# Loss of the experimental lake area



## none (Jan 15, 2013)

What do you guys & gals think of this? I mean they 'discovered' acid rain for crying out loud.


http://www.theglobeandmail.com/comm...is-protecting-the-environment/article9940694/


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## carverman (Nov 8, 2010)

With continuing gov't cutbacks, yet millions spent on propoganda (Ie: "Canada's Action Economic Plan"..basically a "warm feeling" that the Harper gov't is actually improving the economy., I'm not surprised on closure of more research and monitoring of the environment
stations. 

The oil sands are one of the greatest polluters of the environment, and regardless of the pretty pictures/ads that the oil companies "restoring the environment back to original" give us on TV, .the fact remains that toxic pollutants are in the ground water around the oil sands that affect fowl, animals and fish...but the gov'ts of Canada and Alberta, hungry for oil sand dollars is trying to push the building of the XL pipeline , so that more oil can be processed and sold to the US.




> Instead, Ottawa had handed ammunition to critics who can now rightfully question the government’s claim that it is a guardian of the environment.


Slowly but surely the Harper gov't is getting out of the research and evironmental business and focusing on how to keep the money flowing into the coffers in Ottawa.


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## none (Jan 15, 2013)

carverman said:


> Slowly but surely the Harper gov't is getting out of the research and evironmental business and focusing on how to keep the money flowing into the coffers in Ottawa.


I'm surprised that most people (at least people in government) don't realize that these two things are closely related.

One way to look at it is it's just poor long term business strategy. The ELA is such a massive bang for their buck that it makes very little sense on any level. These were the people who determines that it was Phosphorus and not nitrogen that led to extreme eutrophication, why acid rain was causing fish to die all over the place (it had to do with heavy metal leaching from sediments rather than the low pH water itself - something the labs couldn't figure out).

I've always tried to not be an anti-conservative but this government is making it really really hard. They seem to be anti-good business all around - very odd.


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## crazyjackcsa (Aug 8, 2010)

This isn't really new news. Those closures were announced last year. 

I'm a dyed in the wool fiscal conservative, but I find this government to not be. Speaking to a few people in the private sector environmental consulting business, these two examples certainly were good value.

Some day there is going to be a party for me to vote for, but I can't see it yet.


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## carverman (Nov 8, 2010)

crazyjackcsa said:


> I'm a dyed in the wool fiscal conservative, but I find this government to not be.
> 
> Some day there is going to be a party for me to vote for, but I can't see it yet.


Uh..crazyjack..if you go back in history for a few years, you will remember that the current PC (aka Harper gov't) is not a true PC,
but the alliance of the Alliance party and the decimated PC. The last PC gov't was Mulroney..I believe, who besides stuffing his pockets
with the AirBus dealings, cost taxpayers a LOT of money to cancel the EH-101 helicopter deal...

Let's face it...the feds have been spending money they don't got since the 2009 economic meltdown..now 4 years later, they have a huge
deficit to contend with. Flaherty wants to eliminate the multibillion dollar deficit by 2015...but with what? The economy is still shrinking
and 1.6 million Canadians are out of work. What jobs there are out there..certainly in the manufacturing sector..have been lost..either
gone to China or hightailed it back to the US.

So what is a cash strapped federal gov't supposed to do? Even Alberta is in trouble now..they are running a huge deficit..the first in many
years and may have to impose a provincial tax.

Lets just hope that they don't think about a crazy scheme like withdrawing the TFSA and imposing a tax on people's savings like Cyprus wanted to.


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## carverman (Nov 8, 2010)

none said:


> I
> 
> I've always tried to not be an anti-conservative but this government is making it really really hard. They seem to be anti-good business all around - very odd.


Uh..if I may use an old cliche..."if you are up to your fiscal a** in alligators, it's hard to remember what your first objective was..to drain the swamp!
Maybe Flaherty's much touted EAP Economic Action Plan) will pull the fed's much need starved rabbit out of their fiscal hat..and create some
incentive for jobs...to get people to pay income tax again, not collect UIC.
Flaherty is also going after those that try to hide their wealth in the Cayman islands, so it's clear that this budge is more of reduce spending and
grab money wherever they can still grab it.


