Politics in 2016

[jollyjacktar]

Nothing is too good for the troops and that is what they'll receive.

 

[cavalryman]

Nothing is too good for the troops and that is what they'll receive.

Hey, maybe we'll get a temporary  UN  security council seat in 2021 and that makes every sacrifice worthwhile.

 

[jollyjacktar]

No sacrifice is too great to give "nice hair" a photo op.

 

[blacktriangle]

I haven't had a chance to look more closely at the budget yet, should I assume there was no mention of the "Veterans Education Benefit" the Liberals were speaking of?

 

[a_majoor]

You know, if I had a buck for every time I had to explain that one, I'd have retired five years ago instead of last month.  OSFI has the legal mandate to determine the government's liability for all of the pension plans (PSSA, CFSA, RCMPSA et al) and back in the day, OSFI told the government that the amount carried on the government's books for said pension plans exceeded what the projected liability, i.e. payouts, was going to be.  The government did what any sane entity would do and adjusted the liability to better reflect the actuarial projections.  Carrying a book surplus (not actual money!) in those accounts makes exactly zero sense since our pensions are determined by a fixed formula and can only be modified via an Act of Parliament to sweeten the terms.  The canard that the government 'stole' from our pension plans needs to be shot down by some cyanide coated buckshot because it just refuses to die.  Mind you, the unions didn't help - but then I don't expect them to be able to count past ten without removing shoes and socks.  (P.S. before anyone flames me for being ignorant, I was the principal CFSA analyst in CMP back in the day who answered all of your and Treasury Board's questions when it came to military pensions...)

Sadly, everyone posting on this is wrong. The Federal government has over $500 billion in unfunded liabilities, which include government, military and RCMP pensions and benefits. While shifting actuarial figures around on a ledger is impressive or awful, depending on where you sit, the reality is they are playing shell games with nothing at all to back them.

Add the $500 billion + unfunded liabilities to the $500 billion + Federal debt and you have a very real problem on your hands...

 

[PuckChaser]

I haven't had a chance to look more closely at the budget yet, should I assume there was no mention of the "Veterans Education Benefit" the Liberals were speaking of?

Crickets.

 

[blacktriangle]

Crickets.

Why am I not surprised? Thanks PuckChaser.

 

[chanman]

Nothing is too good for the troops and that is what they'll receive.

While this particular Dilbert strip ran nearly two decades ago...

 

[Kirkhill]

Which would make us perfect for UN missions.  Feature, not bug under the current administration  >

On the plus side:  Going to Haiti, for example, would be a great opportunity to put some miles on those TAPVs.  By 2019 they will be about ready to donate to the Haitian constabulary.

 

[Lightguns]

I haven't had a chance to look more closely at the budget yet, should I assume there was no mention of the "Veterans Education Benefit" the Liberals were speaking of?

No, everything the Cons coated out before tge election is going to happen plus the maritimes get their unproductive VA offices back. 

 

[The Bread Guy]

I haven't had a chance to look more closely at the budget yet, should I assume there was no mention of the "Veterans Education Benefit" the Liberals were speaking of?

Closest thing (without naming the benefit) on page 176:

... Over the next year, the Government will work with the veterans’ community to examine the best way to streamline and simplify the system of financial support programs currently offered by Veterans Affairs Canada and National Defence for veterans and their families. The overall objective of this work will be to ensure that the Government delivers programs and services in a way that is veterans-centric and facilitates a seamless and successful transition from military to civilian life ...

A cross between :crickets: and "we'll get back to you" ...

 

[dapaterson]

Jim Hillyer, PC MP for Medicine Hat–Cardston–Warner, was found dead in his office this morning.  He had complained of feeling ill yesterday.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/jim-hillyer-mp-dead-1.3503771

Condolences to his family.

 

[Kirkhill]

41 years old. 

 

[Brad Sallows]

Believing that the past 10 years has been a decade of darkness that is about to be fixed is wishful thinking that can only end in disappointment, because it is at odds with the historical fiscal facts.  (Unless your perception is purely founded on your hatred of the characteristics of introverted people, in which case you are welcome to it.)

The past government didn't rebalance the budget on the backs of anyone in need.  Transfers, which account for 70+% of federal spending, were essentially maintained and increased.  Rebalancing was achieved by the restoration of revenues after the recessionary drop and a mix of spending growth restraint and cuts to the other 30% of government spending (ie. agencies and their operations).  There isn't going to be a sunny new day for the Canada Social Transfer or the Canada Health Transfer, or payouts like CPP, OAS, EI, etc because there was never an end to the sunny old day.

