Conservatives Raise EI Premiums–Tax Jobs

As of January 1, 2012,  you will be making less money as Harper’s Employment Insurance Premium Hikes take effect. Workers will see their EI premiums rise 5% of insurable earnings to $1.83 while the maximum insurable pay has been raised to $45,900 from $44,200.

Those who qualify for the maximum over the year will lose $142 off their pay checks and their bosses will have to pay $164.

People will have less money due to this move and the Canadian Taxpayers Federation estimates that these premium hikes will make hiring more expensive. If we connect the dots, this means fewer jobs will be created.

“Across Canada there are governments that claim they are concerned about jobs and the economy, but at the same time they are taking hundreds of dollars of disposable income out of the pockets of Canadian families,” said CTF federal director Gregory Thomas.

“Between the employer and employee, you have $6,630 of payroll taxes. That’s the price of hiring a Canadian.”

A spokesman for Jim Flaherty argues that the tax relief over the years is sufficient for this to not be painful.

Meanwhile, the corporate tax hike will take another 1.5% cut to 15% as provinces join to cut towards 10% provincially.

This will bring Canada’s combined corporate tax rate down to 25% from 43% in 2000 and put Canadian corporations in a very competitive place in relation to other countries – too bad 97% of jobs in Canada are created by small businesses and that of the remaining 3%, corporations are likely a fraction. But, keep in mind that raising these taxes is detrimental and has worse consequences (it would be like raising taxes more than the amount that you want and then get another greedy grab off of the backs of consumers… us) – even if the economy worked great at those restore points.

Quebec, the most taxed province in North America will see another increase to the QST to make it now 9.5% and will also raise its EI premiums by 5.6%. Health taxes and tuition rates in Quebec will also go up, along with a soon to be increase of 1 cent per liter on gas.

In British Columbia, health taxes will raise by 6.4% for couples and 5.8% for individuals.

It goes to show that no matter how much a government claims to care about jobs, growth, the economy, and the people that ultimately pay the price, tax hikes are always a button away for them and they will soon be defending their financial mismanagements.

The Conservatives call themselves the party of low taxes, but while they didn’t yet raise the GST, like Mulroney did when he introduced it, they have increased EI premiums, an indirect tax grab, and they have taxed income trusts, which is a direct attack on retirement.

The Logic Behind the Conservatives’ Plan for Healthcare Transfers

The Conservatives have announced that cuts will be made to healthcare and let’s face it, it had to happen sooner or later. While the Conservative approach may be against that of the Canadian will and may also align with a stern ideological aspect, the economic logic makes sense.

We are spending a lot of money in healthcare, more so than ever, and will be paying a lot more in about 5 years time. The cost of healthcare is growing faster than the rate of economic growth which if you’re good at math means that the two lines will eventually intersect and lead to a cost over-run that is simply unsustainable and leads to a harsh structural deficit. Now we know that a structural deficit is bad because it means that no matter how well Canada is performing it will always be paying more than it can generate and the debt to GDP ratio will rise and interest payments will increase with every added dollar to debt and eventually we find a Canada that is imploding and in economic chaos. This is strictly based on numbers and numbers don’t lie, draw the two graphs, one with a rate of change of 3 and one with a rate of change of 6, they will certainly intersect and the one with the bigger slope will dominate therein.

We have spent a lot of money into healthcare and as I discussed in a previous article. all we have been doing is turning the tap on a broken hose, waiting for better results and being let down. The system is inefficient and broken and needs change.

The provincial finance ministers may be crying crocodile tears over Harper’s ruling to pair financial funding with economic strength, but this funding scheme is necessary. Even if we scrap everything but healthcare and put all of our resources into healthcare we will still have a lousy system and an eventual budgetary overrun.

By 2019, the federal government will be paying $38 billion, up from $19 billion this year, into the healthcare system. For years, money has been pumped through and how has medical serviced improved for you? Dismally.

The NDP are putting their foot down to the cuts proving simply how illogical and how ineffective their financial methods would be. They claim that even though the economy is only growing at 3% at best, the country should be spending twice as much into healthcare and make the 6% annual increases permanent. Incrementally increase the pressure of the broken hose and tell me at what rate will we see improvement for all of that wasted money.

The NDP would raise taxes which means that you and I would be paying more for a broken system and they believe that the solution to everything is to throw money at it which is simply illogical and irresponsible.

Canada needs healthcare reform, reforms that will tailor services to meet demographic needs, reforms that will slice through administrative and bureaucratic fat in the system, new wings should be for patients, not for bureaucrats! Canadian doctors are among the best paid in the world now, increasing their salary is too much of a burden. It is important that patients have more control over their records and that an online system is created.

We must have this discussion, a discussion the NDP doesn't want to make. The NDP would have you paying much higher taxes and create new spending that is unsustainable and reckless all in the name of their 1900’s ideology.

