Carney has pledged huge spending increases and deficits at the same time as bracing us for spending cuts. He promised to rein in immigration but new immigrants continue to arrive by the planeload every day. He tells us that housing prices must drop while individual houses retain their current value. Promises of increased investment in Canada remain unkept as the regulatory reform he campaigned on is nowhere in sight and capital and talented people head south. All while Mark Carney flits around the world from one photo op to the next making speeches that put people to sleep.
Is it any wonder he is starting to lose support? Does he think we're all stupid?
Sincerely saying things that obviously aren't true and having both the media and anyone even slightly inclined to vote Liberal bob their heads along, is sort of Carney's brand. This was also Trudeau's brand, but the style of acting has changed. Less over the top dramatic, more somber, matter of fact tone while they lie to our faces.
Hopefully, once the budget shoe drops, we will see things happening rather than more talk and clutching of pearls by Canadians. Perhaps they may now recognize that doing FA other than spend more money on middle management public service and virtue signaling for the past decade has a cost and we, our kids and their kids are about to pay for not just ten years of poor fiscal responsibility but 35 years of complacency on security, defence and economic production.
I was a Liberal supporter — before I became informed — some decades ago. I was a Conservative supporter for awhile “later.” Not so much now with PP in charge playing mini-MAGA.
I think the Libs and Cons got us into this mess with best of intentions and other US govts that partnered with Canada in trade had best of intentions as well.
We are now dealing with a rogue US govt. Everyone knows that — even its supporters in the USA and they like it — as it their way to lash out with revenge and retribution for all that ails them.
Therefore I find this article absolutely spot on. Even if it is written by a former Lib party “influencer.”
He nails it. Unfortunately for us — but it is about time we grew up.
The media outlets prime Canadians to view everything Poilievre says and does as "unacceptable" while excusing mountains of corruption and incompetence - not to mention many many offensive, incoherent, and untrue statements - from Liberals. The goalposts are completely different.
Now that the polls are competitive again they are picking up half-sentence-long controversial statements that are essentially identical to ones he has made several times before with minimal comment and blowing them up into a shitstorm. And weaving a narrative that Conservatives all hate the guy and don't want him to remain as leader (based on interviews of a handful of longtime internal opponents and defectors). It's obvious manufactured narrative bullshit.
If Carney really wants to fix problems, he's faced with the unpleasant fact that it involves unwinding much of the Trudeau agenda from 2015 through 2024. Addressing crime means undoing Trudeau's bail reforms. He needs to roll back Trudeau's immigration program and return to something like what existed prior to 2015. The civil service needs to be slashed back to something more like 2015 levels. Restoring fiscal capacity probably requires jettisoning the dental benefit. Unwinding the Trudeau child care plan would probably serve the double purpose of reducing spending *and* reversing the rather dramatic reduction in childcare availability that came with its regulations.
What makes this particularly hard is that he'd have to do this with a cabinet largely populated with people who were loyal enough to Trudeau to have survived (plenty of good people like Jane Philpotts and Mark Garneau didn't), and a base of voters among the Boomers who liked the callback of those big programs to nostalgic recollections of the *Pierre* Trudeau era.
Finally, nobody should trust Carney and Sabia with big new initiatives before they prove themselves competent by fixing some of the current things that are broken.
I am getting so tired of blaming boomers. I’m a western boomer and know few boomers who support this or the previous regime. I want to see a national poll of boomers and see where exactly are all these supportive boomer. I expect Toronto and Montreal.
Early Millennial here. I actually mostly agree; Boomers are retired now and largely entering their dotage. Not as much of a political force. Gen X is hoarding housing wealth and us Millennials are now at the peak of our careers and power.
We need a new insult, OK Boomer is fifteen years out of date. What was it that Gen Z tried for a bit there to go after millennials, “cheugy”?
1. Why does the author believe "the PM and his team are absolutely capable of delivering on the big ticket, future-building stuff"? Wasn't this guy (and his team) an integral part of the government that delivered this mess to the doorstep of Canadians? Maybe I am alone here but I don't want Mr. Carney to be making any "investments" on behalf of Canadians. Haven't they squandered enough tax money on ill-fated "investments" already? How about the government spends a lot of time creating regulations, tax reform, and a generally welcoming environment for private investments in the Canadian economy. That wouldn't cost nearly as much and my guess is that the investment dollars would be managed far more productively.