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## none (Jan 15, 2013)

carverman said:


> Uh..if I may use an old cliche..."if you are up to your fiscal a** in alligators, it's hard to remember what your first objective was..to drain the swamp!
> Maybe Flaherty's much touted EAP Economic Action Plan) will pull the fed's much need starved rabbit out of their fiscal hat..and create some
> incentive for jobs...to get people to pay income tax again, not collect UIC.
> Flaherty is also going after those that try to hide their wealth in the Cayman islands, so it's clear that this budge is more of reduce spending and
> grab money wherever they can still grab it.


I actually put a lot of the blame on what he did to housing. Basically all of the stimulative money went into house debt and barely stimulated the economy at all. Now we have a brutally indebted population and a sucking economy.

The thing it, there was A LOT of evidence that this is exactly what was going to happen - but they did it anyway - like cutting the GST - how was that at all helpful???


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## sags (May 15, 2010)

Yes, cutting the gst has been described almost universally as one of the worst economic decisions of all time.


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## Beaver101 (Nov 14, 2011)

GST cut - who is complaining? I'm not. Actually, less waste (one small example: a bloated lifetime Senate :hopelessness by Ottawa can go a long way in preventing cutbacks like these.


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## none (Jan 15, 2013)

Beaver101 said:


> GST cut - who is complaining? I'm not. Actually, less waste (one small example: a bloated lifetime Senate :hopelessness by Ottawa can go a long way in preventing cutbacks like these.


You should be complaining because it was bad economically for canada and was simply there to buy votes for the conservatives.

http://www.cbc.ca/story/canadavotes2006/national/2005/12/01/gst-reac051201.html

The senate is another issue. Although I think a good idea in principal (far too much power currently resides in the PMO) something obviously needs to change.


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## HaroldCrump (Jun 10, 2009)

The 2% GST cut should have been accompanied by a 2% reduction in govt. spending.
That did not happen.

The right solution is not to raise the GST back up 2%, but to cut 2% from spending.


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## none (Jan 15, 2013)

HaroldCrump said:


> The 2% GST cut should have been accompanied by a 2% reduction in govt. spending.
> That did not happen.
> 
> The right solution is not to raise the GST back up 2%, but to cut 2% from spending.


Or if the 2% of spending was providing a lot of value to taxpayers then keep the $0.02 of GST.

Some things are worth paying for.

I personally think they should start taxing capital gains on houses over the inflation rate - or at a minimum gains over 100K.


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## HaroldCrump (Jun 10, 2009)

none said:


> Or if the 2% of spending was providing a lot of value to taxpayers then keep the $0.02 of GST.
> Some things are worth paying for.


Nothing is worth over-paying for, though.
Cutting spending does not always mean reducing services.
The cost of services can also be reduced.



> I personally think they should start taxing capital gains on houses over the inflation rate - or at a minimum gains over 100K.


I completely agree that we need some form of capital gains tax on personal residential RE.
It is high time to either eliminate, reduce, or modify the capital gains exemption on personal residence.
In addition to your suggestion of a peg to inflation or a cap of $100K, another possibility is to allow only 1 claim for every 5 or 7 years.
i.e. you can claim the CG exemption only once in every 5 or 7 year period.

IMHO, it is also high time to get rid of the HBP program.
And many other RE pump schemes.

Any and all of them will have a significant impact on the revenue side of the balance sheet.
Combined with spending cuts, it will allow us to eliminate the deficit.

And then we can cut the GST another 2%.


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## none (Jan 15, 2013)

Haha, well we can agree to disagree on the GST cut. I believe the government can play an extremely positive role in making a society a better place to live. There are some things only a government can do (and do it well) compared to private industry. The opposite is also true of course. 

As we've discussed in other threads countries with higher tax rates and more on the 'socialist' side generally have happier and healthier populations. That's the whole point isn't it? Not to just being able to buy bigger TVs from China.

Regardless, I think you have some good ideas on Res RE. The massive over-inflation of the market serves very few people well and something needs to be done to remove, at the very least, some of the volatility in the market.


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## HaroldCrump (Jun 10, 2009)

none said:


> As we've discussed in other threads countries with higher tax rates and more on the 'socialist' side generally have happier and healthier populations.


You mean like the countries of the current European Union? 

Regarding the GST cut, I'd be ok with raising it back up to 7% _if and only if_ it is accompanied by an immediate, across the board, cut to income taxes.
Public policy advocates believe consumption taxes are more efficient than income taxes - fine, whatever.
So raise the GST 2% and cut income taxes by 5%, since the GST is more efficient.

