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A Top Priority for NDP Opposition?
Jeff Lee of the Vancouver Sun reports, Layton singles out pension reform in Vancouver:
NDP
leader Jack Layton signalled Wednesday that pension reform will be his
party's main thrust as the official Opposition, saying Prime Minster
Stephen Harper is "practically alone in ignoring the looming retirement
security crisis."
In his first major
speech since winning 103 seats in the May 2 federal election, Layton
told delegates at the Canadian Labour Congress in Vancouver that "yes,
Stephen Harper won a majority, but he is facing the largest, most
united official Opposition in 31 years."
It is a reference to the
1980 election in which Pierre Elliott Trudeau returned to power with a
majority, reducing Joe Clark's Conservatives to 103 seats.
Layton
said the NDP will use their strength in Parliament to pressure the
Harper government to improve retirement security for Canadians, many of
whom he said had seen their savings wiped out in the recession.
Layton's
speech to the entirely friendly CLC convention came after an election
that propelled his party to official Opposition status and gave the
Conservatives a solid majority with 166 seats. The Liberals were reduced
to just 34, and the Green party won one. The NDP's rise included 59
seats in Quebec, where the once-dominant Bloc Quebecois was reduced to a
rump party of four seats.
In a scrum with reporters later,
Layton also weighed in on B.C.'s HST referendum, saying he doesn't
think taxpayers should have to repay the $1.6 billion Ottawa gave to
Victoria if the tax is voted down this summer.
He said it would be too late to collect back Ottawa's prepayment.
"It
is not the fault of the people of British Columbia that this policy
was brought in. It is Stephen Harper's fault and Gordon Campbell's
fault. That money has already gone into education and health care."
And
he said the Harper government needs to go after "the collusion" that
may exist between gas companies in light of the recent spike in prices
at gas pumps.
"We believe Ottawa should play a role here, and
that we need to get really tough with our anti-competition bureau
should go after the collusion that may or may not be taking place. It is
tough to prove it with these companies, of course, but you need to
have real teeth there," he said.
But
it was on the issue of pension reform and retirement security that
Layton spent most of his time. He said provincial governments have
already recognized the "brewing storm" and are wanting to strengthen
the Canada Pension Plan and the Quebec Pension Plan.
"So far, Stephen Harper has not been a willing partner," he told convention delegates.
In
his scrum, Layton said Harper ignores Canadians' concern over
retirement security at his peril. One only has to look at Quebec, where
the NDP won so many of its seats. Quebecers are deeply worried about
the Quebec Pension Plan, he said.
"[Harper's] complete absence
of real commitment to deal with the retirement security crisis that so
many seniors or near seniors are facing is one of those issues we're
going to push very hard," he said.
"We're suggesting the whole
question of pension reform and strengthening peoples' retirement
security could be one of those areas where he can demonstrate he's
actually been listening to Canadians."
The
Conservatives have instead opted for a private pension scheme and have
put improvements to the Canada Pension Plan on a slow track.
Layton
brushed aside questions that continue to dog Ruth Ellen Brosseau, the
young Quebec MP who was elected without ever having visited her riding
of Berthier-Maskinonge and instead went on a vacation to Las Vegas. He
said Brosseau was in her riding Wednesday. He refused to say whether
the party would insist all future MPs first visit their ridings before
seeking election, calling the question hypothetical.
But he said
he found it contradictory that people complain when young people don't
vote or get engaged in politics, and then complain again when they do
and end up getting elected.
"Now that they got out to vote and
some of them ran for election and some of them won, now we're saying
that's not right that these young people got elected as members of
Parliament," he said. "To me that is ridiculous and most young people
and others are seeing really how silly that is."
Someone
told me I should have ran for the NDP. I'd be collecting a $158,000 a
year paycheck as an MP and if I won a second term, I'd be collecting a
nice gold plated pension (managed by my former employer, PSP Investments).
The problem is that I am fiercely independent and have have little patience for political posturing. The last time I testified at Parliament Hill,
I left MPs from all parties with their mouths open (you should have
seen the look on their faces -- priceless!!). Can you imagine if I was
in Ottawa now as an MP debating pensions? I'd make a lot of powerful
senior pension fund managers in Canada very nervous.
I'd probably
start by exposing the risks public pension plans are taking, carefully
examining leverage and other risks across all investment portfolios. I'd
demand a hell of a lot more transparency, including detailed discussion
on benchmarks and board minutes. I'd then ask those polite folks at the
Treasury Board to dust off that 100 plus page report on the governance
of the Public service pension plan I prepared for them back in 2007 that
was suppose to be followed up by the Auditor General of Canada (not
surprisingly, they buried it as it scared them to death, and to my
knowledge, none of my recommendations were ever implemented or followed
up on by the Auditor General of Canada). I'd educate MPs on the good,
bad and ugly of pension fund governance in Canada and what needs to be
done to bolster our public pension system.
