Indeed. Who’s laughing now, Brantford Boomer?
The old white people aren’t MAIDing away as quickly as they’d hoped for;
The Carney government regularly describes its fiscal approach as “ambitious” and “transformational,” but in reality it’s simply perpetuating a fiscal decline that’s plunging Canada deeper into red ink. To truly transform federal finances, the Carney government must reduce spending, even in areas that are politically unpopular. And to truly be ambitious, it should start by reducing elderly benefits – Ottawa’s largest single spending item.
First, some context. The Carney government plans to run annual budget deficits ranging from $66.9-billion in 2025-26 to $53.2-billion in 2030-31. Cumulatively, this six-year period in the red represents $362.4-billion in borrowing. Over that same period, Ottawa’s total debt will rise from a projected $2.3-trillion, or 72 per cent of the economy, to more than $3-trillion, or 78 per cent of the economy.
Open this photo in gallery:According to the Carney government’s spring economic update, elderly benefits will grow faster than any other single spending item in the budget, except debt interest costs.
I just threw that graphic in there. For context.
An “as I was saying” update: A new academic study is calculating how much money the government could save by dramatically expanding euthanasia .. including “non-voluntary” scenarios for vulnerable people.
Wasn’t Harper’s cumulative deficit $500 million, with about $475 billion inherited from past Liberal governments? Harper borrowed his way out of the 2008 recession but outside that he pretty much ran a surplus. Just reminiscing.
Well, no. I paid loadsadough to governments over my time, 50% in fact. Had that not happened, I would have enough money and not need OAS.
Yes. Don’t ever let them pretend that giving you back a little bit of what they took is a gift.
You paid taxes on it when you earned it, and you’ll pay taxes on it again when they give it back as if it was income.
It isn’t income.
They were just holding it for you after you earned it the first time so you wouldn’t blow it on beer and popcorn.
Let’s figure out what could be accomplished by simply making OAS and CPP payout dependent on how long the individual lived in Canada. Anything less than 65 years at 65 years of age = reduced payment.
Well, the OAS is dependent on how long the individual lived in Canada after 18.
To get full OAS immigrants have to live in Canada 40 years. However, the day they fall off the boat they are eligible for Guaranteed Income Supplement which basically doubles OAS.
Yup. Reductions for all. Well, not quite. Not those drawing the guaranteed income supplement, I bet.
Cutting senior’s pensions while keeping the money flowing to foreign entities or tier 2 Canada’s welfare dependent media is going to be a stretch, I think the Globe and Mail publishing this is for more of a feeler to see how the backlash against it goes.
Though maybe the #Libranos think they can get away with it, such as their polling support from the eastern senior voting block.
Are the new Canadians still receiving federal welfare payments too?
That’s the rub, eh?
Which sacred cow(s) will Carney have to sacrifice or will he be able to stare down the creditors to keep from having to sell assets.
How to avoid the criticism that it’s wrong to reduce benefits to Canadian citizens while using taxpayer money for non-Canadians and other wasteful spending of taxpayer money?
Significantly reduce or eliminate funding for non-Canadians – foreign aid, tempoaray workers, asylum/refugee claimants, newly arrived immigrants. Frankly, non-Canadians should not get more in monthly benefits than the combined OAS and CPP maximum for retirees or receive other benefits that Canadian citizens have to pay for themselves.
After that’s completed then reduce or eliminate corporate welfare and international agencies. The hundreds of billions wasted since the Trudeau era on subsidizing corporations and UN agencies should be redirected the core funding of programs that Canadians need like healthcare, housing, roads and export infrastructure not cricket and EV battery plants and subsidizing media, marketing boards, ETC.
Next on the list, reduce government employee numbers and consultants back down to pre-Trudeau levels, at least. The number of government employees are grossly inflated and the added cost of wages, health benefits and pensions is well over $100,000 per employee.