Anyhow, what we cannot have is higher taxes (of whatever kind) not accompanied by real and significant cost cutting by the govt.
What ends up happening is that the new/higher taxes are imposed _now_, while the cost cutting is postponed for later - like 5 years or 7 years later.

To me, all these debates about which tax and how much % tax is pointless unless and until there are real and significant corresponding spending cuts.


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## none (Jan 15, 2013)

I totally agree: increase GST and lower income taxes and give GST tax credit to lower income individuals.

As for spending cuts I agree to a point: cut wasteful spending cuts but keep government programs that provide a lot of value to Canadians. That was the point of this thread. The ELA was such a massive bang for your buck cost that it's a really short sighted project to cut.


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## Eder (Feb 16, 2011)

HaroldCrump said:


> The 2% GST cut should have been accompanied by a 2% reduction in govt. spending.
> That did not happen.
> 
> The right solution is not to raise the GST back up 2%, but to cut 2% from spending.


Thankfully you posted this before I posted and thereby you helped prevent me from offending all the lefties here. I thought this was a money forum...not the Globe & Mail comment section.


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## none (Jan 15, 2013)

I don't see how this is a 'lefty' argument. Indeed, more often than not 'conservatives' are the ones who institute short term financial plans that end up being absolute disasters and by what most people think of as 'left' or 'right' the loony right is generally fiscally liberal.

Any way you slice it, the ELA has saved the Canadian taxpayers billions of dollars for relatively small financial investment. To cut it out is the classic short term economic thinking that is currently par for the course for Western hemisphere conservatives.

To boil things down to the level of simply 'taxes bad no matter what' is juvenile and ignorant.


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## HaroldCrump (Jun 10, 2009)

none said:


> I totally agree: increase GST and lower income taxes and give GST tax credit to lower income individuals.


Just to be clear : I am not suggesting we increase any taxes at all, without a substantial cut in spending _first_.
Governments are ever-ready to raise the tax, and always defer the spending cuts for later.
That later never happens.

The Ontario govt. is a classic example.
They have been raising taxes since 2004 (starting with the health tax), and more aggressively since 2009 (since the HST).
Yet there have not been any true or significant spending cuts.

The spending cuts simply get pushed further and further out.

The latest projections claim the budget will not be balanced until 2018.

It is almost certain that by 2015, that date will move further by another 5 years.



> As for spending cuts I agree to a point: cut wasteful spending cuts but keep government programs that provide a lot of value to Canadians.


Well, it could be argued that many/most programs have "value" for some or other Canadians.
So what to cut and what to keep - that is the question.

One of the biggest drains for the govt. is over-valued labor costs i.e. the retention and compensation of 3 levels of govt. workers.
Unless and until that 800 lb. elephant-in-the-room is addressed, there cannot be any significant govt. spending cuts.

If you consider the program cuts at the federal level in the last 2 years, all of those have been front-line services, such as officers of Parks Canada, Service Canada, etc.
These types of cuts have minimal deficit reduction benefit, but lead to less services for the citizens.
However, at the same time, there are hordes and hordes of over-paid bureaucrats, figure-heads, and paper pushers throughout 3 levels of govt.

Because all levels of government are primarily a labor intensive organization (vs. capital intensive like the industries), they cannot have any meaningful spending reduction unless they incorporate fundamental changes to the compensation structures.


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## sags (May 15, 2010)

Harold..........

You really don't expect the top level civil servants to cut their own wages............do you?

That isn't how it works. The government tells the department to reduce spending by 10% and the bottom people on the totem pole (usually front line workers) get their lay off notices............and services invariably do suffer as a result.


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## none (Jan 15, 2013)

sags said:


> Harold..........
> 
> You really don't expect the top level civil servants to cut their own wages............do you?
> 
> That isn't how it works. The government tells the department to reduce spending by 10% and the bottom people on the totem pole (usually front line workers) get their lay off notices............and services invariably do suffer as a result.


Oddly enough in my experience government departments have been more cost efficient than most private companies I've worked for. For example, when I worked for EMA I worked on a project (not willingly) costing tens of thousands of dollars to ultimately prove that pH was on the log scale, when I worked for BHP my coworkers didn't feel like carrying 100 pounds of gear 200 meters so we called in the helicopter to move it for us - also, the satellite internet budget was blown by $75K in one month - no big deal they said. I can think of many other examples.

