the_professor wrote:$55.00 / 365 days = $0.15/day for Class 1 under 40.
$0.30/day if you're Class 1 over 40.
So 15 or 30 cents per day towards the administration costs of keeping tabs on your medical. Big f'ing deal.
Just pay the fee and STFU.
For somebody named "The Professor" you sure don't get it. It is not the $55.00 a year or $0.15/day it is the fact we are paying a "tax" to the government for NOTHING.
Add up all the small amounts of change you are paying daily in taxes (GST, PST, Gas, Federal, Provincial) and tell me another $0.15 doesn't hurt. enough filling the coffers, so these Fat Cats can sit on the hill and waste our Money, NO MORE.
P.S. if you don't care about the $0.15/day you can mail me a check for $55 and then maybe I'll consider paying them.
Lurch
---------- ADS -----------
Take my love
Take my land
Take me where I cannot stand
I don't care
I'm still free
You cannot take the sky from me
after reading the article again, it reads like to the average non pilot Joe that we get new certificates every year? I thought we get a stamp on the back after the original until the back is filled we don't see a new one.
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What you need to know is, how to get what you need to know.
This is not a retreat. Its an advance to the rear.
There are only 10 people in this world. Those that understand binary and those that don't.
Every government around the world has fees for this and that. If you don't like the $55 dollar fee you have a few choices: 1. Don't pay it (Seems popular, but don't forget that this cuts into the governments lunch budget and may piss them off) 2. Move to another country (expect different ridiculous fees and they will probably throw you in a nasty prison till you die if you don't pay..) 3. Start an armed revolution, and overthrow the present government, hopefully installing a benevolent dictatorship that can improve the lot of the average guy while at the same time reducing taxes, fees, and paperwork....
Move to another country (expect different ridiculous fees and they will probably throw you in a nasty prison till you die if you don't pay..)
This is choice I made, and I managed to stay out of prison as well.
By the way the reason TC has all these fees is simple...TC is a bloated bureaucracy that expands so fast they have to find ways of extorting money, and what better way than fees that are like putting a frog in water and gradually turning up the heat.....pilots of course are perfect for this method because many of them are not exactly the brightest lights in society.
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The hardest thing about flying is knowing when to say no
After over a half a century of flying no one ever died because of my decision not to fly.
Guido wrote:
$55 isn't what this is about. This is about being charged a fee (tax) a) without any representation, b) that is being misrepresented as paying for medical administration (it's used for other things apparently - I have a letter from Merlin Preuss that states such.).
Tell you what: If your time is so devoid of value that you're willing to spend the kind of energy it would take to get a $0.15/day charge reversed, then fill your boots.
And, in addition, be thankful that you have nothing more important to worry about than fighting a $0.15/day charge.
Take that $55/year/pilot away from TC's medical fees, and the federal government will make up for that revenue shortfall in TC's budget from our income taxes instead.
snoopy wrote:Could someone please tell me why this needs to be sticky'd? Aren't posts supposed to be "free market" - i.e. the hot topics will stay on top as long as they are of interest to the masses?
It was pointed out in the Job Ads forum that you can pay to have your thread "stickied" at the top of the page:
When the government taxes the general population to provide education for families with children, those who do not have children cry foul because they can't see a benefit to themselves. They forget that the children whose education was paid for by the taxes will provide all sorts of services they need that would be unavailable otherwise.
What specifically is the medical fee paying for? Everyone is saying it's a tax without any return. I understand the government's penchance for throwing all taxes into general revenue and doling it out from there (I think that's extremely inefficient and unrepresented myself) but the fees might be used to certify and oversee the doctors who do the medicals... or pay the wages of the people who reviews the documentation to ensure at least legally the standards and laws are being maintained etc.
I'm not saying a fee that does not have an explanation for cost isn't unfair but just because you don't see a benefit right before your eyes doesn't mean there isn't one.
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Having a standard that pilots lose their licence after making a mistake despite doing no harm to aircraft or passengers means soon you needn't worry about a pilot surplus or pilots offering to fly for free. Where do you get your experience from?
Sorry, but a bunch of smarmy bureaucrats who "...certify and oversee the doctors who do the medicals..." is a damn good reason to not pay the fee right there.
If your employer pays it, its a tax surcharge on his business, another fee that he doesn't care what it goes for but its siphoned off his business. He has to earn it to pay it. Its a hidden, punitive, descriminatory tax on pilots and I won't pay it.
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"What's it doing now?"
"Fly low and slow and throttle back in the turns."
Merlin Preuss wrote:Thank you for your recent correspondence to the Honourable Lawrence Cannon, Minister of Transport, Infrastructure and Communities, regarding the payment of costs associated with maintaining a pilot licence. The Minister has asked me to reply on his behalf.
Minister Cannon appreciates receiving your comments and has noted your concerns. I should note that the medical certificate fee, previously known as the recurring pilot fee, came into effect on August 1, 1995, after consultation with representatives of aviation associations, such as the Canadian Owners and Pilots Association. The fee applies each time a pilot passes the required medical assessment for renewal of his or her pilot licence. Medical assessments are required every six months or every one, two or five years, depending on the pilot's age and the type of licence held. The fee was developed based on a careful review of all aviation costs, and it recovers only a portion of the total cost of services provided to pilots. In July 2000, Transport Canada increased the validity periods for private pilots and simplified the associated processing fees.
I should explain that the fee recovers part of the costs of processing medical certificates and producing aeronautical information. The remaining costs of providing these services to pilots continue to be subsidized by Canadian taxpayers. Please note that after a change in user fee policy and when the fee was simplified in July 2000, the fee no longer subsidized costs for the old Aeronautical Information Publication and does not subsidize the new Aeronautical Information Manual. I should also note that doctor's fees are not included in the Transport Canada fee.
that's an excerpt from the e-mail I got back from TC when I wrote to complain about the fee.
I should explain that the fee recovers part of the costs of processing medical certificates...
ok, that part makes a bit of sense but $?? per medical x 55,000 commercial pilots (only commercial pilots?) = probably alot of money for someone checking documents and it only covers part???
...and producing aeronautical information
how are pubs related to medicals? Publications relate to information concerned with moving Canadians around according to rules governed by TC, it's a benefit to all Canadians who fly, so why are pilots subsidizing this portion?
I should also note that doctor's fees are not included in the Transport Canada fee
that's ridiculous if it a fee concerning medicals...
I support dropping the payment, nuff said
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Having a standard that pilots lose their licence after making a mistake despite doing no harm to aircraft or passengers means soon you needn't worry about a pilot surplus or pilots offering to fly for free. Where do you get your experience from?
Doc wrote:It's not the money you twit, it's a little too deep for you!
the_professor wrote:Tell you what: If your time is so devoid of value that you're willing to spend the kind of energy it would take to get a $0.15/day charge reversed, then fill your boots.