2. What exactly can a Canadian Prime Minister do to change where private entities and individuals in Canada buy or sell their products so that our reliance on the U.S. would change. Is adding taxes or tariffs on US products really a productive long term strategy for Canada? I am open minded to the argument but have some serious reservations.
Carney should have used his student audience to announce the cancellation of the general OAS benefit and it's replacement with an income-tested one. The savings could go directly to reducing our debt.
Two benefits for our younger taxpayers: Boomers (like me, an OAS recipient) will share the pain of our budget correction and our kids will have less debt to pay off.
Instead of cutting for seniors - how about we try and make a balanced budget for once in ten years? Don’t you even think about asking Canadians to accept cuts to any benefit while we continue to export our tax dollars to palestine 🤦 , Ukraine, UN, and continue to support millions of newcomers to Canada with benefits and free health care upon arrival. All the while handcuffing our resource industries in the name of net zero.
Most definitely cut the OAS for 90,000+ incomes. To me it is obscene that 90,000+ incomes should be getting OAS, 'cuz that is way, way beyond "Security".
Well, Ian, the OAS actually IS income tested right now.
The basic idea is that everyone is entitled to OAS simply because they were born here (oops! also many immigrants, non-citizens, citizens who have emigrated to other countries but I digress). Then, if your income is too high you loose some (up to all in many cases) of that OAS. Otherwise known as the clawback.
I am one of those who receive OAS. I had one lucky year where my income was high and I got eliminated from receiving OAS for the next year. [The mechanism is more complicated but that is the essence.]
I like receiving that OAS each month but, the truth is, the level at which the clawback starts is too high and it doesn't bite enough of we seniors. I say that knowing that any change might hurt me. So be it.
OAS clawback starts at 90,997 (should be something over $93k for 2025).
For those aged 65 to 74, the OAS is fully recovered if their income is approximately $151,668. For those aged 75 and over, the full amount is recovered over approximately $157,490.
For reference, the median income is $68k.
It's not all that much per year, even before the clawback. At the upper end of the range, it's just handing out money so they can take it back.
IMO OAS could be eliminated entirely, with the funds used to double GIS for the seniors making less than the median income, and hopefully see some tax relief fpr everyone by bringing the basic personal amount up to the cost of living.
Ken, thank you for your specifics. As noted above, I had one very lucky year where my income was significantly above the then maximum clawback level and I then forfeited my OAS. I was not happy to lose that money for that year but that is the deal.
Since that time, my income has definitely been less than the median you reference; my wife's income has been noticeably less than that. Don't cry for us! The truth is, we were able to modestly save over the years and we now have that available to us. We both get CPP and (at least currently) full OAS and, as noted, we have our savings.
Why am I telling you (and the world) this? The truth is, we would miss that OAS income but, the truth also is, that the clawback should be noticeably lower and perhaps might be so low as to ding me.
Yes, my generation is receiving far too much from the government. Yes, also, it is my children and grandchildren who are paying for that now and will for the foreseeable future. That is wrong!
So, my advice to MC (not that he would deign to listen) is to significantly drop the level at which the clawback starts and the level at which the full clawback takes effect should be dropped even further.
For a single person living in a 1-bedroom apartment, the monthly cost of living averages between CA$2,200–CA$3,900, depending on the city (and whether they were a homeowner before COVID or have otherwise avoided market rate for housing).
In any case, taxing people below the cost of living is taxing people into poverty (even if some people may be able to live more frugally).
I hope we can agree the basic personal amount is lower than it should be.
Ken, the problem is that the basic personal amount is used as a proxy for many things. The way that you are using it is, effectively, a proxy for the Low Income Cutoff which, itself, is often used as a proxy for the poverty line.
I have no problem with saying that the basic personal amount is lower than it should be if you look at inflation, yada, yada, yada but until we figure out what the Basic Personal Amount SHOULD tell us, whether it is related exclusively to taxation or it is related to something else, I cannot go further.
The truth is that pretty well everyone in the taxation field (including retired me) argues that the taxation system is an absolute abomination and needs to be thoroughly rethought. That has been argued for about thirty years or more but no government has done it; they have only marginally, marginally tinkered with it. If the government appointed a Royal Commission a la Carter then pretty well all of us in the tax community would be ecstatic but there are too many sacred cows for any government to do that.
Completely agree with the $90,000 threshold to cut OAS. All government benefits should be trimmed back for high income earners, to ensure we are truly helping those who are in need. 🙏
If Carney doesn't remigrate literally millions of temporary residents and rebalance taxes from labour income (especially that of families) to interest and pension income, while means testing old age benefits - including health care - he is simply sacrificing the young to the old.