The whole 'government is less efficient than private industry' doesn't really hold much water from what I've seen at least. I know some great public servants who have gotten the axe and it really is a loss to Canadians as they were the kind of hard working people you want working for you. I just applied for a government job that pays about 20% less than private. Less money but I'd like to represent my country. Why not eh hosers?


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## HaroldCrump (Jun 10, 2009)

sags said:


> You really don't expect the top level civil servants to cut their own wages............do you?


No, I expect an elected government to impose the cuts on them.
The elected govt. has a fiduciary duty towards the tax payers that elected them.

The govt. - just like a private corporation - has to ensure it is obtaining the required quality of labor at the most reasonable possible cost.
And, just like a private company, make constant efforts to reduce its costs while retaining quality of the products & services.

If the private sector can obtain a certain set of skilled labor for say $100/hr. the govt. should be able to obtain the same rates, if not better.

As the single largest employer in the country, the tax payers have almost no bargaining or negotiating power in the labor market.


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## HaroldCrump (Jun 10, 2009)

none said:


> Oddly enough in my experience government departments have been more cost efficient than most private companies I've worked for.
> ...
> The whole 'government is less efficient than private industry' doesn't really hold much water from what I've seen at least.


Efficient compared to what?
The govt. does not operate in a competitive marketplace.
Neither on the sales side (for its products and services) nor on the cost side (for its labor procurement).

For some of the services side, we can understand that it is not possible to have a competitive marketplace, such as for the armed forced, police service, social welfare, etc.
But there are still a lot of other services that can be provided for by the private sector, but are not (such as insurance, garbage pick up, etc.)

On the cost side, the govt. does not procure its labor from a competitive market with efficient rates.

On the revenue side, the govt. is not constrained because it has an absolute authority to increase it's input any time and in any way it wants.
Therefore, there is no imperative for the govt. to be efficient in any way whatsoever.
You take any organization - private or public - and promise them an bottomless pit of resources, it is natural for the organization to become inefficient.

To me, what does not hold water is not the argument that govt. is less efficient, but the fact that there is no way for us to compare.


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## none (Jan 15, 2013)

_>Therefore, there is no imperative for the govt. to be efficient in any way whatsoever._

Sure there is, simply by those working in a department to want to make the best use of the resources that they have. Again, in my experience the government workers I've associate with have been extremely hard working and a real asset to their departments.

If I had nickel for each time I've heard a department manager say they want to do 'more with less' I'd have a toonie at least.


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## HaroldCrump (Jun 10, 2009)

none said:


> Again, in my experience the government workers I've associate with have been extremely hard working and a real asset to their departments.


I am not disputing that.
But optimizing resources out of a manager's own personal initiative and work ethic is different than the efficiency and financial discipline being imposed by market forces.

Anyhow, my point was not so much about operational efficiency of govt. dept. managers.
It was about the fact that there can't be any meaningful or significant cost cutting in any of the 3 levels of govt. without addressing the compensation issue.

I don't believe there are huge amounts of waste everywhere in the public sector and such waste can be identified and magically eliminated overnight to restore a balanced budget.

Whatever waste is there is probably deep-rooted and hard to eliminate without structural changes.

To me, the "waste" as a result of over-compensation is far more serious.


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## brad (May 22, 2009)

HaroldCrump said:


> I
> But optimizing resources out of a manager's own personal initiative and work ethic is different than the efficiency and financial discipline being imposed by market forces.


In government, efficiency and financial discipline are imposed by oversight, which in some cases results in much greater efficiency and financial discipline than you'll find in the private sector. Having worked in both, my impression is that government is far more efficient and financially disciplined than most corporations. Maybe it's different in Canada, but in the US if you work for a federal or state agency there is so much emphasis on accountability and transparency that everyone's terrified of waste. Projects get audited and programs have to justify their continued existence based on results. Everyone's watching you, and if you mess up you'll hear about it from Congress or the Government Accountability Office, or the Office of Management and Budget, etc.

I took a road trip once through Texas in a federal government vehicle and got a sense of what federal employees have to live with. We had to be super-careful about where we parked, could only stay in the rock-bottom cheapest motels and cheapest restaurants, lest someone see us eating or staying somewhere better, take down our license plate number and write a complaint to their Congressional representative.


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## none (Jan 15, 2013)

Brad: I have found the same.


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## HaroldCrump (Jun 10, 2009)

Anyhow, waste is not the primary target of cost cutting.
I didn't even bring up waste - none did, perhaps in order to then turn around and argue against it.

