Let’s Erect A Plaque At 787 Dundas St W To Remember Jack Layton

I've been pondering this one since it hit the 'news' yesterday. I figure it's got something to do with Tommie the Commie having qualified for the solid gold politician pension. Once he hit that milestone he no longer had to worry about getting rid of the mortgage and could use his house like a credit card.

There's been times when I've wanted to borrow against my family home equity but I've resisted. Normal people should try to pay off their mortgages and secure their home ownership.

Could care less if Mucliar was living in subsidized housing, but there is relevance when he wants to comment on how a strong dollar is causing economic hardship in central Canada.
M. Mucliar, the reason that a lot of countries are unable to fund the govenment services they pandered for votes with is because they, like you, borrowed more than they could ever hope to pay back.
Sounds like Mucliar has the greek disease.

Could care less if Mucliar was living in subsidized housing, but there is relevance when he wants to comment on how a strong dollar is causing economic hardship in central Canada.
M. Mucliar, the reason that a lot of countries are unable to fund the govenment services they pandered for votes with is because they, like you, borrowed more than they could ever hope to pay back.
Sounds like Mucliar has the greek disease.

Who cares?

Sounds like someone likes to play the "ponies"...

I hope he doesn't try to remortgage his New house....that belongs to the taxpayers. Of course, as a New Democrat....he doesn't really know the difference.

Yup, he'd be my first choice to run a national economy, with Lizzy May as the minister of finance.. lol

Doesn't Mulcair know that there's no such thing as a "private matter" when you're a public figure? What century is he living in?

Wasn't there a police report on Mr Layton's rubdown parlor visit? Why would that be considered a "private affair?"

Speaks to his financial acumen and his attitudes towards debt and repayment of same. And it also speaks to his level of ambition for wanting political power.

Thus it is not a private matter nor is it politically irrelevant.

looks like he needs to get a job like the rest of us shmoes out here

I will be so happy when this genius is installed, by the eastern media, to lead our great country. The eastern media has always given us the great leaders over the years. remember Pearson, assumed a 750,000 dollar debt from Deifenbaker, ran it to 8 or 9 billion, then along came the greatest eastern idol Turdough, he took the nat debt to a mere 229 billion thankfully, oh what could Canada have done without that great intellect Turdough. Then came spiking interest rates and Mulroney and Zap we had 450 billion of debt, but not to be outdone by a "conservative" Cretin, (another Power Corp. shill) scampered the little debt to 560 billion before one could say Paul Martin, who when told by the world bank to behave, so he stole from the provinces to create some fancy balance sheets. Then came Barack the US lefties saviour, he was doing stimulus, and we all know how Jack Layton and Iggula loved "stimulus" so they forced Harper into more debt for "stimulus" and here we are. NDPEE types sure know financing and "stimulus" in Jacks case, and we can only hope that the eastern media blesses with another "financial genius" like Mulcair. Bull.....

Socialist economics always ends up the same way.

Mountains of debt.

I am glad he chooses to live within his means, and cares about paying back the money he owes! A true intellectual.

Perhaps he has been conducting some personal longterm modelling of NDP fiscal policies.

I wonder if RBC gives the same mortgage deals to regular folks, as it gives to those who hold political power?

Wasn't it Don Corleone who extended certain favors so that "services" could be rendered in the future.

It's probably to pay for the lawsuits he's accumulated with his big mouth.

As Much as I'd like to slag Mulcair's financial acumen, there is actually a valid reason for taking out the equity as it builds. If the mortgage money is used for investing, the interest is a tax deduction. The downside of course is that you still have to repay the principle, and if the investment goes sour...well too bad.

Good thing there is no mortgage bubble in Canada ;^)

DaninVan,

Yes this can be done, however you need to structure it appropriately. It needs to be a seperate loan not one of mixed purpose, i.e. just your line of Credit.

Not sure what to think of it, other than tracking when it suddenly gets paid off.