There is very low public support for a Canadian ICE snatching up people and forcing them onto planes.
All those low-skill “students” we let in as a shadow TFW stream are going to get citizenship eventually. At least they are mostly young and can hopefully go get some real training (trades?) and build careers and help the economy.
You can rage against Trudeau, I do too, but come on, we all know that we aren’t going to deport (I guess the new term du jour is “remigrate”) the students and TFWs.
We do need to reduce family-reunification immigration stream (bring your parents over for twenty years of Canadian health care at the end of their life); it was a thing I wish we could still afford, but we can’t.
I am not saying Carney will send home the temporary residents. Obviously "temporary" was a lie from day one. Instead, I am saying that Carney fully intend to sacrifice the young to the old. That's what the last election was about - whether young Canadians have a future here. The answer is: not without real revolutionary change.
I’m concerned that giving this speech about sacrifice to a young audience signals exactly who he expects to sacrifice, with no commensurate burden expected of the elder caste.
OAS is the single biggest line item in the federal budget and it’s fundamentally unfair - a blunt, universal cheque that still goes to plenty of affluent retirees while younger workers are taxed to fund it.
Do we really think Carney, or anyone, has the balls to take that on?
He might have made an okay prime minister as a manager of already good times, or done well later after letting the current cohort of Liberals lose as they should have and coming back with a new team.
But for the time we’re in, and paired with the team he has, it’s the least likely scenario that we’ll actually do what we should, given their voting base of wealthy boomers.
They’re the last ones who would. I’d love to be wrong. Put OAS on the table for affluent retirees and I’ll be the biggest Carney fangirl you’ve ever seen.
Keep in mind, OAS is taxable and is clawed back aggressively between an annual income of $90K and $120K. Affluent retirees are already out of the money.
Retired couples with $182,000 in income can still receive the full $18,000 in OAS, provided each spouse is just under the clawback threshold.
Do you really think that’s fair?
Especially when OAS is funded out of general tax revenues on a pay-as-you-go basis - unlike CPP, which is contributory and pre-funded - so younger, less wealthy people are basically working to pay this subsidy to the already wealthy elderly.
Meanwhile, the Canada Child Benefit shrinks once family income passes $81,000, so working families get less of their own money starting at a much lower threshold.
And the Child Benefit costs the country far less overall than the subsidy to affluent retirees that OAS has become.
You're spot on. Reforming OAS/GIS, which together are already something like 20% of federal spending, is the litmus test for any leader of Canada no matter their political stripe. It's absolute madness how much money we are shoveling out the door to people like my own beloved parents, who have a significant amount of assets and can easily structure their income to maximize their OAS. Historians will look back at how unfair the generational divide in government spending is and wonder why there weren't riots in the streets.
I agree with your comment except the part about CPP. CPP is partially pre-funded but has an enormous actuarial deficit. It is mostly a pay-as-you-go plan. Young people are going to get screwed on that one as well. It will just take a wee bit longer.
Assets that don’t produce income, like your personal residence, and are taxed based on an assessed value can make it very difficult for “asset rich/cash poor” retirees to live well on a smallish income.
Very much so says this one, and I am not asset-rich. A modest lifestyle, no expensive hobbies, no golfing. I do not bother travelling nor dining out, maybe 4-5 times a year for a nice buffet.
I didn't say it was fair. I just stated it as a fact for those who may not be aware. In any case, those who have paid Canada's high taxes all their lives (and continue to) with OAS as part of the deal will not appreciate losing those benefits and will vote accordingly. Just how it is. Fairness simply isn't part of the picture.
The way to do it and suffer the least blowback is start a reduced OAS effective 1 Apr 26. I would like to see some of those savings go to GIS dependent seniors. Oh, and the days of couples being looked at as couples has long passed.
Canada will develop international markets beyond the USA when it creates and manufactures innovative products the rest of the world wants. As long as the country remains essentially a branch plant economy that exports raw resources elsewhere, while buying manufactured goods in return, the world has no particular incentive to disrupt that asymmetric relationship.
Carney, a globalist and Bilderberg fan who was on the Foundation Board of the WEF, isn't a likely candidate for disrupting it either. I don't fault him for being what he is, but I think any nation that takes bankers as its innovation role models is already out of the race. Heart and soul, Carney is a regulator: psychologically, he simply isn't prepared to accept the level of risk that true innovation requires.