To me, the elephant in the room is the retention and compensation cost of labor.

Many well meaning politicians have fallen into this trap of cutting waste.
Most recently, Toronto Mayor Rob Ford did as well.

So has the federal govt. perhaps. in the last 3 years or so.
Even last Thu. Finance Minister Flaherty spoke of cutting waste in travel costs by using more tele-confercing.
I believe he mentioned a saving of $1B or so.

I doubt they will be able to realize that much savings.
Even if they do, all of that dwarfs in comparison to the huge over-payment for labor costs at all levels of the govt.

While the department managers, etc. fret over saving $500 for a flight, hundreds of billions of dollars in outrageous compensation costs for public sector workers is bankrupting the governments at all levels.


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## none (Jan 15, 2013)

Most of the higher level government employees I know make about the same or less than their private counterparts.

You're obviously talking about others though...


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## RBull (Jan 20, 2013)

I'm with Harold Crump on this one. When looking at the total compensation (wages/benefits/pensions) of government employees it is clear they are paid above fair value in many cases. I deal with large numbers of the public and also see them in their homes, with my employment, in a city with many government employees. It's quite notable that almost all of the people I deal with that retire in their 50's, and comfortably, have worked for government of some kind. Very few of those privately employed can do this at that stage of their life, or ever as comfortably for that matter. They don't make as much money and don't have a fraction of the retirement benefit. 

What is perplexing to me is how things got this way- someone had to agree to these employment conditions at taxpayers expense. Why...with so many people unemployed and at a time when we're running massive deficits, large debt?


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## brad (May 22, 2009)

Yeah, I'd like to see actual examples of government employees who earn more than people with comparable jobs in the private sector. For some there are no comparable jobs, such as a fighter jet pilot, but when you look at the highest possible salary for a Canadian Forces pilot (Lieutenant Colonel, highest pay grade), it's $124,000/year. Compare that with senior airline pilots for Air Canada who pull in more than $200,000/year and don't have to get shot at. I have a friend in the States who's a senior manager for a government program that saves American taxpayers $8 billion/year in their energy bills; she earns about $110K, while another friend has a comparable management position in a food products corporation and earns nearly three times that much.

Maybe the complaints are about the whole package including pensions? Even there the government employees don't always come out on top.


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## Beaver101 (Nov 14, 2011)

RBull said:


> I'm with Harold Crump on this one. When looking at the total compensation (wages/benefits/pensions) of government employees it is clear they are paid above fair value in many cases. I deal with large numbers of the public and also see them in their homes, with my employment, in a city with many government employees. It's quite notable that almost all of the people I deal with that retire in their 50's, and comfortably, have worked for government of some kind. Very few of those privately employed can do this at that stage of their life, or ever as comfortably for that matter. They don't make as much money and don't have a fraction of the retirement benefit.
> 
> What is perplexing to me is how things got this way- someone had to agree to these employment conditions at taxpayers expense. Why...with so many people unemployed and at a time when we're running massive deficits, large debt?


 ... the stats speaks for itself here http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2013/03/28/sunshine_list_of_highest_paid_ontario_public_sector_workers_out_today.html, which private sector has expanded its workforce by 11% in the past year, let alone being an elite member of the Sunshine List?


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## none (Jan 15, 2013)

That's not how that worked. It says the list grew by 11% last year - that could just mean that lots of people close to the threshold bumped into it because of a high inflation year.

Whether what the people get paid is reasonable or not I don't really know. I took a quick look at the University page and it didn't seem all that unreasonable.

As for full professors making around 100K. This person likely has >15 years of post secondary education working all this time for more than 60 hours per week and s/he has beated out likely hundreds of other international applicants for their jobs and still put in 60+ hours per week. My wife's an academic and I know how hard she works.

Anyway, she needs to be taxed more regardless. Maybe an increase to the GST by $0.02.?

I do, hoever think the CEO of hydro one getting paid 1.7 million is ridiculous.


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## HaroldCrump (Jun 10, 2009)

none said:


> That's not how that worked. It says the list grew by 11% last year - that could just mean that lots of people close to the threshold bumped into it because of a high inflation year.


Almost all public sector raises in the last 4 years have been far above inflation.
The govt. tells us that inflation is 1.2%
Typical union negotiated raises at all levels of the govt. have been between 4% to 9%.



