# 2019 Federal Budget



## sags (May 15, 2010)

The 2019 Federal budget will be announced on March 19, 2019.

A couple of factors to consider:

_After announcing the date Wednesday in the House of Commons, Morneau told reporters that the budget will focus on helping workers get the skills they need for the future and on ensuring seniors feel optimistic about their futures. He has also said the government is looking for ways to make homes more affordable for millennials, while keeping the housing market stable._

There isn't much detail in the public yet, but it will start to dribble out before the full announcement.

The current budget deficit is $19 Billion a year and is projected by the government to start declining in a couple of years.

What do CMFers expect or hope to see in the new budget ?


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## OptsyEagle (Nov 29, 2009)

It's an election year so we should probably see them throw someone else's money across a large section of voters with the caveat that they only get the goodies if they vote for them. 

I am usually not the recipient of those goodies (but I do a pretty good job of making sure it is not my money they get to throw around) so it is hard to say. If they don't do something for the energy sector they can say goodbye to those western ridings. I imagine most are gone already, but why not throw some wasteful money at them and see what happens.


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## AltaRed (Jun 8, 2009)

It will be an absolutely disgusting 'election' budget with billions of new spending to buy votes in October. The bulk of it won't take effect until 2020 on the premise that voters have to re-elect the Liberals to get all these goodies. Budgets in election years are almost always a disaster in fiscal responsibility.


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## like_to_retire (Oct 9, 2016)

AltaRed said:


> It will be an absolutely disgusting 'election' budget with billions of new spending to buy votes in October. The bulk of it won't take effect until 2020 on the premise that voters have to re-elect the Liberals to get all these goodies. Budgets in election years are almost always a disaster in fiscal responsibility.


Unlike previous Liberal budgets that have simply "balanced themselves". 

ltr


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## OptsyEagle (Nov 29, 2009)

like_to_retire said:


> Unlike previous Liberal budgets that have simply "balanced themselves".
> 
> ltr


It has pretty much been my life long dream to see Canadians actually care about deficits. I imagine if they don't care about themselves racking up oodles of debt, I should give up on thinking they would care about the government racking up more debt on their behalf.

It is just quite annoying when you see these budgets come out and although there is a little lip service to the idea that a government, especially in a good economy, should be trying to balance the budget, there is literally no anger at all. Without the anger it is just not going to happen. 

Flaherty is dead. No matter what anyone wants to say about him, he was the last to try and they just don't seem to make many politicians who do the right thing just because it is right, not because it is politically right.


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## Longtimeago (Aug 8, 2018)

LOL, every budget every brought out by any political party has been designed to get votes in the next election. It's hilarous to see people writing comments as if the Liberals just invented that idea.

I sometimes wonder how people can be so one side vs. the other that they suspend common sense when it comes to their own 'party'. 

The first priority of ANY politician regardless of party affiliation, is to get RE-ELECTED. Try to keep that in mind. It is not black and white, right and wrong, left and right. It does not ever achieve the best for all rather than the best for a minority of the people. That simply is not possible to do by any government. Thinking it can be achieved is just naive. The best that can be done is to satisfy one group on one thing and another group on another thing. 

As Churchill supposedly said, "Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others." Anyone who thinks otherwise is either naive or a fool. Whether the government is a Liberal, Conservative, NDP, Green Party government at any point in time simply means it will be better for one group of supporters than another at that time. 

I am in one group and I know that like many things in my life, there will be good years and bad years. I can complain about the bad years when my group is not in power but that won't change a thing. If this year's budget does or doesn't favour me, there's always next year. I vote for a party that favours me, so does everyone else presumably, do you think your party should always be in power delivering what you want while my party is never in power delivering what I want?

There's several names you could use for people who always want things to go their way isn't there.


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## OptsyEagle (Nov 29, 2009)

Sorry, I am missing where anyone said it was invented by the Liberals. The Liberals are expected to use deficit spending to get re-elected this year, but that is only because they are currently in power.