While the Conservatives may be fundamentally wrong about their take it or leave it approach and while they may be wrong about leaving provinces to figure it all out themselves – which has obviously failed since it is a provincial jurisdiction anyways, but in terms of the logistics of the sustainability of the healthcare system, they are spot on, we cannot afford annual 6% increases in spending, especially not if the increases that we’ve already made didn’t work at all.

“Stephen Harper says we have to slash stable increases to our healthcare funding – but let his wealthy friends keep their tax breaks,” Brian Topp, an NDP leadership candidate who has set out a bold plan to raise everyone’s taxes for his party’s ideology writes. “I think he’s dead wrong.”

The increases are not stable, and never will be because our growth is not more than 6%, and if you think that making growth 6% with tax increases will help the situation, perhaps you should call a plumber to replace the hose for you as you will continue to turn the faucet and get dismal results.

Anyone who believes in the pubic system must wake up and get ready to make reforms because once the system implodes, the public system will be privatized to keep the country afloat. By finding new ways of approaching healthcare, including providing resources for home care, specializing clinics for certain needs and setting new guidelines and cutting administration, the cost of Canadian healthcare can be greatly diminished and the money that does get invested in the system will actually flow through the system properly and not get leaked out to several waste points, and this is how you build and sustain a strong public healthcare system that should put quality first.

Canada’s Healthcare System: Not Underfunded; Inefficient and Mismanaged

Regular users of the Canadian Healthcare system know that something isn’t right. The system is broken, inefficient and mismanaged. It has become expensive and for the causes that it has received greater funding, it has not improved. Our healthcare system still easily deserves a failing grade for wait times, understaffing and overall performance but while some believe that it is due to a lack of funds, the reality remains that the funds are mismanaged and that regardless how much money you throw in the system, it will be wasted and your healthcare won’t improve.

There is a lot of controversy spiraling around the Conservative Government's decision to cut healthcare funding in 5 years. Provincial finance ministers are crying crocodile tears and some people are even afraid that the move will destroy Canadian healthcare.

First, let’s start with an analogy. Say that you are watering a garden. You notice that the pressure coming out of the hose is weak and insufficient. Naturally, you go to the main water supply of the hose and crank it up to a higher state. You continue watering the plants and notice dismal improvement. So you figure that there isn’t enough water and turn the tap to the max. As you continue watering, you are still agitated with the lack of pressure. You go to the tap once again but position yourself differently than before. All of a sudden, you feel your leg get shot with a burst of water. You look down and you are standing in a puddle with a massive leak in your hose. Ultimately, you either need to fix or replace the hose at this point.

Now how does watering the plants with a broken hose link to healthcare? Simple. Water is money, the hose is the system and pressure is the quality. So here is a question for you, if we are spending more money on a system that wastes money along the way, how much of the new funding will actually go to healthcare? And how will this increased funding help improve the overall quality of a broken system?

This view is shared by two thirds of Canadians: The problem isn’t funding, it’s efficient management.

If we look at some cases of what people had to say about the system, we realize that there are some real issues in healthcare.

Take Emily Nicolas, age 29, and a private calculus tutor, she used to say that we had a good healthcare system. After getting a stress fracture on her hip which was not properly diagnosed, she experienced an 8 year odyssey through the system. Nicolas endured 4 operations, including the replacement of her right hip, and formal physiotherapy which essentially weren’t needed and could have been done without.

“It’s not very sensible or innovative,” she said. “There’s too much focus on more diagnostics, more tests, when listening and communication could diminish the need for some of those.”

Now, the word mediocre is her overall description.

I can relate to her, while I did not have an injury like hers, I grew up in and out of the hospital and was very weak towards viruses. The wait times were awful, you are waiting in a room where you are surrounded by other sick kids whose germs are fresh in the air. Then you finally see a doctor 6 hours later, I guess I was one of the lucky ones, and they send you away with cold medication or with a diagnosis of mono, which were never the cases for me. I always ended up returning the next day in worst shape than I had entered and wait the long wait again to see a different doctor who would send me to the X-ray section. In the X-ray section, I would have to wait a few more hours before they finally take my X-ray and then I get the diagnosis that I should have gotten the first time.

The system is broken, Canadians know it, but, unlike the Conservatives, 77% believe in the public system. The public system does need a cleanup and some reorganization and efficiency checks, but it in itself is not the problem.

Increasingly, inefficiency is being seen as the main problem. Kevin Leonard, 54, a professor at Toronto’s Institute of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation, has lived for 4 decades with Crohn’s disease. When he went to get an ultrasound a few years ago for his abdomen, a frustrating encounter fueled his belief that patients need better access to their medical records. His radiologist folded a report on his exam and stapled it 17 times to hide his results until he saw a family doctor.

“It’s very, very ineffective the way it runs today,” he said. “It’s based on this mindset that’s rampant throughout health care that the patient is either not mature enough or does not have the right to get access to their own information until a doctor has said it's okay for you to have that.”