The expense-side cost reductions were numerous and each relatively paltry.  The people most affected were those who were relocated if an office was closed or staffing reduced, or cut off from a federally-funded gravy train.  None of the usual sky-is-falling prediction made by the usual whingers came to pass; Canada did not become a perceptibly more horrible place to live and work.

The new government is basically setting the clock back to about 2011, and undertaking to restore most of the spending desired by its political base, ideological principles, and aesthetic preferences, without commensurate and balancing changes on the revenue side (for which optimistic hope and belief that it will get better are essentially the plan).  So we will have a structural deficit, and borrow chiefly for consumption - only a little for "investment" - and see where that takes us.

The ratio to keep an eye on is not debt:GDP.  The ratio to watch is "public debt charges":"revenues" (columns in the readily available Fiscal Reference Tables).  If the number increases, you may be assured that the costs of borrowing are squeezing out the money available for program spending, in an unhealthy direction.

 

[PuckChaser]

Harper could have restored balance much sooner, had he reneged on some of his campaign promises like GST cut or income splitting, much like Trudeau wouldn't have such a massive deficit without that middle class tax cut.

 

[George Wallace]

Quotas vs Merit

Trudeau filled his Cabinet by using a "Quota System"

Labour Minister, MaryAnn Mihychuk, is constantly proving herself to be totally incompetent:

This piece: Trudeau's Labour Minister Mihychuk “should either resign or be fired” by Brian Lilley demonstrates this, if you have any doubts.

 

[Lumber]

Quotas vs Merit

Trudeau filled his Cabinet by using a "Quota System"

Labour Minister, MaryAnn Mihychuk, is constantly proving herself to be totally incompetent:

This piece: Trudeau's Labour Minister Mihychuk “should either resign or be fired” by Brian Lilley demonstrates this, if you have any doubts.

Ministers are supposed to be experts in their fields? I though the DMs were the experts and the Ministers were just bobble-heads?

 

[jmt18325]

Ministers are supposed to be experts in their fields? I though the DMs were the experts and the Ministers were just bobble-heads?

What ministers should be good at is management.  This isn't the first time Mihychuk has been a minister, so that made here very good candidate in this young government.

 

[Oldgateboatdriver]

No. What ministers should be good at is representing their department's position in public.

Ministers are required to master their briefs, especially when they are going to represent the government's position on new legislation before a committee of Parliament. Before hand, they would have been given a brief by their officials that had been carefully arranged to present the department's position and would have included answers to all of the foreseeable questions. And the questions she muffed up were pretty obvious lines of questioning.

One such aspect of mastering the brief is that a minister that appears before a committee to defend his/her own department's legislation should absolutely know what is or isn't in the actual law. Her representation that the Bill contains no provision about secret ballots is, quite simply, either an outright lie on her part or gross incompetence: It is one of the main provision of the Act she is introducing in Parliament.

There are no excuse for someone allegedly experienced as a Minister.

 

[a_majoor]

One of the provisions of the new government's budget seems to have slipped past many people's notice:

http://www.inquisitr.com/2928566/bank-bail-in-provision-cdic-contingent-convertible-debt-coco-budget-2016/

MARCH 26, 2016
BANK BAIL-IN PROVISION, CDIC FINANCIAL POSITION: WHAT EVERY CANADIAN NEEDS TO KNOW ABOUT BUDGET 2016
SCOTT HOUGH

The federal Canadian government unveiled its stimulus Budget 2016 on March 22, which included information about the majority Liberal party’s intention to implement a banking “bail-in regime.”

“To protect Canadian taxpayers in the unlikely event of a large bank failure, the Government is proposing to implement a bail-in regime that would reinforce that bank shareholders and creditors are responsible for the bank’s risks—not taxpayers. This would allow authorities to convert eligible long-term debt of a failing systemically important bank into common shares to recapitalize the bank and allow it to remain open and operating. Such a measure is in line with international efforts to address the potential risks to the financial system and broader economy of institutions perceived as ‘too-big-to-fail.'”

The Canadian government is proposing a mechanism for Canadian banks very similar to the provisions currently in force in Europe for contingent convertible, so-called CoCo, debt, as previously featured with the Inquisitr.