If I recall, I mentioned that I have spent a lifetime hoping to see balanced budgets, also known as prudent financial management of our government. I taper my hopes down quite a lot in election years but the desire is still there.


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## AltaRed (Jun 8, 2009)

Neither did I restrict myself to the Liberals. Seems to be a drive-by comment.


> Budgets in election years are almost always a disaster in fiscal responsibility.


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## fatcat (Nov 11, 2009)

i hope they aren’t planning on spending too much on making “seniors optomistic about their future” 

i’m doing alright, spring is almost here, i’m getting a new battery for my bike, my cooking skills are improving

the only thing mr morneu can do to make me feel more optomistic about the future is to vanquish death

that would be great and would _almost_ make me a solid Liberal voter

do we think that “vanquishing death” will be part of the Liberal platform ? hmmm


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## Eder (Feb 16, 2011)

1st party to promise a $1000 cheque to every Canadian over 18 will win in a landslide majority.


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## robfordlives (Sep 18, 2014)

Eder said:


> 1st party to promise a $1000 cheque to every Canadian over 18 will win in a landslide majority.


Honestly for low income people with kids the child tax benefit is essentially UBI. I do tax returns on the side and the number of families collecting $3-$5000 per month tax free doing absolutely nothing is abit staggering.


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## sags (May 15, 2010)

How would any government address deficit spending ? Higher taxes or lower spending are the only two options.


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## sags (May 15, 2010)

robfordlives said:


> Honestly for low income people with kids the child tax benefit is essentially UBI. I do tax returns on the side and the number of families collecting $3-$5000 per month tax free doing absolutely nothing is abit staggering.


This is true but it isn't just "low income" folks who collect. My sister was telling me her son who works at GM and his wife who is a nurse collect $400 a month for their 2 kids.

By contrast, my sister is totally disabled from a work accident and collects $1000 a month total as her only income. To survive she babysits until she can collect OAS/GIS.


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## RBull (Jan 20, 2013)

I'm wondering what will happen with the estimated 40% of Canadians who do not pay any income tax, and whether this number will continue to increase. 

I'm with all of you that are tired of seeing large budget deficits, especially in relatively strong economic conditions. 

LTA, it was interesting to watch you go into defence and lecture mode seemingly for no reason.


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## off.by.10 (Mar 16, 2014)

Longtimeago said:


> LOL, every budget every brought out by any political party has been designed to get votes in the next election. It's hilarous to see people writing comments as if the Liberals just invented that idea.


Indeed, how easily people forget. The conservatives were a lot more creative the last time around, with that retroactive payment to parents causing big fat checks to be mailed in June. With the tax bill on them not due until next year, after the elections. I was both disgusted and impressed.


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## MrMatt (Dec 21, 2011)

Eder said:


> 1st party to promise a $1000 cheque to every Canadian over 18 will win in a landslide majority.


They're working on it.
"The average household payments will be $248 in New Brunswick, $300 in Ontario, $336 in Manitoba and $598 in Saskatchewan."
https://globalnews.ca/news/4585331/liberals-carbon-tax-details/


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## peterk (May 16, 2010)

fatcat said:


> i hope they aren’t planning on spending too much on making “seniors optomistic about their future”
> 
> i’m doing alright, spring is almost here, i’m getting a new battery for my bike, my cooking skills are improving
> 
> ...


Sounds like you aren't quite optimistic enough, though. We better juice up those senior's optimism cheques just to be sure! Whether or not the elderly are optimistic about the future is clearly *the* crucial issue facing society today, and I'm very glad the government has taken notice of it, before it's too late. If you folks didn't have that second car, or weren't able to spend that second month in Florida/Phoenix/Mexico, well I just don't know how I'd be able to go on living... ig:


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## bgc_fan (Apr 5, 2009)

MrMatt said:


> They're working on it.
> "The average household payments will be $248 in New Brunswick, $300 in Ontario, $336 in Manitoba and $598 in Saskatchewan."
> https://globalnews.ca/news/4585331/liberals-carbon-tax-details/


You might want to go over to the carbon tax thread and you'll realize that is how carbon taxes are supposed to work. They are supposed to revenue neutral so whatever is collected is supposed to go back as refunds for everyone involved.