A solution that Leonard believes in is an online database which patients can use to track their health.

A friend of mine who lived in Ontario cited the events of a London-based hospital that should surprise many. The hospital underwent renovations and added a new wing. Usually, this is a good thing because it means more doctors, more beds, and better quality care. Once the renovations were finished, she investigated the new wing to find that it was solely for administrative offices and that no new beds or equipment was added. The renovations were on the taxpayer’s bill and likely came up to $1 million.

It goes to show that you can spend as much money on healthcare as you want, but if the system is broken, you are essentially flushing that money down the toilet.

Government of Canada ordered to Pay Jean Chretien Over Sponsorship Case

The election of 2006 was an election where the Conservatives placed repeated attacks against the Liberal Party for something called ad scam. The attacks were effective enough to get them into power and to slowly finish off the party. While many Canadians who bought the propaganda have declared and condemned the Liberal party as corrupt, evidence suggests that there was no link to Jean Chretien or even the Liberal Party.

 

In compensation for legal costs, the Canadian government has been ordered to pay former Prime Minister Jean Chretien and his late chief of staff $200,000 in compensation.

 

The Conservatives are disappointed in the ruling urging that in all decency, the Liberals should be giving that money back to tax payers.

 

"It is our belief that the Liberal party must pay back the millions of dollars stolen from taxpayers through the sponsorship scandal," said Carl Vallee, PMO spokesman.

 

"We call on Jean Chretien to give this $200,000 back to taxpayers on behalf of the Liberal party."

 

The two men challenged the Gomery commission which concluded that the former PM and his top aide bore some responsibility for the system of illegal kickbacks that came from the sponsorship program.

 

Gomery made a big spectacle out of the affair calling it a “spectacle” and predicting “juicy” evidence to come. Gomery also said that signature-embossed golf balls that Chretien had given out in his home town were “small-town cheap.”

 

In 2008, Chretien and his late chief of staff won their bid in federal court to have the report struck down on the basis of Gomery’s bias against them.

 

"The nature of the comments made to the media are such that no reasonable person looking realistically and practically at the issue, and thinking the matter through, could possibly conclude that the commissioner would decide the issues fairly," Federal Court Judge Max Teitelbaum said at the time.

 

The federal government, run by the Conservatives, appealed the decision and lost in 2010. Chretien was then rewarded $25,000 in compensation for legal costs despite asking for $70,000 in February 2011. The $200,000 is associated with the original federal court review, despite asking for $300,000 after detailing the $400,000 that he spent on legal fees.

 

In the end of the day, these two men fought for their reputation which was being actively attacked by the Conservatives in an attempt to smear the Liberal Party of Canada. The real corruption happened in a Quebec industry independent of the Liberal Party and the guilty parties have already been sentenced.

 

Now, as for the Conservatives asking Chretien hand over the money he fairly and clearly won over slander, when will Stephen Harper pay for the full cost of his trip to the hockey game in the United States? When will Tony Clement give back the money that he misspent in his riding on gazebos and the G20 fiasco? When will Peter Mackay hand over the over $1 million in expenses that he has incurred including both helicopter and unnecessary plane rides and the money for his spending spree overseas at luxury hotels? When will Canada’s head of the military give back the full amount of the cost of his trip, using a publically funded military jet to go to a vacation in the Bahamas? When will the Conservatives clean up their own act – including in the case of the 2006 election where election fraud was found? What about their petty attack against Irwin Cotler, calling Liberal supporters and posing as Liberals to convince them that he was resigning and that they should vote Conservative? The Conservatives have quite a bit on their plate and really shouldn’t be talking about accountability.

It just goes to show that the Liberal sponsorship scandal was indeed a fully overblown ordeal, inflated by Conservative spin and Conservative friends. As it stands, Gomery could not conclude formally that Chretien or his aide knew anything and there is no evidence tying Chretien or his aide to ad scam which was completely the responsibility of the independent company that was part of the sponsorship program. But, what is inflating the obvious misuses of public money under Harper’s watch? And what excuses him for his members’ gross misconducts?

Helena Guergis sues PM Harper and Conservative Party

Helena Guergis is suing Prime Minister Stephen Harper and the Conservative Party of Canada over defamation and an alleged conspiracy plan to keep her out of Parliament.

 

Guergis alleges that she was removed from Parliament on he basis of unproven allegations which damaged her reputation and political career.

 

“The conspiracy engaged in by the defendants was effected to serve the defendants' political, personal and/or financial goals and not for any legitimate or lawful purpose,” reads the claim which was filed at the Ontario Superior Court.

 

Harper fired and completely kicked out Guergis in April 2010 citing that he received information that Guergis was involved in criminal conduct including allegations that there were pictures of her and her husband snorting cocaine. An RCMP investigation cleared her of all criminal allegations and no charges were ever laid.

 

With the criminal charges cleared, Harper refused to let her back into the Conservative Party, leaving her as an independent MP until she lost the riding of Simcoe Grey to Conservative replacement, Kellie Leitch.