Canadians’ bank accounts are recorded as liabilities on banks’ balance sheets, as a type of debt. The government is proposing that in the event of another financial crisis, such as was witnessed in 2008, banks could convert accounts to stock, in a similar way that CoCo bond issues have provisions for, and similar to what occurred in Cypress in 2012/13 when the government allowed banks to convert about 40 percent of deposits over $100,000 (similar to what is protected in Canada by the CDIC) to shares, resulting in a portion of people’s savings, held in bank accounts they believed were safe, vanishing, as reported by Press For Truth and the Telegraph.

image: http://cdn.inquisitr.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/New-Proposed-Canadian-Budget-Included-Bank-Bail-In-Provision-Bringing-The-CDIC-Into-The-Spotlight-670x388.jpg

Justin Trudeau and the Canadian Liberal government have introducted new bail-in provisions, similar to European contingent convertible debt, in the Budget 2016.

The Budget 2016 proposal implements changes to Canada’s banking legislation similar to what was implemented in Cypress.
A goal of governments around the globe is to prevent taxpayer-funded bailouts of “too-big-to-fail” financial institutions again; the thing is, many taxpayers are also bank account holders.

Why does it have to be like this? Why can’t bank accounts be safe, while at the same time allowing banks to operate profitably, without periodically needing massive injections of cash and liquidity from taxpaying account holders?

A third factor in the banking-safety equation is the Canadian government, its currency, and the country’s place in the global economy. Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government intends to run deficits, funded by selling debt, for the foreseeable future, as reported by Zero Hedge, which, like CoCo debt, is intertwined with and has implications markets for debt sold by Canadian banks, which the Liberal government is proposing now have a predetermined bail-in provision where, if things get tough, doesn’t have to be fully repaid.

In short, to run the deficits that the Liberal government wants to run, to provide all the great services outlined in Budget 2016 that Canadians so dearly want and need, and which, in the end, may result in increases to Canadian productivity and GDP, Canadians are being told: “If we give you all this stuff, you have to turn it into higher Canadian GDP [creating a larger tax base and a more valuable Canadian dollar], or else, we might be forced to take 20 percent of your savings above a certain amount, like they did in Cypress.”

image: http://cdn.inquisitr.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Bail-In-Legislation-For-Canadian-Banks-Similar-To-Contingent-Convertible-European-Debt-CDIC-Financial-Position-In-Spotlight-670x388.jpg

It is thought that these bail-in proposals would not affect investments, such as bank deposits up to $100,000, and sometimes more, protected by the Canada Deposit Insurance Corporation (CDIC), as previously featured by the Inquisitr.
The problem with this, as has been discussed with Press For Truth, who describes the CDIC as a “Ponzi scheme” and points out that in 2013, the corporation only had $2.5 billion set aside to cover investor losses, up to just over $3 billion in 2015. Three billion dollars covers 30,000 accounts worth $100,000 each.

The CDIC reports that in 2015, they insured $684 billion of Canadians’ savings; with $3 billion. A situation that is described as the CDIC not being able to “cover all Canadian deposits.”

So, Canadians need to understand that only CDIC-insured investments are protected by the government, and savings above $100,000 may be subject to bail-in events where a certain amount could disappear. And to keep in mind that the CDIC only has enough to cover about 0.004 percent of existing insured investments. And keep in mind that this process is already well underway in Europe.

Why do governments have debt? Why isn’t there enough money? One parable that may help shed light on this is the difference in pay received by U.S. garbage collectors in 2011: those employed by state governments averaged $19.27 per hour, those employed by local governments averaged $17.11 per hour, and those employed by private contractors averaged $16.05 per hour, as reported by the Houston Chronicle. The reasons behind these varied numbers are complex; one thing is certain, the $3+ premium paid to state garbage collectors adds to debt burdens.

Canada is renowned for its world-class social programs, including free health care for all citizens, and some of the highest-paid teachers in the world, as reported by the Toronto Star. Though, at different times through its history, Canada has run balanced budgets, social programs cost money. At least in part, that money comes from debt sold by the government.

Other examples of activities that increase Canadian national debt include government workers skipping work, small businesses double-booking, as reported by the Inquisitr, people claiming benefits they are not entitled to, and visiting doctors unnecessarily, among many others.

Examples of activities that decrease national debt include working, paying taxes, starting new businesses, writing books, publishing photography, and teaching others new skills, among many others. Feel free to add your examples of debt-adding and debt-reducing activities below.

One, perhaps over simplistic, yet not inaccurate, way to describe the proposed bail-in provisions for Canadian banks is aiming to protect Canadians from themselves.

Read more at http://www.inquisitr.com/2928566/bank-bail-in-provision-cdic-contingent-convertible-debt-coco-budget-2016/#HFjkUOmG7HxFVuxF.99