It's just that there is a prevalence of people who shut their ears when they hear carbon tax and close their minds without understanding how they are supposed to work. And then say, "free money" when the second part of the carbon tax system is implemented.


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## fatcat (Nov 11, 2009)

peterk said:


> Sounds like you aren't quite optimistic enough, though. We better juice up those senior's optimism cheques just to be sure! Whether or not the elderly are optimistic about the future is clearly *the* crucial issue facing society today, and I'm very glad the government has taken notice of it, before it's too late. If you folks didn't have that second car, or weren't able to spend that second month in Florida/Phoenix/Mexico, well I just don't know how I'd be able to go on living... ig:


i read that and thought wtf !? ... the millennials can’t afford housing and half the country is a paycheck away from the street and you are worried about our optimism ? that’s is some bald faced vote farming ... admittedly i am not a poor senior, not rich, but certainly not poor and there are many impoverished seniors so if he can do something, great but there is plenty more of greater need


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## agent99 (Sep 11, 2013)

> LOL, every budget every brought out by any political party has been designed to get votes in the next election. It's hilarous to see people writing comments as if the Liberals just invented that idea.


Don't want to get into fray, but all negative comments above *ARE* about an upcoming *Liberal* budget. If it is designed to help them get re-elected, as stated in above Lta quotation, they will just be doing same as most previous governments did.

So far I don't see anything I don't like:

- more training in job skills
- assistance of some sort for for seniors (presumably just those who need it)
- programs to make it easier for young people to buy homes.

What would I like to see? 
Something for environment? Maybe an incentive for auto manufacturers to build EVs in Canada plus national EV rebate on those cars.
Something for students? University/College education is getting out of reach for some.


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## AltaRed (Jun 8, 2009)

The only thing I'd like to see on the 'cost' side is an overhaul of the OAS/GIS program for seniors, but that is a political hot potato. Too many wealthy seniors are getting OAS at the expense of pitiful GIS allowances for those at/below the poverty line. There could be a revenue neutral way of clawing back more OAS at high income levels and re-distributing it more generously via GIS.


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## fatcat (Nov 11, 2009)

AltaRed said:


> The only thing I'd like to see on the 'cost' side is an overhaul of the OAS/GIS program for seniors, but that is a political hot potato. Too many wealthy seniors are getting OAS at the expense of pitiful GIS allowances for those at/below the poverty line. There could be a revenue neutral way of clawing back more OAS at high income levels and re-distributing it more generously via GIS.


good idea ...


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## OptsyEagle (Nov 29, 2009)

Better then my idea. I would attempt to have GIS added up over the lifetime of the recipient and it would become a debt to their estate. I probably would not have the audacity to charge them interest but I would like to send them the bill...after they are dead of course.

My problem with the current system, is that I don't think it is right that the taxpayer should fund these people over their entire lifetimes and then see them transfer a paid off house to their children, who do not deserve it, at least not before the taxpayers who cared for those parents throughout their retirement. Some of these people die with unspent money in bank accounts and investment accounts, cars, cottages, etc. It just does not seem right to me that they were able to use the taxpayers money instead of their own.

Obviously parents would attempt to change titles before death etc., so it would be very tricky and absolutely politically incorrect...but it is right and fair, in my opinion.


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## AltaRed (Jun 8, 2009)

GIS only applies to 65+ at the moment, but I agree there is always ways to beat the system to keep income really low. I just don't know how many seniors are willing to spend 20 years with <$20k incomes though ($24k for couples).

That all said, if GIS was to ever apply to lower ages, which one could argue is a social safety net, costs could get out of hand. I am sure the data exists somewhere in terms of how much GIS takes out of General Revenue.