 

Guergis is suing for $800,000 for general damages, $250,000 for punitive damages, and $250,000 for aggravated damages.

 

A spokesman for the Prime Minister’s Office, Carl Vallee charged that "the allegations are groundless and they will be refuted vigorously."

 

Guy Giorno said the claim is "an incoherent mix of fantasy, fabrication and fiction."

 

"I am embarrassed for her lawyer and sorry that Helena remains detached from reality."

 

Below is the claim stated by Helena Guergis to the Ontario Superior Court.

Open publication - Free publishing - More conservative

Reasons why Canada’s Management System Needs Rethinking

Canadians pay a lot of money every year. They pay a GST and PST or HST, they pay income taxes, they pay payroll taxes, they pay municipal property taxes and there is a tax for almost everything in Canada. These taxes overlap and soon we all find ourselves struggling to balance our budgets and wondering why money disappears so fast. Meanwhile, government officials tell us that they are doing their best to manage budgets which in most cases are in deep deficits and are leading up to huge debts and budget run offs. The money that we pay is supposed to go toward infrastructure and the services we count on and every time our taxes are raised, there is a promise for better service. Ironically, as taxes increase throughout the country, the quality of our roads and infrastructure, our education and healthcare, and the safety net that we are obliged to fund are all deteriorating.  As we speak, public servants with inflated salaries and perks are going on spending sprees and having their unions try to hold taxpayers as hostages. As we speak, government officials are wasting our money and in some cases, even allegedly funding organized crime. Government and bureaucracy in Canada: hand in hand, putting their hands in the public piggy bank, it is time for change.

 

In the next election, the Conservatives will try to defend an economic record that they don’t have and the NDP will be trying to win over former occupiers with an elaborate tax the rich scheme, followed by huge spending sprees. While these political parties work toward their future gimmicks, people, like you and like me are being left on the sidelines to watch as they take our wallets for a ride. Oil prices are climbing making travelling and food more expensive, businesses in small towns take their clients for a ride because there is no competition, internet service is slow, expensive and unreliable because a selected few own the top. Meanwhile, when it does come to our public services, the bulk of our money goes to administrative fees and management that we simply don’t need. The Harper Conservatives are boosting an already inflated government with new seats, add-ons to the senate and possibly a plan to try to make the senate into a second House of Commons all the while gerrymandering to ensure the next election yields a net profit for them to either secure or strengthen their stranglehold majority.

 

The abuses to our democracy are disturbing and the luxury spending made by our managers is inflating – on our tab. The Conservatives campaigned on accountability and they are safely the most corrupt government Canada has ever had. The NDP are campaigning on the sides of people and families but all the while their only focuses are political games and hypocrisy – and if we were to give them a mandate, our economy will spiral into the ground as their high expenditures and high taxes drive companies away, push families over the edge, and create a huge and unsustainable debt to GDP ratio. As for the Liberals, they’ve been beaten so hard after the past few elections for their actions and lack of vision that they are possibly the only ones who have a chance of doing things right – provided they listen and genuinely care and come up with a pragmatic plan that takes no pages from either the NDP or Conservative playbook.

 

When you think about the money we Canadians spend into our government and the dismal quality of services we get in return, and hear about their misspending, mismanagement and entitlements, you can’t help but wonder whether our system actually works. In short, it does not. While politicians across the country will say that everything is alright, they are digging us a hole that will take generations to fix. As they claim to fight for integrity, they are taking your money and getting the fanciest hotel rooms as if money was an indispensible resource. As we speak, your healthcare service is the result of a tiny fraction of spending, the rest was either placed into another ministry that desperately needs to catch up or into the hierarchy of bureaucracy that has the stranglehold of controlling everything. Meanwhile, these bureaucrats sit on their big public salaries and get nothing accomplished because accomplishing something would essentially make them redundant and make them lose their jobs. Meanwhile, when governments do hand down cuts and ask ministries to look in the mirror and look for savings, they always look to the bottom and most important ends rather than the upper core that is the most expensive and most wasteful and this is why our services suffer every time a government brainlessly and carelessly cuts. Kid me not, these cuts are needed, but no one in the political spectrum as we speak has the brains or courage to make them. There are serious reforms and cuts that must be made that frankly will forever change the face of government and bureaucracy.

 

Scrap the senate, reform the electoral system and you will shrink a huge government load. When you use a voting system that makes every vote count, you can have 100 seats, 300 seats, 50 seats and still have the exact same representation. Getting rid of bulky admin means there are less layers of bosses, let’s face it, the bottom end of bureaucracy isn’t the problem but they are always targeted first because their bosses don’t want to lose those nice pay checks and bonuses. Cut out the bulk and keep the necessary and you won’t lose too many jobs, but you will save a lot of money.  Many of these departments are also underfunded and outdated making a simple task take forever. If governments would have gotten over their power-trip agendas and benefits, and did the right thing, our infrastructure would be updated and this in itself would create savings as tasks become more efficient and less time-consuming. If you ensure that the workers are specialized and don’t overlap, you can have 2 people looking at a claim rather than an office which too will save time and money.