I think MC's dilemma can be expressed differently: He simply doesn't have the capacity - financial capacity, state capacity, human capacity, all sorts of (in)capacity that he needs.
That means that he will necessarily have to make one of two choices:
a) The governments (plural, all across the country but particularly federal) will have to choose to stop/decrease/minimize some benefits/programs/size of federal civil service/etc. in order to have resources to invest (in the classic sense rather than the politician sense) in our country. The easiest is probably to effectively say that they government will essentially have to abandon some demographic or other ("devil take the hindmost?").
b) The governments will continue to be ten miles wide and one centimeter deep and please no one as they will fail at essentially everything.
Those stark choices are what we are left with when the governments have so broken the country.
It's the first time in my recollection that a PM has come out and told the uncomfortable truth......and it's long overdue. I prefer this to the absurd rumblings coming out of the CPC as to what should be happening.
Reality isn't easy, but it's essential. I'm OK with where we are.
“Absurd rumblings “ like get crime under control, make our streets and neighbourhoods safe, get housing built, get control back in immigration policies, lower everyday costs on food, utilities, rent, solve the health care crisis, solve homelessness, solve the drug abuse problems- are those the rumblings you’re talking about ? Wow! Talk about wilful blindness!
The "absurd rumblings" were and are the garbage coming out of Pierre, for which he had no plan, no budget, and it cost him an election served on a silver platter. Now, if you can name a government in Canada's history that accomplished a significant change in a 6-month period, I'd love to hear about it.
PM Carney seemed to like Poilievre’s plan to axe the tax . I’m all for giving the PM time to get out of the Liberal’s inertia but it’s time for the Liberals to drop the attack on Poilievre and get to work.
The Liberals don't have to attack Pierre. They'd do better to just ignore him, and let him keep shooting himself in the foot....which I think they're largely doing. Carney met with him as a courtesy and dispatched his comments with a perfect shot.
It’s not a courtesy. With a minority government the PM should consult and discuss options with all opposition leaders or maybe find himself in another election which the country doesn’t need and taxpayers can’t afford.
There won't be an election for 4 years because the NDP is on life support with no leader and no cash. But he did, even though Pierre doubtlessly had nothing useful to say.
Don't understand why I am paying to read the perspective of a LPC shill.
The same drivel is available through the G&M, for free.
Funny how federalists always refer to new trading partners without identifying who or what goods. No-one is going to buy automobiles made in the East's rust belt. The same for most of our imperilled industrial base. So what are we selling and to whom?
Sorry Mr Carroll but you had 10 years; suggesting, as Mr Carney does, that these challenges are going to be handled by this "new government ", as if starting from zero, is an idea for which there is " no business case".
Please stop saying he was a hockey player. That’s liberal propaganda. He was a goalie. He’s never fought in the corners for the puck, elbows up or otherwise.
The main concern of critics about the NAFTA when proposed by Mulroney was they totally ignored trade routes East and West. Billions were poured into infrastructure South to the US. I just drove across most of Canada from AB to ON again. Single lane thru ON with hundreds of tractor trailers and signs promising me of an upcoming passing lane. Sad
Carney has pledged huge spending increases and deficits at the same time as bracing us for spending cuts. He promised to rein in immigration but new immigrants continue to arrive by the planeload every day. He tells us that housing prices must drop while individual houses retain their current value. Promises of increased investment in Canada remain unkept as the regulatory reform he campaigned on is nowhere in sight and capital and talented people head south. All while Mark Carney flits around the world from one photo op to the next making speeches that put people to sleep.
Is it any wonder he is starting to lose support? Does he think we're all stupid?
Sincerely saying things that obviously aren't true and having both the media and anyone even slightly inclined to vote Liberal bob their heads along, is sort of Carney's brand. This was also Trudeau's brand, but the style of acting has changed. Less over the top dramatic, more somber, matter of fact tone while they lie to our faces.
"Does he think we're all stupid?"
Yes.
Perhaps we should wait for the actual budget document to drop before rushing to judgement?
Just a thought.
"You can fool all of the people some of the time.
Some of the people (LPC supporters) all of the time.
But you can't fool all of the people all of the time."
Just terrify the ones you can't usually fool, once every ~4 years. Gun! Abortion! Vaccines! TRuuuuuuumP!