> I took a quick look at the University page and it didn't seem all that unreasonable.


Don't forget that this is simply base salary.
Does not include the huge values of pensions, benefits, and other perks such as paid carried over sick time, expense accounts, etc.
The base salary of a public sector worker, such as the ones on that Sunshine list, is dwarfed by the value of their pensions and benefits.



> Anyway, she needs to be taxed more regardless. Maybe an increase to the GST by $0.02.?


If _she_ needs to be taxed more, why increase everyone's GST?
Why not just increase income taxes?
Or, how about, increase the income taxes at her level, cut 2% from govt. spending, and then cut another 2% of the GST.



> I do, hoever think the CEO of hydro one getting paid 1.7 million is ridiculous.


It is not uncommon for many public sector workers to make several Million $ including their total lifetime compensation (pensions and benefits).


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## Beaver101 (Nov 14, 2011)

^ ^ ^ :encouragement: :encouragement: :encouragement: :encouragement:


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## brad (May 22, 2009)

HaroldCrump said:


> It is not uncommon for many public sector workers to make several Million $ including their total lifetime compensation (pensions and benefits).


That's not too impressive: someone working for 40 years (age 20 to age 60) earning $35,000/year with no raise and no pension would make $1.4 million in total lifetime compensation.


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## HaroldCrump (Jun 10, 2009)

brad said:


> That's not too impressive: someone working for 40 years (age 20 to age 60) earning $35,000/year with no raise and no pension would make $1.4 million in total lifetime compensation.


Well, if this person were a public sector worker, he/she would make another $1M over the _next_ 40 years through a 70% defined benefit pension.
Not to mention the jackpot on the day of retirement by en-cashing the accumulated 20 days of sick time per year, 20 days of vacation per year, and who knows what else.

All of the above with 0 risk and 0 investment effort.

It is bizarre to me that the media (and many folks) simply refuse to accept how over-paid and over-indulged the public sector is vis-à-vis a regular private sector Joe.

Whenever this topic comes up, the militant left wingers point to a handful of CEOs of banks and high tech companies and say "look, look at how many millions he is making in stock options".
Whereas the reality for a regular Joe working outside the sheltered govt. sector is far different.

This is Queen Marie Antoinette asking _why can't they eat cake?_


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## brad (May 22, 2009)

Yeah, the pension stuff is indeed hard to swallow when so many companies have abandoned pensions. I have little doubt that those pension deals will eventually go away, just as they have for most of the rest of us. In the United States, 62% of workers in the 1980s had a pension plan; by 2007, that same number only had access to a 401(k). Eventually that trend may extend to government workers as well.


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## none (Jan 15, 2013)

brad said:


> Yeah, the pension stuff is indeed hard to swallow when so many companies have abandoned pensions. I have little doubt that those pension deals will eventually go away, just as they have for most of the rest of us. In the United States, 62% of workers in the 1980s had a pension plan; by 2007, that same number only had access to a 401(k). Eventually that trend may extend to government workers as well.


Instead one could argue that instead of doing away with government pensions that companies should pay into some retirement fund. Frankly it's a little ridiculous that the average joe needs to become well versed in the confusing world of finance just to get a fair shot at a decent retirement. Now, most Canadian are in high fee mutual funds that only benefit banks.


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## RBull (Jan 20, 2013)

I don't know much of the Ontario situation as I'm on the East Coast. I've got close family, plenty of friends and many customers who are or were at the trough around here in provincial, federal and municipal levels. Almost all are on easy street and all they needed to do was an average job for 30-35 years. 

My problem is less with some at the most senior levels (unless we're talking crown corp monopolies etc) but it's the vast majority from entry level to middle management that make more overall than most in private industry for equivalent work and responsibility.

We need a complete gutting of their government compensation- change the generous (mostly publicly funded) pensions, the shorter working time required to earn it, the ridiculous amount of allowed sick time and accumulation as paid leave/retirement, excessive vacation time and high than average wages. We simply can't afford to make people that work for the general public be the most generously treated people in the land. 

The country needs to cut costs and treat it's citizens more fairly. We need tougher negotiations and more reasonable outcomes when dealing with government unions. 




Beaver101 said:


> ... the stats speaks for itself here http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2013/03/28/sunshine_list_of_highest_paid_ontario_public_sector_workers_out_today.html, which private sector has expanded its workforce by 11% in the past year, let alone being an elite member of the Sunshine List?


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