 

This, however, isn’t all. We are entering the 21st century and many political parties are looking to the 1900s for inspiration. The NDP would repatriate everything, a move that would take us back to the protectionist days of the Great Depression. Supporters always favor the move and argue that it keeps money in a given country but they fail to realize that their standard of living can only be as high as the cheapness of the ability to create it. By having countries specialize in different domains and actively share, we all save money and the cost of living stays low. Impose the old protectionist ways that make an inter-country economy and the cost of food and essentials will be based upon the cost of production and transportation and the cost of salaries. Does anyone here want to pull off a China to keep prices low for selected people to be able to afford the products and life in general? If you impose a minimum wage in this kind of society, everyone with that minimum wage will be in poverty and the country in itself will stagnate. Nationalizing the banks will not only send this country into hyperinflation, it will drive our debts and size through the ceiling and the reality is, Canada's economy will implode – do the math. Even more reason why Canada cannot afford an NDP government that would impose unrealistic and purely philosophical economics on us and hurt the people it claims to protect.

 

Canada needs a pragmatic and forward-thinking plan for the 21st century. Canada has the technological capabilities to make industry and governance more cost effective and overall efficient which in the long term is an economic move that would lead to environmental sustainability. All of those who are in the past, like the Conservatives, and think that it is a choice between one and the other are wrong, the reality is, that our wasteful and stagnant economy and government is squarely to blame for every problem we have in Canada, especially the environmental crisis.

 

The Conservatives will continue imposing their multi-billion dollar crime agenda, multi-billon dollar plane agenda, and their huge increases in government size and bureaucracy based on the handbook that was written by the Reform Party over a decade ago – nothing pragmatic, all ideological. The NDP will continue to preach in 1900’s economic policy that is grossly outdated and won’t work along with using hypocritical and hyper partisan ways to gain their only mission: power.

 

This article may come across as squarely opinionated but I am just calling it as I see it and that is the great thing about freedom of speech, something the Conservatives are actively trying to take away. It feels like the feudal days: we have a big government that controls every aspect of life and as the peasants get poorer, the kings use their money to go on luxury spending sprees and the pennies that they devote to the people get shared amongst a crowd of sharks that share the bulk as they carelessly service the worst quality imaginable. Some believe the solution is tax and spending regimes but these have brought much of Europe to the brink of peril. Others say we should sacrifice our services because they are the most costly. Both extremes are wrong and are both cover-ups for the real problem: government management.

 

As we enter the 21st century, Canada should become more democratic, not less; Canadians should have more control over their services, not less; and the endless trail of bureaucracy that has been regulating and imposing upon our economy have got to go. Opening the market would allow innovation and if Canadian companies falter, it is their fault for doing nothing to move themselves or Canada forward and it is because they chose to operate on greed rather than good service. Canada’s economy needs to be whipped into shape and as long as you can have a selected few companies hold a monopoly over markets and for as long as government can dictate on people and companies alike, we will never see progress. We are entering the 21st century, now is not the time to repeat the 1900s or try to revert back to it. Now is the time to move forward and that means that for many government officials and bureaucrats: your free ride on the backs of hard working taxpayers is over.

 

To put things into context, look at Tony Clement’s Gazebos and G20 fiasco (over $2 million), Harper’s plane ride to a hockey game, the military chief’s ride plane ride to the Bahamas (cumulative expenses of over $1 million since 2008) and look at Peter Mackay whom chose to put the most luxurious hotels on the tax payer’s tabs as he made his staff get the cheapest ($1,452 per day for MacKay and $239 per day for his staff). Look at the bureaucrat in charge of Aboriginal financing who charged close to $40,000 dollars to government credit cards for a Vegas vacation, pricey pizza dinners and an online game where users can spend real money in a virtual world. These are just some highlights and I am sure that in time their individual costs and the costs of other government and bureaucracy members will come to light, the waste is incredible, we haven’t seen anything yet. Look at the huge salaries of many high-ranking public servants. Look at the hospital in London Ontario that built a new wing exclusively for admin offices with tax payer money. Look at the allegations that the Quebec construction agency, along with Charest’s government are deeply tied to the mafia. Kings and peasants is the name of the game and as the Conservatives and NDP look backward, it is time for Canadians to come together, override them, and move forward. We don’t need tax hikes, we don’t need to sacrifice our services, a cleanup, reallocation of money and resources and a re-innovation project is necessary and not one of the present political parties as it stands today has the guts or brains to do the right thing. It is time as Canadians that we demand better and that we work towards building the Canada of the 21st century, which has the potential of leading the world.