Once all that is completed then, and only then, should government even think of reducing benefits to Canadian citizens. But, in my opinion, there would be surplus if the Canadian government stopped funding foreigners, corporations and bloated government employee numbers.
Now, now, you just settle down. The piano-playing-with-his-penis comedian in Ukraine desperately needs more money from Canada.
The amount of Canadian taxpayer money given to foreign governments and international organizations is crazy.
“I think the Globe and Mail publishing this is for more of a feeler to see how the backlash against it goes.”
It is always a good thing to remember that Canadian media now works exclusively for the regime in charge of the government.
Also, CPP is a joke in current year. They give you enough every month to live for a week.
I would be in favor of cutting CPP IF, and only if, all other forms of welfare were cut off, particularly to migrants, and IF they reduced my overall tax load to 25%.
If they only took a quarter of everything I make, I could get by. But they take more than half, which makes life precarious.
You guys realize they tax us more than the worst nightmares of a medieval peasant, right? It’s obscene.
I think the opinion writer is talking about OAS not CPP. OAS comes out of general tax revenue, CPP is entirely funded by employees and employers. OAS is a universal program (with clawbacks) while CPP is only for people who were employed and paid into CPP (to get the max you need to pay the max contributions for 39 years, IIRC).
To your point though. OAS is embarrassingly miserly at about $750 per month. A mere fraction of the benefits given to new non-Canadians who live here. A “Canadians First” political policy would prioritize Canadian citizens over foreigners, international organizations and corporations.
I think too many have forgotten that the reason given for taxation was to provide programs and infrastructure that benefits Canadians. When high taxes, like in Canada, reduces funding of those types of programs for Canadians and instead funds foreigners and corporations…then the rationale for high taxes breaks down. For many years now, it feels like the unofficial policy of Canadian governments is “Canadians Last”.
The articles doesn’t take into consideration another issue that developed during the last 10 years: the average age of the immigrants (TFWs). All the immigrants I know, including myself, came here before they were 30. Now, many of the adult immigrants are over 40. I’ve seen work permits given to people over 60, already retired in their country of origin (don’t ask me why). These new immigrants won’t get much of a Canadian pension (CPP & OAS), but they will get GIS, which will cost us dearly.
“people over 60, already retired in their country of origin (don’t ask me why). ”
I can tell you why. Because 60 over there is like 85 here. Sixty years old makes them a long-haul champion. A respected elder, carried around by the younger generations. Most don’t make it to 50. No health care, right?
Here, you turn 60, they raise your taxes again and tell you to get back to work.
My “why” was about why the Lieberal govt is giving out work permits to people over 60, already retired in their country of origin.
How many Canadians make more than $148,000 a year in retirement?!
WTF?!
If I was going to make a third of that in retirement I’d be happy as a pig in shit.
Yes, there are ceilings. I hate to turn the issue into a class war, but, do any retired individuals grossing $100k in retirement, need the OAS? Realistically, absolutely not. That’s a hell of a wealthy individual, and couple for that matter.
If one chooses to be fiscally irresponsible in retirement, IE, carrying a huge mortgage payment or vehicle payment, that’s a want, not a need. That’s not envy at all, but, if that government dole is making those payments while living a 6 figure income retirement, it’s a waste.
That said, agreed with those above, cut all the huge wasteful spending on “immigrants” of convenience, who get thousands of dollars a month to live in hotels, buy new cars, hit the food banks and don’t work. That’s Target#1!
Target#2? TFWs
Target#3? No more Foreign Welfare giveaways, for any reason. That includes the grifting Azov kleptocracy of Ukraine! Especially!
Target#4? Government Bureaucracy.
Clearly, this is a trial balloon, typical of the Mop & Pail to perform for their Liberal masters. Given the large boomer support of the Liberals, this balloon may very well fail and disappear quickly. Attacking your main support base is stupid beyond words.
“…do any retired individuals grossing $100k in retirement, need the OAS?”