He may have been using it to finance his campaigns...although you would think they would declare it. Perhaps it is being financed to use to buy a second home, say in France. Mind you that would have to show up on his declaration of assets etc.

11 re-mortgaging's, as opposed to just having a line of credit...it is odd and curious. Pull the thread see where it leads. Could be nothing.

Either he doesn't know how to handle money (in which case he's a typical Dipper who shouldn't be allowed anywhere near the Treasury), or he's leaveraging his house to invest in real estate or securities (in which case he's a typical hypocritical Dipper, and can't be trusted).

Of course he could be using it to finance his retirement home, back in France.

He's been lecturing Canadians all month on his Dutch Disease theory, what a hypocrite the man is. Yes let's all follow his finanical footsteps shall we?

This one's a bit soft. In this day and age, with some exceptionally low mortgage rates available, carrying mortgage debt to sustain investments isn't such a bad idea. I could pay off my mortgage in pretty short order, but at present it really doesn't pay to do so. If mortgage rates rose however, that could change. Likewise, with zero percent financing on my car, I've been in no rush to pay off my car loan, although again, I could if I had to. I'm letting my money work to advantage elsewhere.
That being said -- Thomas Mulcair directing the country's finances? Sccccrrrrrrreeeeeeaaaaaam!

Dip Party fiscal policy = if you have cheques you have money

Dipper Kleptonomics = spend and borrow like a drunk, blame the rich, send bill to the working man.

I am sure Mr.Mulcair is leveraging his equity to buy houses to rent to the poor and homeless.

What a guy!

Mulcair is itching for a fight with Conrad Black .
A knife to a gunfight.

I wouldn't want this guy "gambling" with the finances of the country.

I always thought his dark rat eyes hid some sort of nefarious secret...

The Irish Catholics consider thrift to be a sin and being generous with other people's money a virtue. An Irish Catholic who lives within his means and refuses to buy alcohol for his less provident friends and relatives with money he doesn't have risks having them snarl behind his back that he's a miser who "still has his Confirmation money."

It's a fair bet that Thomas Mulcair no longer has his Confirmation money.

It's not much worse a bet that either

a) Mrs. Mulcair is an unrepentant spendthrift, or;
b) A friend or relative is an unrepentant drunkard, and the Mulcairs have spent a fortune trying to keep his or her financial and legal problems out of the newspapers, or;
c) Both.

Either way the prattle about "Dutch disease" is clearly a rationalization for debasing the Canadian dollar so Tom Mulcair can get out of paying for his wife's shoes and his crony's sprees, unless with bank-confetti worth a fraction of what he borrowed.

What Tom Mulcair has in store for Canada as a whole, meanwhile, is clear from the example of the 26 Counties. The 26 Counties were "prosperous" on account of money borrowed from the English and Scots and spent on luxuries the Irish didn't need. There was then a "debt crisis" when the banks reminded the Irish that their money was a loan and needed to be repaid with interest in a timely manner, followed by mass emigration of deadbeat Irish fleeing creditors. All that rubbish about lazy, deadbeat, spendthrift Greeks? Save it for the worthless Irish.

and do we think for one measly moment, the left would say "it's a private matter, leave it alone" if this was Stephen Harper we were talking about?

"Doesn't Mulcair know that there's no such thing as a "private matter" when you're a public figure? What century is he living in?"
Posted by: rick mcginnis at 8:03 AM

So true, consider the painting of Harper.

I hope that all non-Alberta workers in the Oil Sands line up on the road with signs saying ...
"Without the Oil Sands, we would be on EI"
"Mulcair, killer of jobs that keep ALL of Canada alive.
"Without the Oil Sands, there would be less manufactoring in Ontario."
"Without the Oil Sands, Quebec would cease to exist."
"Without the Oil Sands, Quebec students would be treated like the rest of Canada."

You can add your own sign ... sad that it would not happen, except in cyber-space.

at the very least this hints that he got into federal politics for the money.

and lucky for him, he seems to have hit the jackpot.