 

 

Recommended Readings

It May  Be Time For Canadians to Tighten their Belts But Not the PMO

European Broadband Makes North American Broadband Look like Expensive Dialup

Is there Something Wrong with Canada's Electoral System?

Canada Going Backward on Crime Initiatives

Conservative Misspending on G8/G20 Summit Released; Brace Yourselves

Canada’s Top Soldier Thinks He’s Entitled to Taxpayer Funded Plane Rides

The Call for Smaller and More Efficient Government

Government Officials Take Tax Payers for a Ride

Government Officials Take Tax Payers for a Ride

Peter Mackay came under fire again this week as his hotel spending came to light and it isn’t pretty.  Mackay wasn’t alone, information has surfaced that a bureaucrat in charge of managing Aboriginal finances has been taking tax payers for a ride as well.

In a report that analyzed his hotel spending, it is estimated that Canadians have paid his more than $10,000 bill for a trip to Turkey and Germany in February 2010 for informal NATO talks and a security conference.

 

Among these costs, Mackay’s hotel tastes come to light. for the informal meeting, Mackay and his staff stayed at the Ceylan International Hotel and his per-night cost for his room was $770; meanwhile his staff stayed in a room costing $276 per night.

 

At the security conference in Munich, Mackay stayed at the Bayerischer Hof at a cost of $1452 per night and his staff stayed at the Munich Park Hilton for $239 per night.

 

Meanwhile, the Aboriginal Affairs department made an audit to find that a bureaucrat from the Northwest Territories charged more than $40,000  to government credit cards for a Vegas vacation, pricey pizza dinners and an online game where users can spend real money in a virtual world.

A breakdown of this spending reveals that:

• $4,000 was spent on a game called Second Life
• $2,000 at a Vegas trip with her husband in February 2010 for 5 nights at the Circus Circus Hotel and casino
• $100 for a pizza
• $27 for a book on how to use Microsoft Office Power Point
• Used the credit cards at Walmart, Northern Fancy Meats, and Staples

 

The woman got caught, was demoted to a non-manager job with no access to money, and is now going through the painful squeeze for taking tax payers on a ride for using their money to fund her lifestyle. I wonder how many other bureaucrats are out there like her, hidden in Canada’s Access to Information Act. I wonder how many get away with it. All the while, the Aboriginal Affairs ministry has yet to answer questions on the matter.

 

So, why do we pay these taxes? So that Peter Mackay and fellow public servants can spend public money on luxury sweets, games and vacations and whatever else they want?

Quebec’s NDP Wave Died Out–Harris-Decima Poll

A new Harris-Decima poll suggests that the NDP is now tied with the Bloc Quebecois for first place in the province. At 26% a piece, the NDP has dropped significantly by 16 points since the May election. The NDP losses were distributed at 3 for the Bloc Quebecois, 1 for the Conservatives, 5 for Greens and 6 for the Liberals which shows the Liberals and Greens as the big gainers in Quebec to propel them to second/third place.

“This really is the NDP in free fall in Quebec,” said Harris-Decima chairman Allan Gregg.

 

Harris-Decima Poll Quebec

NDP: 26% Down 16

Bloc Quebecois: 26% Up 3

Liberals: 20% Up 6

Conservatives: 17% Up 1

Green: 7% Up 5

 

With the NDP’s aspirations for power reliant on the loyalty of Quebec, it turns out that Quebec’s political nature has done it again. Anyone who is surprised shouldn’t be – at least if you’re a Quebecor. In Quebec, political supports shift drastically and radically. In 2008, third party and right-leaning ADQ lead by Mario Dumont nearly toppled the Charest Liberals to form a government but instead served as a strong official opposition. In the subsequent election, The PQ and Liberals gained back much of their seats laving the ADQ as a rump. Quebecors are unhappy with what they have, but they aren’t up in heels over their alternatives. Proof that Quebec doesn’t like what it has is its fond attraction to Francois Legault, the former PQ minister who recently formed a new right-leaning political party and merged with the remnants of the ADQ and call themselves the CAQ. If an election were held today, Legault would form a strong majority government with over 80 seats leaving the Liberals and PQ at 30 seats a piece – these are Quebec’s two traditional parties. Chances are that this new-found love affair will end as abruptly as the one with the ADQ did and as the one with the NDP did.

 

Many NDP strategists may interpret their gains in Quebec as a big thing, but the NDP have overestimated the clout of their party. The party went in free-fall ever since Jack Layton died and frankly, none of their leadership candidates are inspiring and the party as a whole has fumbled as an official opposition in Ottawa. While the NDP still believe there is hope in the next election, and while it is always too soon to predict Quebec’s actions, from a strategic point of view, and from a realistic one, it is a certainty that the NDP are on their way out and that the other political parties will start to regain their share of the seats.

 

As a solid indicator of the true shape of the NDP in Quebec, the veteran pollster cannot remember a day where a party lost so much ground during a leadership race.

 

“Conventional wisdom is that leadership contests help the party that’s holding them, that the more candidates, the bigger the help,” he said.

