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Open Letter to Prime Minister Harper
Dear Prime Minister Harper,
Congratulations, on Monday you captured your majority, with the NDP forming historic Opposition.
I'll be the first to admit that I thought it would be another minority
government, but it turns out the NDP really helped you in Ontario and
Quebec, taking away many long held Liberal and Bloc seats.
I want to share some of my post-election thoughts with you:
- First,
while you're the majority now, you lost ground in Quebec and barely
have any seats there. The Bloc and Liberals got decimated, and they both
deserved it, but I worry about Quebec and a renewed sovereignty
movement. Don't make the mistake of ignoring or minimizing Quebec's
importance to Canada. You have to find a way to make Quebecers feel at
ease with you. Right now, they don't trust anyone from established
parties which is why they voted NDP. - Second, and more
importantly, don't fall under any illusion that we're heading into some
Canadian economic nirvana. There are some serious imbalances in the
Canadian economy as the Canada bubble keeps inflating on the back of Canada's mortgage monster.
Don't worry, unless something drastic happens in China, I doubt this
bubble will burst anytime soon, but when it does, watch out, it's going
to get ugly and it's going to last a long time. - Third, I know you
like to govern with absolute control. Stop it. It's sheer nonsense that
every press release has to be cleared by the Office of the Prime Minister. Learn to let go, trust your regional offices and give them more, not less, power and resources to do a proper job. - Fourth, cut the fat across all government departments and Crown
corporations. People think I'm a fiscal liberal, but when it comes to
the public sector, I think we need to increase the harmonized sales tax
(HST) and examine spending at every single government department by
evaluating the services they provide and cut all fat out of their
budgets. (Hint: Some departments
have lots of fat to cut while others are running bare bone operations
and are dangerously close to not providing adequate services). - As far as Crown corporations are concerned, the
same goes for them. Do we really need all these Crown corporations or
can we amalgamate them? For example, can Export Development Canada (EDC)
merge with Business Development Bank of Canada (BDC) and cut costs while
improving services? Can the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board merge
with PSP Investments and cut costs while improving the management of
public pensions? Why does each Crown corporation have its own pension
plan? I'm not saying drastic changes are needed, but in an era of fiscal
austerity, everything should be looked at closely and you have to
figure out ways to reduce spending all while improving services. - Sixth,
and this is critical, when it comes to retirement security the NDP and
Liberal proposals were way ahead of anything the Conservatives were
proposing. How do I know? Because they didn't pander to the banks and
insurance companies like your party did, but focused on improving the
current public defined benefit plans (expanding the CPP). - You
might also consider my proposal which is to do away with private sector
defined-benefit pensions altogether, replacing them by expanded CPP or
expanded defined-benefit plans managed by experienced pension
professionals. We can create new public DB plans, cap them at a certain
size, and introduce world leading governance standards. Why do this?
Very simple, companies should worry about business, not pensions, and
the switch into defined-contributions (DC) plans is not in the best
interest of workers (only banks and insurance companies). - On health and education, we need to close the productivity gap with the
US and start teaching children all about proper nutrition and the importance of vitamin D. After 14 years of multiple sclerosis (MS), I'm feeling better than ever. I don't know if it has anything to do with my recent CCSVI procedure
or my large intake of vitamin D while following a mostly Mediterranean
diet, but I'm stronger, walking further and going to the gym more often,
all things I wouldn't have attempted to do last year. My neurologist at
the Montreal Neurological Institute, Dr. Lapierre, will evaluate me
tomorrow afternoon, and I think he'll be very pleasantly surprised (but
probably won't admit that the procedure helped me). In any case, I
believe in health promotion and disease prevention, which is something
we need to focus on more as we educate our youth. - Last but not least, please do
more to help Canada's disabled in terms of taxes, social programs,
disability retirement funds, and especially employment. Your party
really screwed up royally with Nortel's disabled and that's inexcusable.
Also, the federal government needs to hire a lot more disabled at all
organizations, including Crown corporations, at all levels of the
organization. It's high time we stop paying lip service to "equal
opportunity employment" and start actually hiring more disabled which is
the one minority group that is often ignored. (Read my recent post on turning 40)
So
congratulations, enjoy the short honeymoon because there is lots of
work ahead. If your staff needs help understanding some of my proposals
above, they can hire me as a consultant. In the meantime, you can
support my blog by donating generously at the top right-hand side. I'm
tired because I stayed up late last night watching the most exciting
elections this country has ever experienced. Time to hit the sack early.
Best of luck governing this great country of ours.
Sincerely,
Leo Kolivakis
Publisher of Pension Pulse blog.
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hahahaha
Congrats on the MS improving, Leo.
+1 Leo hope you are feeling better, I don't agree with you much, but that doesn't mean I don't wish you well dude.
Harper is not our prime minister, he is the Queen's.
Higher rates will pop the bubble
Secession crisis?
Absolutely not. That canard flew the coup years ago. The one good outcome from this election is that the Bloc got creamed. The Bloc and PQ are made up of boomers who came to age in the 60's and have been out of touch with the Quebec electorate for years.
also "i have found putting my ornery views to the beat of a rap song gets the attention of The Man far more quickly." For some reason they don't it funny, though. Perhaps some thoughts on that issue?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G5NZI8NmBLA
:-)
Sooth the beast
fuck you leo, go to vegas and sell your purple luscious lips for hire
There's one Canadians hate
If fucking assholes like you. You fuck with one - you fuck with all of us.
Take a hike nancy boy
Hate crime. Two minutes in the penalty box, no Molson.
Great response, really. Did you have a point other than some vague Ad Hominem?
If not, then I look forward to spreading your lucious lips.