Having said this, I'll
tell you one thing, while our public pensions aren't perfect, they're
infinitely better than the private sector defined-contribution (DC)
plans that banks and insurance companies are peddling. In my open letter to Prime Minister Harper,
I praised the Conservatives for introducing tax-free savings accounts
(TFSAs), but I also stated that we need to reform our pension system and
that the Liberal and NDP platforms on pensions are way ahead of what
the Conservatives are proposing because they're not pandering to banks,
insurance and mutual fund companies.
I'm not against the private
sector, and do see a role for them managing money, but in my ideal
world, corporations would shift over their pensions (DB and DC) to new
government sponsored Crown corporations which would invest in both
public and private markets around the world. These new entities would
follow the best pension fund governance standards from across the world
and they would be capped at a certain size so we'd avoid having a
behemoth fund like Japan's giant GPIF (at one point, economies of scale work against you).
But how can we afford public defined-benefit plans for everyone? Private
sector interest groups like the Canadian Federation of Independent
Business are calling for the end of unions and attacking the proposal to expand the CPP. Unfortunately, the current CFIB president, Catherine Swift, is absolutely clueless on pension matters.
When I was working at the Business Development Bank of Canada (BDC),
I urged senior managers there to look at pensions and come up with a
cost-effective way of pooling resources from Canadian small businesses.
The money can be managed by the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB)
or one of the new entities I discussed above. Small businesses want
access to a safe retirement, much like the ones MPs and civil servants
have, but they're scared off by a bunch of fear mongering nonsense that
Ms. Swift and others are peddling when they state we can't afford it (I
think we can't afford not to reform our pension system).
Speaking of rubbish, Jonathan Chevreau of the right-wing National Post wrote another terrible article attacking the NDP proposal. This is the same guy who attacked "Big CPP"
and showed me he too is clueless of the benefits of public defined-benefit
plans. It doesn't matter whether you're on the right or left end of the
political spectrum, facts are facts. And the fact is that large Canadian
public defined-benefit plans have outperformed private sector
defined-contribution plans over the long-term and will continue to
outperform them for the simple reason that they're cheaper and can
invest in the best managers around the world in both public and private
markets.
At the end of the day, all Canadians should enjoy the
same retirement security that MPs and the federal civil service are
entitled to. We have enough smart actuaries and investment professionals
to figure out the cost and management of such a proposal but it's high
time we stop peddling nonsense and actually do something to bolster our
pension system. And let's start by building on what already works well,
our large public pension plans which are among the best in the world. If
we do this right, we will become global leaders in pension reform. If
we do nothing, we'll ensure more pension poverty down the road.
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The NDP wing of the state is comprised of mountebanks, poetasters and quacks, as opposed to the Grit and "Conservative" wings, which are comprised of quacks, mountebanks and poetasters. I don't want these thugs even thinking about my money.
So you're a Rhino Party supporter then?
If Mr. Layton really wanted "to improve retirement security for Canadians", he would be exhorting them to buy physical gold and silver in preparation for the end of the great Keynesian fiat experiment of the last 40 years. Of course, I don't believe that there is a snowball's chance in Hell of getting a diehard statist/quasi-fascist pig such as him to do such a thing, or admit that his beloved Big Brother welfare state is in the ICU and about to be laid to rest on the ashheap of history.
Sigh. Akak, Scandanavia called, they were asking how it can be that you can be so narrow minded that you are unable to acknowledge their obvious success in balancing their mixed economies. Able to manage top shelf universal health care, excellent education, healthy, politically engaged populations with many civil liberties and some of the highest standards of living on the planet, yet still strong supporters of free speech without any Stalinist tendencies forming (to my knowledge).
They freaking breezed through 2008 too. (Iceland excepted, they got bamboozled by bankers, it wasn't their leftiness that got 'em. Hell, look at how they dealt with the perps: indictments, arrests! Freaking commies showing you how to get it done, hey?)
I admire your ideals, but your absolutism seems to be blinding you to reality somewhat. If any crucial social programs fail in Canada, it will be a result of malevolent tampering by the conservatives, not because of your anarcho capitalist dogma. It will be sabotage deliberate and calculated with the intention of creating a crisis so the corporations` puppets can say, `See it don`t work, the only solution is to privatize breathable air`.