 

“It puts the future of the NDP in the province of Quebec front and center in the leadership race,” he said. “It raises the stakes in the leadership, it really does.”

 

On a nationwide scale, this recent Harris Decima Poll differs from the Nanos Poll from the end of November.

 

Harris-Decima Poll Nationwide

Conservatives: 34%

NDP: 28%

Liberals: 22%

 

Nanos Poll Nationwide

Conservatives: 35.6%

Liberals: 28.1%

NDP: 27.3%

 

Either way, without Quebec, it is highly improbable that the NDP will be able to gain enough ground to form a government, let alone maintain what it has. While it is too soon to tell, it is very safe to say that the volatile situation in Quebec politics has shut the door on a Layton-less NDP and it is no big surprise that the NDP wave last may was nothing more than a Layton wave and Layton is gone now. Logically speaking, if the NDP were strong in Quebec, why would a right-leaning party be gaining momentum, and not the NDP’s cousin, the Quebec Solidaire?

What Goes Around Comes Around

Jack Layton’s last attack in the May 2011 was aimed squarely at Michael Ignatieff and his Liberals. Touting that the NDP had a superior attendance record, the NDP managed to aid the Harper Conservatives in an attempt to hammer a nail on the Liberal coffin. The NDP are having a leadership race and all of them are uninspiring and on top of that, they are all among the worst parliamentarians in terms of attendance.

 

Welcome to the next NDP campaign: Attacking the Liberals and Conservatives using false propaganda and on top of that, claiming they’re ready for the job when the same party pledged to make Ottawa more civil and charged that they had the perfect attendance, it appears that they have neither.

 

 

A Globe and Mail investigation reveals that 5 of the NDP’s 9 leadership hopefuls is in the top 10 worst attendance records in the House of Commons; two others were in the top 30 worst attendance records.

 

Rameo Saganash missed two-thirds, Thomas Mulcair missed more than half, placing second and fourth respectively in terms of worst attendance.

 

Now that their attendance records come back to bite them, they give the same argument that apparently failed for Michael Ignatieff – that they traveled, were talking to potential voters, and were working on other affairs related to their jobs.

 

While the NDP weren’t the only ones who have a bad habit of being absent, it is worth noting considering that they are the ones who made this an issue in the debates last April. The Conservatives, NDP, and Liberals share 30% of the top 30 worst attendance record slots.

 

Rae, who placed fifth worst, came out swinging and charging that his career isn’t only about attending votes.

 

“That is not a meaningful statistic, it is an irrelevant statistic,” Mr. Rae said of his 47 missed votes.

 

“I’m on the road, I’m rebuilding the party, I’m speaking across the country,” the Liberal Leader said. “I make no apologies. I turn up for work every day – it’s just that my work is not simply attending votes.”

 

Rae and other opposition MPs pointed out the worthlessness of voting in a majority government led by the Tories who are changing the ways things operate.

 

“To be perfectly frank and very blunt, when there is a majority government and there is absolutely zero prospect of the government changing its mind on a particular bill, voting is largely symbolic,” Mr. Rae said.

 

Nathan Cullen, an NDP leadership hopeful came in 6th worst attendance and said, “MPs have divided lives, it’s challenging. It’s a balancing act. I don’t know if have perfected it. I don’t think anyone has.”

 

Again, who made this an issue in the last election? The NDP. Who cannot live up to their rhetoric? The NDP. What goes around comes around, the NDP should have thought about this before making it a petty attack issue in the last election.

Conservatives Scramble with Budgeting

There is a $10 billion average difference between estimated structural budget balance forecasts between the Conservatives and budget watchdog Kevin Page.

 

Since the Conservatives came to power, their forecast of how the long-term budget would work out if Canada’s economy operated at its full potential has been on average $10 billion more than the watchdog’s. These budgets are important for policy planning – and may explain Harper’s rosy outlook on his 40% jump in spending.

 

In the past, from 1975 to 2005, the difference was within $1 billion of each other. Last year, Harper’s projection was $17 billion above the watchdog's projection.

 

Side Note: Structural Budget Balance

The accounting of government revenues and expenditures adjusted to ignore the effects of the economic cycle (recessions). It refers to what the economy would look like if Canada was going at full steam at a normal potential.

The structural budget is important for long-term planning to ensure that it’s operating within its means as it doesn’t take temporary revenue shortfalls and temporary expenses into account. In this regard, a structural deficit would mean that regardless whatever steps you take to cut spending, your country will always be spending more money than it receives.

 

The PBO said that based on his projections, Canada operated at a historic low of 5.5% below its potential income and that in 2016-2017, Canada would be left with a structural $1.6 billion deficit.

 

“It’s possible we could get there [a balanced budget] in 2014-15. Right now the numbers would show a small deficit that year and a surplus in 2015-16. I’m not alarmed by that.”