Hopefully, once the budget shoe drops, we will see things happening rather than more talk and clutching of pearls by Canadians. Perhaps they may now recognize that doing FA other than spend more money on middle management public service and virtue signaling for the past decade has a cost and we, our kids and their kids are about to pay for not just ten years of poor fiscal responsibility but 35 years of complacency on security, defence and economic production.
Nothing good will come out of anything Carney does, much less from any budget of his.
The guy believes in the power of pixie dust.
And for more of that, keep voting for the "Liberal" political front of the Laurentian Corruptocrats, where Carney is a bona fide life-long member.
We, our kids, and their kids are going to pay. Our parents and middle management public service (plus other govt funded hangers-on) won't.
And there are more of them than of us.
I was a Liberal supporter — before I became informed — some decades ago. I was a Conservative supporter for awhile “later.” Not so much now with PP in charge playing mini-MAGA.
I think the Libs and Cons got us into this mess with best of intentions and other US govts that partnered with Canada in trade had best of intentions as well.
We are now dealing with a rogue US govt. Everyone knows that — even its supporters in the USA and they like it — as it their way to lash out with revenge and retribution for all that ails them.
Therefore I find this article absolutely spot on. Even if it is written by a former Lib party “influencer.”
He nails it. Unfortunately for us — but it is about time we grew up.
OK on most, totally wrong on PP.
Why is it that so many Canadians are incapable of realizing that a political leader can have a strong personality that is entirely their own ??
Are you telling me that none of you are capable of being principled, nor strong-headed, nor stubborn ? Well then pity on you for being weak farts.
Get with it people, PP does not have to playact for anybody.
The media outlets prime Canadians to view everything Poilievre says and does as "unacceptable" while excusing mountains of corruption and incompetence - not to mention many many offensive, incoherent, and untrue statements - from Liberals. The goalposts are completely different.
Now that the polls are competitive again they are picking up half-sentence-long controversial statements that are essentially identical to ones he has made several times before with minimal comment and blowing them up into a shitstorm. And weaving a narrative that Conservatives all hate the guy and don't want him to remain as leader (based on interviews of a handful of longtime internal opponents and defectors). It's obvious manufactured narrative bullshit.
If Carney really wants to fix problems, he's faced with the unpleasant fact that it involves unwinding much of the Trudeau agenda from 2015 through 2024. Addressing crime means undoing Trudeau's bail reforms. He needs to roll back Trudeau's immigration program and return to something like what existed prior to 2015. The civil service needs to be slashed back to something more like 2015 levels. Restoring fiscal capacity probably requires jettisoning the dental benefit. Unwinding the Trudeau child care plan would probably serve the double purpose of reducing spending *and* reversing the rather dramatic reduction in childcare availability that came with its regulations.
What makes this particularly hard is that he'd have to do this with a cabinet largely populated with people who were loyal enough to Trudeau to have survived (plenty of good people like Jane Philpotts and Mark Garneau didn't), and a base of voters among the Boomers who liked the callback of those big programs to nostalgic recollections of the *Pierre* Trudeau era.
Finally, nobody should trust Carney and Sabia with big new initiatives before they prove themselves competent by fixing some of the current things that are broken.
I am getting so tired of blaming boomers. I’m a western boomer and know few boomers who support this or the previous regime. I want to see a national poll of boomers and see where exactly are all these supportive boomer. I expect Toronto and Montreal.
Early Millennial here. I actually mostly agree; Boomers are retired now and largely entering their dotage. Not as much of a political force. Gen X is hoarding housing wealth and us Millennials are now at the peak of our careers and power.
We need a new insult, OK Boomer is fifteen years out of date. What was it that Gen Z tried for a bit there to go after millennials, “cheugy”?
Gen Xer here. Happy to take over the villan mantel from the boomers. Happy to pass it over to millennials in about 15-20 years.
I have a couple of comments / questions.
1. Why does the author believe "the PM and his team are absolutely capable of delivering on the big ticket, future-building stuff"? Wasn't this guy (and his team) an integral part of the government that delivered this mess to the doorstep of Canadians? Maybe I am alone here but I don't want Mr. Carney to be making any "investments" on behalf of Canadians. Haven't they squandered enough tax money on ill-fated "investments" already? How about the government spends a lot of time creating regulations, tax reform, and a generally welcoming environment for private investments in the Canadian economy. That wouldn't cost nearly as much and my guess is that the investment dollars would be managed far more productively.