And this idiot wants Canadas PIN number? Its obvious that he has probably attended the Boob Rae school of Economics,just what we need running the country.Unfortunately we could possibly see a Dipper/Lib coalition government in the next election.If the fools in Quebec continue to support the Dippers and Ontarios usual idiots vote for Buffalo Boob and the Libs the country is doomed to perpetual indebtedness.

Interesting comment soccermom.. dark rat eyes... I've been referring to him as Tommy Spider Eyes... but I take your point... he's incompetent with money apparently, whilst the household income probably exceeds a quarter million per year.

Bought my house about 20 years ago.

My mortgage is about $13,000 less that it was then.

Why is that?

Because the cost of debt ie the interest rate, on a mortgage is less than the rate on a consumer loan.

That's allowed me to refinance to purchase RV's, get money for investment and other reasons.

Mulcair is perfectly within his rights to refinance his mortgage and those of you who are piling on him because of that really should get a life.

"remember Pearson, assumed a 750,000 dollar debt from Deifenbaker, ran it to 8 or 9 billion, then along came the greatest eastern idol Turdough, he took the nat debt to a mere 229 billion thankfully"
~bartinsky

remember Stelmach, assumed an 8 Billion dollar surplus from Klein, ran it to 12 or 13 Billion debt, then along came the greatest Red-Tory policy advisor Redford, she's taking the Alberta provincial debt to a mere 16-30 Billion....but you voted for her and would probably vote for Mulcair if he was an Alberta Progressive conservative, fiscal incompetence be damned.

Posted by: Oz at May 28, 2012 12:20 PM

The price of natural gas dropped through the floor.

I'm sure you have the mental ability to figure out why Alberta's revenues also dropped at the same time.

I voted for Danielle Smith

I bought my first house in 1981. Interest rates were a tad high. He may have been refinancing at the end of some short terms, to buy down interest rates. That would account for 3 or 4 transactions. He may have switched banks a couple of times. He may have borrowed against the property to invest. He may have bought more property. He may have done major renovations. Eleven times in 30 years seems like a lot of juggling. A stable, sensible person would have that house paid for, by now. He's counting on a very large pension, just like his predecessor.

set you free said: "Mulcair is perfectly within his rights to refinance his mortgage and those of you who are piling on him because of that really should get a life."

Yes. But.

11 refinances? With ever-increasing debt level? That kind of behavior, while technically legal, seems to indicate (to me anyway) a "money for nothing" mentality, whereby debts are merely shuffled between lenders and never really repaid. To do that the Mulcairs are either counting on some major payoff down the road, or they are just debt-surfing their way through life. At the end when it all comes crashing down they'll be old and can just declare bankruptcy and skate away scot free.

That's precisely the problem with Canada's government right now. What they need to do is CUT SPENDING and pay off some debt. Because the alternative is Greece.

Do I want a guy who won't even do that in his personal life running this country? I think not.

Phantom- Exactly. If he isn't bright enough to figure out the real cost of borrowing against a property, he isn't qualified to run a country. Mortages are the most expensive form of loan, no matter how low the interest rate. He bought that house THIRTY YEARS AGO. It should have been paid off long ago.

At age 57, which I believe Tommie the Commie to be, conventional financial wisdom is that your primary asset, your house, should be fully paid, and you should be using dollars that would otherwise pay the mortgage to invest. Of course, the porkulous monetary policy of Canada and most Western countries makes it cheap to be a debtor (for now) and punishes savers. So maybe Tommie figures he can put off being debt free until his MP pension kicks in - or something like that.

Or, as others have suggested, maybe there is a money pit somewhere in his life.

Mulcair is a pawn star.
The press created Wafergate. Mulcair's tendency to use his house as a cash cow is fair game, for somebody who aspires to be Prime Minister.

300 large?
That's a lot of 'sore back' treatments at the ol' Velvet Touch...