Jack Layton simply doesn`t run in those circles. He just actually wants what is best for Canadians, as far as I can tell. To quote him,
`It`s easy when you believe in what you are doing.`
Tommy Douglas, the Father of the NDP and voted as Canada`s national hero a few years back: Courage my friend, it`s not too late to make the world a better place.
With a Conservative majority though, I think Canada will find itself much farther down the road to losing what is left of its sovereignty right smartly.
'Big Brother welfare state', heh. Here`s a little Eric Blair for ya:
“Very few cultivated people have less than (say) four hundred pounds a year, and naturally they side with the rich, because they imagine that any liberty conceded to the poor is a threat to their own liberty. Foreseeing some dismal Marxian Utopia as the alternative, the educated man prefers to keep things as they are. Possibly he does not like his fellow rich very much, but he supposes that even the vulgarest of them are less inimical to his pleasures, more his kind of people, than the poor, and that he had better stand by them. It is this fear of a supposedly dangerous mob that makes nearly all intelligent people conservative in their opinions"
I know you know that, as things stand right now, America is much closer to being 'IngSoc'(Efrafra?) than Canada or Sweden.
Be more flexible, study what has been demonstrated to work and incorporate the best parts, don't try to force the world into some unicorn based philosophy that fails the second any ruthless sociopath sees an opportunity; I am sorry, but such a type would do exceedingly well in your dreamland.
Regards
Dude, I don't know you, but you are one of the reasons I continue to post on this psyop bullshit site. It is ludicrous that we have to cut the same cancerous membrane again and again. That's the battle that I just don't have the heart for anymore. And believe me they know it. The fact is, as right as you are, and as smart as you are, and as cool as you may be, you suffer from the delusion that you can do ANYTHING in this modality.
Thanks. It's heartening to know you're not the only one, no? Focus on that. Don't give up; if you get sick and tired of banging your head against some ignorant wall, take a rest, if I'm around I'll tag in...
Shit changes for the better all the time, don't ever let anyone tell you it can't.
Best Regards
PS. Yours and Akak`s junks weren`t from me.
GoinFawr,
The economies of Germany and Italy under Hitler and Mussolini were also considered "successes" in mixing statism with elements of free enterprise --- but it was still statism, still coercive, still institutionalized force, and still immoral and wrong. You see what is, but you refuse to see what might have been, or should have been, had those economies you mention been truly free.
I am glad your moral compass is flexible enough to allow you to rationalize statism and systemic coercion as means of social organization and control --- mine does not allow me the same luxury.
My friend, please tell me that you didn't just equate contemporary Sweden, Denmark, Finland and Norway to Italy under Mussolini, Spain under Franco, and Germany under Hitler. If you truly are having difficulty differentiating here is a simple test: look at how a society treats what it considers to be the 'least' of it citizens.
PS. To the dickslap messing with my junk: Got anything to back that up, or are you just all left click? That's what I thought.
It's "someone told me I should have run.."
Do you really think it's a problem when someone is independent?
Give us a link to the 100 page report...and show me the numbers.
also, "at the end of the day" MPs and federal civil service are not entitled, to anything.
neither is anyone else. entitled by whom? everyone is entitled?
how does that work? we know though who pays is robbed to pay
for the "entitlement" of the MPs, etc. Are you an individual or just part of the collective?
ditto here Clint........................
Why the hell is Jack involving the qebec asshats in pension discussion. They wanted to go it alone with their own Qebec pension, and did so by opting out of CPP.
I say suck it up princess, you got what you wanted for 20 years and there is no going back.
Why is retirement and pension so sacrosanct? Doesn't it occur to any of you liberals that one should work an entire lifetime for a living, and not expect someone else to foot the bill just because you're old? What ever happened to self-sufficiency? No wonder internet bloggers, even the supposedly most fiercely independent minds on Zerohedge, can't seem to affect an outcome counteracting the general corruption presented to us daily by the powers that be. What a bunch of whiners.
oh very nice, very nice indeed. I suppose you are correct. Pharoh makes the rules, and Pharoh can change them. I would love to live in your free world. Could you tell me what wardrobe I need to hide in to get there?
cost-effective way of pooling resources from Canadian small businesses
are entitled to. that will play out well ask Ireland?
proportional representation should be his top priority....
And here I am thinking that very thing was one of Stephen Harper's top priorities back in his 'Reform' days; that and an elected senate. And the elimination of the GST. And countless other poses and postures that somehow seem to have been swept aside by his freshly mandated desire to sign over the remainder of Canada's sovereignty to the highest bidder.