2. What exactly can a Canadian Prime Minister do to change where private entities and individuals in Canada buy or sell their products so that our reliance on the U.S. would change. Is adding taxes or tariffs on US products really a productive long term strategy for Canada? I am open minded to the argument but have some serious reservations.
Ten frikkin years to diversify trade?? I believe Kathleen Wynn would call that an “aspirational goal”.
I believe she used "Stretch Goal."
Carney should have used his student audience to announce the cancellation of the general OAS benefit and it's replacement with an income-tested one. The savings could go directly to reducing our debt.
Two benefits for our younger taxpayers: Boomers (like me, an OAS recipient) will share the pain of our budget correction and our kids will have less debt to pay off.
Instead of cutting for seniors - how about we try and make a balanced budget for once in ten years? Don’t you even think about asking Canadians to accept cuts to any benefit while we continue to export our tax dollars to palestine 🤦 , Ukraine, UN, and continue to support millions of newcomers to Canada with benefits and free health care upon arrival. All the while handcuffing our resource industries in the name of net zero.
Most definitely cut the OAS for 90,000+ incomes. To me it is obscene that 90,000+ incomes should be getting OAS, 'cuz that is way, way beyond "Security".
100 upvotes for the last sentence.
The rest can be discussed and parsed out.
Well, Ian, the OAS actually IS income tested right now.
The basic idea is that everyone is entitled to OAS simply because they were born here (oops! also many immigrants, non-citizens, citizens who have emigrated to other countries but I digress). Then, if your income is too high you loose some (up to all in many cases) of that OAS. Otherwise known as the clawback.
I am one of those who receive OAS. I had one lucky year where my income was high and I got eliminated from receiving OAS for the next year. [The mechanism is more complicated but that is the essence.]
I like receiving that OAS each month but, the truth is, the level at which the clawback starts is too high and it doesn't bite enough of we seniors. I say that knowing that any change might hurt me. So be it.
Call me greedy, but I think only seniors who kept voting for Trudeau and then Carney should shoulder the burden.
While I like the sentiment I somehow don't think that that will occur.
But it is a delicious thought.
OAS clawback starts at 90,997 (should be something over $93k for 2025).
For those aged 65 to 74, the OAS is fully recovered if their income is approximately $151,668. For those aged 75 and over, the full amount is recovered over approximately $157,490.
For reference, the median income is $68k.
It's not all that much per year, even before the clawback. At the upper end of the range, it's just handing out money so they can take it back.
IMO OAS could be eliminated entirely, with the funds used to double GIS for the seniors making less than the median income, and hopefully see some tax relief fpr everyone by bringing the basic personal amount up to the cost of living.
Who is surviving on $16,129 in 2025?
Ken, thank you for your specifics. As noted above, I had one very lucky year where my income was significantly above the then maximum clawback level and I then forfeited my OAS. I was not happy to lose that money for that year but that is the deal.
Since that time, my income has definitely been less than the median you reference; my wife's income has been noticeably less than that. Don't cry for us! The truth is, we were able to modestly save over the years and we now have that available to us. We both get CPP and (at least currently) full OAS and, as noted, we have our savings.
Why am I telling you (and the world) this? The truth is, we would miss that OAS income but, the truth also is, that the clawback should be noticeably lower and perhaps might be so low as to ding me.
Yes, my generation is receiving far too much from the government. Yes, also, it is my children and grandchildren who are paying for that now and will for the foreseeable future. That is wrong!
So, my advice to MC (not that he would deign to listen) is to significantly drop the level at which the clawback starts and the level at which the full clawback takes effect should be dropped even further.
Oh, and your query about who is surviving on $16,129 can be answered with three words: far too many.
For a single person living in a 1-bedroom apartment, the monthly cost of living averages between CA$2,200–CA$3,900, depending on the city (and whether they were a homeowner before COVID or have otherwise avoided market rate for housing).
In any case, taxing people below the cost of living is taxing people into poverty (even if some people may be able to live more frugally).
I hope we can agree the basic personal amount is lower than it should be.
Ken, the problem is that the basic personal amount is used as a proxy for many things. The way that you are using it is, effectively, a proxy for the Low Income Cutoff which, itself, is often used as a proxy for the poverty line.
I have no problem with saying that the basic personal amount is lower than it should be if you look at inflation, yada, yada, yada but until we figure out what the Basic Personal Amount SHOULD tell us, whether it is related exclusively to taxation or it is related to something else, I cannot go further.
