunday
that they were introducing “child-
free cabins” for a new program
called “Kargo Kids” where kids
would get to ride in a “special VIP”
section of the plane: the cargo hold.

Maybe I’m being uptight, but is
this really worth paying out thou-
sands of company dollars to adver-
tise?

Furthermore, is this even funny?

As another “hilarious” joke, the
eyewear company Warby Barker
fake-released an eyewear collection
for dogs as the world stood straight-
faced.

Well, my cheesy uncle may have
gotten a laugh, but he also enjoys a
good Whoopie Cushion gag on April
Fools.

I just find it insulting that compa-
nies have gotten rid of their smallest
shred of dignity to prank the world.

They do so not out of the small
shred of good in their blackened
hearts, but to try to make us
simultaneously laugh and throw
money at them.

And really, I’m not even getting
into the tasteless jokes that individu-
als subject their loved ones to on this
once-a-year prank-fest.

Maybe the real joke is that people
are still celebrating this pointless
holiday and not finding anything
better to do with their time than
degrade themselves and others?

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Journalism instructor

Nicholas Read oversees
The Voice. Email him at
nread@langara.be.ca

Gas tax not the answer

rivers in the Lower Mainland

have received a springtime

jolt to their pocket books in

the form of a two-cent
increase in the TransLink portion of
the gas tax.

No one likes a price rise, but when
you map it all out, the short-term
pain should be worth the long-term
gain. At least that’s the idea. But will
increasing the gas tax actually get
drivers to opt for other modes of
transportation?

Metro Vancouver policy makers
think so. Municipalities expect the
increased gas tax to raise $400
million for Metro’s portion of the
$1.4-billion SkyTrain Evergreen
Line.

The project will extend the line
from its current eastern terminus at
Lougheed Town Centre, through
Port Moody to Coquitlam City
Centre when it opens in 2016. The
idea is that once the line is finished,
drivers will prefer it to fighting
traffic. If you build it, they will come.

But Joel Wood, a senior research

economist at the right-leaning
Fraser Institute said that while gas
taxes are a tremendous revenue
generator for
government, they
don’t have much
? of an impact on
a consumer choice.
=e | “With gasoline,
é | there aren’t very
; 4 many substitutes
1 in the short run.
OPI N ION People are
SHAWN GILL basically locked
into using their
cars that they’ve
invested [lots] of
money in,” said Wood.

Wood said, the consumer demand
for gasoline is, in economist-speak,
inelastic. Because consumers are
locked into their current lifestyles—
driving automobiles that run strictly
on gasoline — they will continue to
buy gasoline to fuel their cars in
spite of increasing costs.

He added that in the long term,
building mass transit infrastructure

will not ease congestion.

“TIf] you build more transit, it may
take more cars off the road in the
short run, [but] then people adapt
and basically fill those spots on the
highway in the long run,” said Wood.

Wood says that one method has
proven to be effective: Tolls. Install-
ing toll booths at points of major
congestion, like at the Massey
Tunnel or the Lions Gate Bridge,
are, according to Wood, a surefire
way to reduce congestion and raise
revenue that could then be invested
in mass transit or bike routes.

“Any time you take a car off the
road, unless there’s some sort of
[toll rate], another car is eventually
going to take that spot,” said Wood.

Wood is right. If Metro Vancouver
wants its citizens to take to transit
en-masse and to break their
dependence on cars as their primary
means of transportation, it should
impose steeper penalties on drivers.
It can use the revenue generated
toward making TransLink a
world-class service.

Tipping the house is immoral if not illegal

report from CBC has revealed
Ae servers from restaurants

in the Vancouver area are
getting tips taken from them to go to
a “house charge.”

While servers pay the traditional
one per cent of their bills to the
bussers, and one per cent to the
kitchen, staff of restaurants owned
by the Glowbal Group has to pay an
additional 4.2 per cent to the house.

Restaurants all over the Lower
Mainland are taking 2.5~5.5 per cent
of tips for similar fees.

To put this into perspective, if a
server at a Glowbal Group restau-
rant is tipped $12 on a $100, $4.20 will
be going to “the house,” plus an
additional $2 tipped out to the
bussers and kitchen. This leaves the
servers with $5.80 to take home

According to B.C. employment
standards law, a restaurant is not
allowed to use any tip money for
business expenses.

Though tips are not taxable,
federal tax rules state that if

management redistributes the
money, it is taxable and both EI and
CPP must be deducted.

Putting aside legal complications,
from a moral
standpoint I feel it
is wrong to take
money out of the
pockets of hard
working employ-
ees, especially if it
is used for
company expens-
es. If it is going
back to the
employees, why
not let them keep
their money without yet another tax
deduction?

The report done by CDC focused
on Cherlotte Zesati who worked at
Black and Blue Steakhouse. She
earned $320 in tips one night. After
the house-fee, Zesati ended with
$124.

Glowbal Group owner Emad
Yacoub stated the money taken from

NS;
OPINION

LEV JACKSON

the tips does go back to the employ-
ees in such ways as staff parties. I
know if I was a server I would
definitely want a staff party instead
of un-taxable money in my pocket.
Let’s get real.

While tips being taken for the
house do appear to be a grey area of
federal law, the provincial law
clearly states taking a server’s tip
money is unjust.

If companies take un-taxable
money that is earned solely on the
performance of their staff to recoup
losses that the company should be
covering, legal action should be
taken.

If companies redistribute the
money to workers, they are simply
adding an extra tax and still taking
money out of their servers’ pockets.

Many in the service industry are
in need of every penny they can get.
Employees range from students
trying to pay their tuition to
mothers working to feed their
children. Another tax is a problem.

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