Leaving aside the fact that we’ve all been pillaged for CPP our entire lives, with the PROMISE (legally binding guarantee, actually) of a pension after 65, so they -better- pay up…
…given the taxes on everything here at that level of income are roughly 50% when all the shouting is done, your Boomer with $100K income is taking home $50K. Give or take, depending on city and province. (God help you if you live in Toronto.)
What does a car cost, Mr. ByTheSea? The cheapest thing you can get is about $35K. What does a house cost? The cheapest thing you can get in Hooterville Ontario is ~$500K. (And remember, BoomerGuy isn’t able to do his own renovations like he could when he was 40 years old.) Rent? $3K/month, times 12 is $36K, baby.
Your $100K BoomerGuy is scraping by at $50K take-home. God help him if the house needs a new roof or a sewer repair.
Think of all the other guys whose total income is $30k. That’s more the usual thing for Boomers.
Maybe if the Gubmint wants to cut back services they could start with immigrants and the able-bodied, as you say.
But all this is moot, because the truth is they’re just lying and stealing the money. CPP is $900/month, give or take, it’s a fig leaf to cover the fact that they finished stealing everything from the Canada Pension Fund 30 years ago.
I never planned my retirement with OAS in mind.
(A small trade pension, CPP, but mostly my RRSP.)
I always assumed OAS was for poor people.
I also have zero debt, a small house and I enjoy free stuff like the birds in the bird bath…
People living the high life – I’ll define that, thankyou – who complain about an OAS clawback can fckoff, especially if they used to work for one of the thieving governments.
Foreigners can eat shit and anyone giving them money hates Canada and Canadians.
A genocide of elderly, legacy Canadians is being floated as the answer to Canada’s economic problems. There probably won’t even be a street protest as your grandparents are loaded onto the railcars.
Hey, I give the authors credit for chutzpah. But holy crap, who thought this paper was a good idea?
Missing from the list: immigrant freeloaders and grifters.
“…who thought this paper was a good idea?”
I think it’s a great idea.
They did the math and concluded that the government is going to cut costs by involuntarily MAiD-ing entire “Vulnerable Groups.” Every time the government proposes to allow yet another swath of humanity “eligible” for MAiD, it is because of exactly the calculations done in this paper. They just pick the most expensive bunch and say “Hey, these people are suffering! They deserve the relief of MAiD!!!”
Somebody else asked a really good question in this regard. “When did we start treating human lives like line items on a spreadsheet?”
To a socialist, EVERYTHING is a line item. Children, marriage, the elderly, the workers, the sick, the disabled. The enlightened socialist seeks to maximize the efficiency of society. Boost productivity, cut costs. Everything is determined by a cost/benefit curve.
Fall on one side of the curve, you get healthcare. Fall on the other side, you get MAiD.
That’s what the paper says.
Simple question: How did we survive when government was only half this size?
Is there any evidence that doubling the size of government improved anything?
It improved everything for the Government.
The Government’s purpose is it’s existence.
The End.
Is this REAL????
Looks it but I dunno
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/00302228251323299
it seems so
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sage_Publishing
Brantford Boomer is exactly how I imagine GYM, shit eating grin on a face a mother would bitch slap (and probably did) with both middle fingers out.
Except the Brantford Boomer couldn’t possibly swallow as much caulk, despite a creamy complexion likely shared with GYM.
Gag on that AI beeyatch.
Let’s be realistic about deficits: unless a government has exceptionally good non-tax revenues, there will never be enough money at large to sustain the economy. Major Douglas of Social Credit fame pointed this obvious fact out some 100 years ago but they who MAKE the money have everyone believing in Santa Claus. Governments “borrow” the very money that they have given to financial houses, thereafter paying “interest” and, rarely, “principal” to those entities for having contributed nothing. That is a comment on created money; about withdrawn money ie. “savings” later.
You know, I’m dying as fast as I decently can. If you rush me, I risk ceasing to be graceful, and who benefits from that?