The truth is that pretty well everyone in the taxation field (including retired me) argues that the taxation system is an absolute abomination and needs to be thoroughly rethought. That has been argued for about thirty years or more but no government has done it; they have only marginally, marginally tinkered with it. If the government appointed a Royal Commission a la Carter then pretty well all of us in the tax community would be ecstatic but there are too many sacred cows for any government to do that.
Completely agree with the $90,000 threshold to cut OAS. All government benefits should be trimmed back for high income earners, to ensure we are truly helping those who are in need. 🙏
If Carney doesn't remigrate literally millions of temporary residents and rebalance taxes from labour income (especially that of families) to interest and pension income, while means testing old age benefits - including health care - he is simply sacrificing the young to the old.
There is very low public support for a Canadian ICE snatching up people and forcing them onto planes.
All those low-skill “students” we let in as a shadow TFW stream are going to get citizenship eventually. At least they are mostly young and can hopefully go get some real training (trades?) and build careers and help the economy.
You can rage against Trudeau, I do too, but come on, we all know that we aren’t going to deport (I guess the new term du jour is “remigrate”) the students and TFWs.
We do need to reduce family-reunification immigration stream (bring your parents over for twenty years of Canadian health care at the end of their life); it was a thing I wish we could still afford, but we can’t.
I am not saying Carney will send home the temporary residents. Obviously "temporary" was a lie from day one. Instead, I am saying that Carney fully intend to sacrifice the young to the old. That's what the last election was about - whether young Canadians have a future here. The answer is: not without real revolutionary change.
I’m concerned that giving this speech about sacrifice to a young audience signals exactly who he expects to sacrifice, with no commensurate burden expected of the elder caste.
OAS is the single biggest line item in the federal budget and it’s fundamentally unfair - a blunt, universal cheque that still goes to plenty of affluent retirees while younger workers are taxed to fund it.
Do we really think Carney, or anyone, has the balls to take that on?
He might have made an okay prime minister as a manager of already good times, or done well later after letting the current cohort of Liberals lose as they should have and coming back with a new team.
But for the time we’re in, and paired with the team he has, it’s the least likely scenario that we’ll actually do what we should, given their voting base of wealthy boomers.
They’re the last ones who would. I’d love to be wrong. Put OAS on the table for affluent retirees and I’ll be the biggest Carney fangirl you’ve ever seen.
Keep in mind, OAS is taxable and is clawed back aggressively between an annual income of $90K and $120K. Affluent retirees are already out of the money.
Retired couples with $182,000 in income can still receive the full $18,000 in OAS, provided each spouse is just under the clawback threshold.
Do you really think that’s fair?
Especially when OAS is funded out of general tax revenues on a pay-as-you-go basis - unlike CPP, which is contributory and pre-funded - so younger, less wealthy people are basically working to pay this subsidy to the already wealthy elderly.
Meanwhile, the Canada Child Benefit shrinks once family income passes $81,000, so working families get less of their own money starting at a much lower threshold.
And the Child Benefit costs the country far less overall than the subsidy to affluent retirees that OAS has become.
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/investing/personal-finance/young-money/article-old-age-security-poverty-budget-deficit/
You're spot on. Reforming OAS/GIS, which together are already something like 20% of federal spending, is the litmus test for any leader of Canada no matter their political stripe. It's absolute madness how much money we are shoveling out the door to people like my own beloved parents, who have a significant amount of assets and can easily structure their income to maximize their OAS. Historians will look back at how unfair the generational divide in government spending is and wonder why there weren't riots in the streets.
I agree with your comment except the part about CPP. CPP is partially pre-funded but has an enormous actuarial deficit. It is mostly a pay-as-you-go plan. Young people are going to get screwed on that one as well. It will just take a wee bit longer.
Asset rich retirees can live very well on a smallish income.
Assets that don’t produce income, like your personal residence, and are taxed based on an assessed value can make it very difficult for “asset rich/cash poor” retirees to live well on a smallish income.
Very much so says this one, and I am not asset-rich. A modest lifestyle, no expensive hobbies, no golfing. I do not bother travelling nor dining out, maybe 4-5 times a year for a nice buffet.
I didn't say it was fair. I just stated it as a fact for those who may not be aware. In any case, those who have paid Canada's high taxes all their lives (and continue to) with OAS as part of the deal will not appreciate losing those benefits and will vote accordingly. Just how it is. Fairness simply isn't part of the picture.