How about going down in history Prime Minister Harper as one of the greats and establishing the foundations to transform the country into a constitutional republic?
Creating a country owned by Canadian citizens instead of their current state: tenancy on a corporatist resource planation owned by a parasitical European monarchal vestige.
Independence, not Globalist feudal integration, is a legacy of honour.
You sir, just hit it out of the park.
"How about going down in history Prime Minister Harper as one of the greats and establishing the foundations to transform the country into a constitutional republic?
Creating a country owned by Canadian citizens instead of their current state: tenancy on a corporatist resource planation owned by a parasitical European monarchal vestige."
Like that will happen when 34% constitutes a majority and the 66%, well they are nobodies for the next 4.5 years. In Canada an elected dictator is better than an unelected one.
Your percentages are pretty fishy.
Actually, they're totally wrong.
I'll let you correct them yourself.
I guess I'm an optimist, greater things have been done with much smaller percentages...then all that is required is to keep it ;-)
Does not the Govenor General (the Queen of England's representative inside Canada) have the power to dismiss the popularly elected Prime Minister?
pe, are you dreaming? Yes, we need that.
But Stevie will be the pm who apologize to the Canucks for hoisting the star-and-stripes (except P.Q) ...and sending troops down south to help Oh bummer.
Oh, he's got a message for Leo: "No worries, I've got Ben to 'support' me. Just wait patiently for your workmancomp check).
O Can...
Yeah that's what Harper, the half-blood prince wants. It's so obvious.
But...but...but...a triple E Senate...
Now with a majority he'll just porogue Parliament for the hell of it...assuming his Queen mommy thinks he's behaving.
Yeah, now the masks come off...not like they were hiding much...
Leo, that was sarcasm on, wasn't it?? I'm sure King Stevie is going to play nice now that he has his majority.
Allow me to caption the above photo of Mr. Harper:
"We have about this much longer to go before the dinghy of the Canadian economy is pulled under by suction from the USS Titanic."
+ 308
What is incredible is THE_HARPER_GOVERNMENT constantly told the electorate that they needed Harper's firm economic management. The impression given was that the PM spends all his hours "managing" the economy to the benefit of the electorate. If the government manages the economy that used to be called socialism. Further to that Harper has blown the former surplus and increased the deficit to the point that if you add in all the liabilties the debt to GDP is around 85%. Great numbers!
Plus when the USS The deficit would not be so bad if it had been invested in productive assets. But this is beyond Harper's capabilty. He blew the money on gazebos, fake lakes, and road paving for favoured constituents. You didn't vote for him? Enjoy the gravel.
You nailed it, akak. And for those who are "relieved" at Harper's promises not to meddle with Canada's energy cash cow, let me remind you of this from a prior election:
"Under a new Conservative majority, [raping the royalty trusts] will never happen."
It only took him five months that time. Welcome to the Sheep Pen, Canada.
But AKAK it's different this time up here
+1
Holy shit the NDP is the Opposition?
Yup, the communists are the opposition. Doesn't matter though, the conservatives can effectively pass whatever they need having a majority for the next four years.
Hi CPL
Curious as to what side of the spectrum you are on. Surely not an Ignatieff fan?
I'm a fan of whatever works. Iggy Pop and his wandering band of fart catchers can eat a bag of dicks. I have no clue what possessed anyone to enlist the blow hard in the first place. Then again it's politicking, and common sense doesn't apply.
With the flavors of conservativism, liberalism, communism...whatever flavor, they are all edicts developed in a day and age when coal ran the world, England ruled to sea and as an Irishman/Canuck I wouldn't be served in most establishments in the empire. What I've tracked is how ancient steam powered political movements have done there damnest to keep up with populations and technology, to be blunt, they all are completely dysfunctional and all I've seen is the three major political positions attempt to hammer poorly planned policies into place. Whatever they attempt just doesn't seem to provide anything beyond the short term of feel good nonsense.
Just look at Pensions. Couldn't get any more silly, we know the math requires the same type of participation as Amway or a Ponzi scheme. Yet, it's endorsed by the powers taht be....all of them in fact. Why? No clue, seemed like a good idea at the time. Yet at the same time it has created generations, five by my last count that don't plan, don't save, don't invest in themselves. And by investment, it's not exclusive to retirement, it is everything from education (how many fucking arts majors does a population need, seriously) to basic skills (name five people you know that can sew a button back on a shirt).
I like the experiments in the political sphere mostly. The Green party, The Marijuana party, the Libertarian party, Pirate Party, etc, these are good experiments, the are built from the ideas to counter some amazingly fucked up positions the industrial revolution provided politically. They use the concepts of communities and technology to answer a problem, not policy or law.
However the dark side of it also pops up in the experiment, we also end up with religious bigots and assholes like the Christain Heritage Party for now or the B'Nai Birth Party, can't think of anything I would trust less with power than a religiously motivated political movement. I would even include the Rhino Party in the effect of the darkness in politics, it must be pretty bad when your platform is to repeal the law of gravity, it's funny, but humour is also a reflection of a bad situation, pointing it out honestly and consigning oneselve to say "fuck it".
I would classify myself as an anarco-capitalist community fascist. On election day I voted Green in my area, mainly because I like the lady as a person, she works very hard in a crummy minimum wage job, she's done well by her kids and her neighbours and she's active in the community. As in I know her personally and she's a leader, she has leadship skills, understands how money works and when there are community efforts to be done she's up to her elbows in it with everyone else.
The guy that won however is a fat, bloated piece of pig shit that has won the last two times. Never seen the man lift anything except a sandwich. Laziest piece of shit I've ever met. Yet, he was very well funded by his political party. Which shows me something is broken in the system when sign ratio determines who wins, not leadership.
Effectively a political position can be bought with marketing.