Jim Flaherty – Canada’s Finance Minister

 

The NDP automatically hit the gun and charged that corporate tax cuts were to blame, but Flaherty responded, “We are not going to make the mistakes the European countries did with big deficits and big public debt,” referring to the way that the NDP would run a tax and spend economy.

 

If you look at the NDP’s costing document, you will note large revenues from tax increases and large expenditures which rely on these tax increases. Taxes are not a reliable source of income as demographics change over the years and the fact that the NDP want to rely so heavily with structural funding on these tax hikes, one must fear how they would have managed the budget had they won the May 2011 election. It is also worth mentioning that the NDP was forced to cut a large chunk of its environmental platform because it was unrealistic and unsustainable.

 

The numbers with the economic recovery are off and in 2010, the government estimated a 2.7% below potential markup which is in contrast with Page’s 5.5%.

 

"As a result, Finance Canada estimates would suggest that the $42.6 billion budget deficit recorded in 2010 was entirely cyclical in nature whereas PBO estimates that the deficit contained significant structural and cyclical components (approximately 40 per cent structural and 60 per cent cyclical)," Page’s report said.

 

Meanwhile, the Conservatives plan to make deeper cuts than originally planned which could shave off billions in annual spending – ironically, after they increased it by over 40%. Initially, each program was sent to review to see if they could shave 5% of Ottawa’s $83 billion in direct program spending.

 

“Everything should be on the table,” Conservative MP Brent Rathgeber said, listing federal funding for the CBC and the Royal Alberta Museum as areas where savings can be found.

 

New targets would look at 10% cuts in each department instead of 5%.

 

This would be a start in dealing with this year’s estimated $31 billion deficit and the Conservatives pledged to keep the 6% increase in healthcare transfers until 2015-16. However, Flaherty announced that as of 2016-17, the Government of Canada wants to trim spending.

 

PM Stephen Harper weighed in on November 25 and said, “We have committed to the 6 per cent for a few more years. Over the long term I think all governments recognize – federal government, provincial governments – that the cost of the health care system cannot continue to rise more quickly than our revenue. And that's a problem and that's a challenge we will all be dealing with in the next few years to come as we discuss the future of our health care system.”

 

The 6% increase this year increased public expenditures in healthcare from $19 billion to $27 billion.

 

Meanwhile, BMO deputy chief economist Douglas Porter said that Canada is currently lagging behind the US in terms of employment and retail.

 

On a side note, the greed of Canada’s retailers leads to no surprise that it is one of Canada’s weakest sectors, especially when Canadians can head south of the border and get much better deals – despite the American pitfall. A report suggests that the cost of living won’t increase as much as it has recently, but given the prospects of people’s salaries and financial prospects, every increase in the cost of living hurts the economy and as a bonus, this one directed to the NDP and to any provincial government that is thinking of raising taxes, tax hikes would have the exact same devastating affect.

Chretien: Gun Registry, Kyoto and Wheat Board are Dismantled… What’s Next?

Former Liberal PM Jean Chretien is warning Liberals that the Gun Registry, Kyoto Accord, and Wheat Board may just be the beginning in a Conservative ideological rampage which would change the face of Canada.

Chretien’s warning included a list of policies that may be next on the Conservative to-do list. These policies included the scrapping of abortion rights and same sex marriage, and the return of the death penalty.

“Unless we are bold. Unless we seize the moment. Everything we built will start being chipped away. The Conservatives have already ended gun control and Kyoto. Next may be a woman’s right to choose, or gay marriage. Then might come capital punishment. And one by one, the values we cherish as Canadians will be gone.”
Jean Chretien in a toughly worded fundraising letter to the Liberal Party

Chretien goes on to list even more hot-button issues in an effort to strike a nerve within Liberal ranks to do something. Chretien told them that when he was first elected in 1963, there was no Medicare, Canada Pension Plan, Canadian Flag or Charter of Human Rights. Chretien told them that had Harper been in power in 2001, Canada would have joined the United States in the American invasion.

He also reminded Liberals of their deficit-slaying, strong economy reputation – which happened while he was PM. Look around, do you see a surplus with the Conservatives who are supposed to be ‘prudent economic managers’?

The Liberals are taking pages out of their old playbook and pages that the Conservatives have used to mobilize their base.

Meanwhile, Liberal Leader Bob Rae reports that this tactic has been working and that revenues are starting to flow back in and the party is getting stronger.

Chretien isn’t the only one appealing to Liberals, Paul Martin also made an appeal to Liberals, though not as sharp as Chretien’s.

Paul Martin lent a definition: “Liberals stand for fairness, responsibility, and equality. Liberals believe that individual freedom is only possible in a just society, and that good government can bring us together to build a more prosperous, more sustainable, more united Canada, one that leads by example on the world stage.”

Time will tell how the Liberals will rebuild and define themselves, but it is likely that they will open the doors to the public as they lean toward a primaries system to choose leaders and the likes, rather than keep these decisions reserved to key members.