Posted by: The Phantom at May 28, 2012 12:37 PM

So what if a person refinanced their house 50 times to take advantage of lower interest rates?

What's wrong with that?

And, why is it anybody's business.

Of course, being debt-free is the best option, but who are we to judge? As long as you're happy with the way you conduct your own business, keep your nose out of others.

It's that what most of us here say ... that the government should keep their noses out of our business?

Well, then, don't be hypocrites.

I know someone continually refinancing his home. Last time his wife wouldn't sign - divorce. How do you spell Booze and Gambling? And he makes $200-300,000 a year to boot.

So he's a serial borrower? Big deal. If he was a serial defaulter, there would be an issue to discuss. Of course, if he was a serial defaulter he'd likely be working in the PMO like Harper's good buddy Bruce Carson. Or any of the dozens of corporate welfare bums who have defaulted on their commitments to Canada with the blessings of the Harper government.

Frozen pizza anyone?

Syf et al:

If he is executing some kind of interest deduction strategy like the smith maneuver that's fine and legit. The problem is he leads a party that considers such activity to be in the same league as big business tax evasion. He is the hypocrite - not those who criticize him if they is indeed the case.

Second, does his party support making home interest costs deductible? I don't know the answer, but if he is indeed using the smith manuveur he should be supporting such a policy.

More likely he is too unsophisticated for such personal finance tactics. Rather his political ambition drives him to debt and more debt to achieve that goal. He wouldn't be the first politician to do so, that's for sure. And if blind political ambition drives him into personal financial peril, what would that same ambition drive him to do should be ever get responsibility for the nations finances. And that is the issue that makes this "private issue" Germaine for public discussion.

set you free, you're not getting it.
Mulcair WANTS TO USE OUR MONEY to further agendae such as to combat CLIMATE CHANGE, a SCAM. Mulcair has no respect for the results of ELECTIONS. Mulcair would raise taxes for his pet projects, and get who would be footing the bill? US. Anyone who considers the Alberta oil industry as beneath contempt, while ALL provinces benefit from it is just plain DUMB. Get it now?

Set You Free,

Nothing wrong with Refi's. 11 is extroidinary, as opposed to getting a line of credit set-up where you dont need to go through the legal work each time.

What raises my eyebrows is the number of times his mortgage docs are re-written, thats all. Probably nothing, but it is the most cumbersome way possible.

If it was an investment loan....and he kept increasing it, which is possible.....then as he got more free capital on his own it might have allowed him to increase the loan amount. Those are usually run at 50% cash.

Point is, it seems out of the norm, especially for someone pulling in a reasonable salary with their pension already taken care of. Pull on the string, see what happens. I wouldnt jump to any conclusions, good or bad until there are more facts on the table.

set you free at May 28, 2012 12:23 PM

Klein made Alberta debt free with oil at $30/bbl, he did it by cutting spending.
The problem since Klein is the spending not the revenues.
It's a repeat of the same mistakes the Getty regime made in the ‘80's.

http://taxpayer.com/alberta/alberta-deficit-soars

Volatility of any commodity in the energy market should NOT come as a surprize to any Alberta politician or government and the government's obligations relative to it's sustainable spending should recognize market volitility and account for it before hand.

So what if a person refinanced their house 50 times to take advantage of lower interest rates?
~set you free

From thread hookline:
New Democratic Party leader Tom Mulcair and his wife have repeatedly refinanced their home west of Montreal, gradually increasing the debt on the property over a series of 11 mortgages, land records show.

Increasing the debt is not what I did when I got yearly mortgages on my home, which was purchased in '93 and paid off in full by spring 2005.
It appears that the rate of interest is irrelevent to Mulcair's serial remortgaging, just as many here speculate that it would be if Mulcair were borrowing to SPEND for his party's agenda were he managing the nation's treasury.

Mulcair certainly did take advantage to SPEND more, not retire his debt which he and his ilk appear not to care about at all.

The spending is the point.