No doubt, but the taxes they (we, I'm no spring chicken) have paid have been insufficient to cover the spending they voted for.
You are cheap to get. You should aske for way, way more. And Carney is no good in ANY circumstances.
Re. the young audience, Carney was grooming the next batch of saps to be fleeced for decades by his Liebranos.
The way to do it and suffer the least blowback is start a reduced OAS effective 1 Apr 26. I would like to see some of those savings go to GIS dependent seniors. Oh, and the days of couples being looked at as couples has long passed.
Canada will develop international markets beyond the USA when it creates and manufactures innovative products the rest of the world wants. As long as the country remains essentially a branch plant economy that exports raw resources elsewhere, while buying manufactured goods in return, the world has no particular incentive to disrupt that asymmetric relationship.
Carney, a globalist and Bilderberg fan who was on the Foundation Board of the WEF, isn't a likely candidate for disrupting it either. I don't fault him for being what he is, but I think any nation that takes bankers as its innovation role models is already out of the race. Heart and soul, Carney is a regulator: psychologically, he simply isn't prepared to accept the level of risk that true innovation requires.
I think MC's dilemma can be expressed differently: He simply doesn't have the capacity - financial capacity, state capacity, human capacity, all sorts of (in)capacity that he needs.
That means that he will necessarily have to make one of two choices:
a) The governments (plural, all across the country but particularly federal) will have to choose to stop/decrease/minimize some benefits/programs/size of federal civil service/etc. in order to have resources to invest (in the classic sense rather than the politician sense) in our country. The easiest is probably to effectively say that they government will essentially have to abandon some demographic or other ("devil take the hindmost?").
b) The governments will continue to be ten miles wide and one centimeter deep and please no one as they will fail at essentially everything.
Those stark choices are what we are left with when the governments have so broken the country.
It's the first time in my recollection that a PM has come out and told the uncomfortable truth......and it's long overdue. I prefer this to the absurd rumblings coming out of the CPC as to what should be happening.
Reality isn't easy, but it's essential. I'm OK with where we are.
“Absurd rumblings “ like get crime under control, make our streets and neighbourhoods safe, get housing built, get control back in immigration policies, lower everyday costs on food, utilities, rent, solve the health care crisis, solve homelessness, solve the drug abuse problems- are those the rumblings you’re talking about ? Wow! Talk about wilful blindness!
The "absurd rumblings" were and are the garbage coming out of Pierre, for which he had no plan, no budget, and it cost him an election served on a silver platter. Now, if you can name a government in Canada's history that accomplished a significant change in a 6-month period, I'd love to hear about it.
PM Carney seemed to like Poilievre’s plan to axe the tax . I’m all for giving the PM time to get out of the Liberal’s inertia but it’s time for the Liberals to drop the attack on Poilievre and get to work.
The Liberals don't have to attack Pierre. They'd do better to just ignore him, and let him keep shooting himself in the foot....which I think they're largely doing. Carney met with him as a courtesy and dispatched his comments with a perfect shot.
It’s not a courtesy. With a minority government the PM should consult and discuss options with all opposition leaders or maybe find himself in another election which the country doesn’t need and taxpayers can’t afford.
There won't be an election for 4 years because the NDP is on life support with no leader and no cash. But he did, even though Pierre doubtlessly had nothing useful to say.
It’s all talk and no action so it doesn’t really have much value. Canadians aren’t into sacrifice when they can fob it off onto future generations.
Magic wands don't work in Ottawa. Change takes time. Inertia is really hard to overcome. We'll talk in 4 more months.
Don't understand why I am paying to read the perspective of a LPC shill.
The same drivel is available through the G&M, for free.
Funny how federalists always refer to new trading partners without identifying who or what goods. No-one is going to buy automobiles made in the East's rust belt. The same for most of our imperilled industrial base. So what are we selling and to whom?
Sorry Mr Carroll but you had 10 years; suggesting, as Mr Carney does, that these challenges are going to be handled by this "new government ", as if starting from zero, is an idea for which there is " no business case".
Please stop saying he was a hockey player. That’s liberal propaganda. He was a goalie. He’s never fought in the corners for the puck, elbows up or otherwise.
The main concern of critics about the NAFTA when proposed by Mulroney was they totally ignored trade routes East and West. Billions were poured into infrastructure South to the US. I just drove across most of Canada from AB to ON again. Single lane thru ON with hundreds of tractor trailers and signs promising me of an upcoming passing lane. Sad