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## OnlyMyOpinion (Sep 1, 2013)

As AR notes, you have to be pretty low inc to be collecting GIS. I doubt many repicients are sheltering much. OAS though is a different story.


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## sags (May 15, 2010)

Some people can get pretty creative with the "income" they claim. 

When Stephen Harper proposed involving "assets" in the qualifications, enough people complained that they dropped the idea.

My dad was friends with an older couple who had come here from Germany decades ago. He used to visit them out in the country where they lived in a farmhouse.

"I don't know why they live all the way out there", he would say. "Fritz told me they own 2 farms and they barely have any income. Why don't they sell them and move into the city".

Over time the tidbits of information dribbled out. It turned out they did own 2 farms. They lived in the old farmhouse and a neighboring farmer worked the land, paid the taxes and utilities and supplied them with some beef or chickens every so often. I remember Dad saying they had 2 freezers full of meat and he couldn't figure out why...."just for the two of them".

It turned out that Fritz was also a "silent" partner in his son's medium sized software company. No papers or legal documentation. It was all among family, and Fritz drove around in a company vehicle, using company insurance and gas card. We came to find out about it when Fritz was upset and complained to my dad that the son's ex-wife had left him for another man and was demanding 1/2 the value of the company. Fritz was incensed that she was demanding half of "his" company, but he had no way to prove ownership or he was in a position he couldn't admit to it.

Fritz was an industrious fellow. He also played the organ for anything going on his church......funerals, weddings, whatever and he was paid in cash. When my dad passed away, I put $150 in cash in an envelope and handed it to him after the ceremony was over. I doubt he claimed any of that money as income.

There probably aren't a lot of Fritz's around, but both him and his wife collected OAS and GIS and $25,000 a year is pretty easy to live on if you don't have to pay for anything.


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## OptsyEagle (Nov 29, 2009)

OnlyMyOpinion said:


> As AR notes, you have to be pretty low inc to be collecting GIS. I doubt many repicients are sheltering much. OAS though is a different story.


It's the houses. I got no problem with helping out our seniors. I might even be agreeable to a raise. I just can't stand the times I see these same seniors pass on their houses to their children. If you are not wealthy enough to look after yourself, in your lifetime, you are definitely not wealthy enough to being giving money away to children, who may not even need it.

I don't want to take any money from the seniors. I want to take it from their children, who do not deserve it. What I have described here happens a lot. It is not a rare situation.

Again, we are in a deficit position and giving money to adult children, who may have more then they need, is not something I think our country can afford. If it could. Great. Let's leave our seniors with a little more dignity. But we can't afford it, and if dignity was really important they should have saved for their retirement.


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## lonewolf :) (Sep 13, 2016)

OptsyEagle said:


> It's an election year so we should probably see them throw someone else's money across a large section of voters with the caveat that they only get the goodies if they vote for them.
> 
> I am usually not the recipient of those goodies (but I do a pretty good job of making sure it is not my money they get to throw around) so it is hard to say. If they don't do something for the energy sector they can say goodbye to those western ridings. I imagine most are gone already, but why not throw some wasteful money at them and see what happens.


 A flat tax is the best way to go. campaign donations by special interest groups to get tax breaks or to get subsidized by the middle class tax payer just allows for to much corruption.


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## fatcat (Nov 11, 2009)

here in bc i like everyone else have just handed over my social insurance number in order to avoid the empty domicile tax brought in by the ndp

if someone applied for gis it would not be difficult to run a check against sin numbers on file associated with property ownership 

the problem is that you would then run into a thousand different stories of why owning property didn’t relate to income or poverty or whatever 

and what do you do require people to reverse mortgage their house instead of gis ?


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## nortel'd (Mar 20, 2012)

OptsyEagle said:


> It's the houses. I got no problem with helping out our seniors. I might even be agreeable to a raise. I just can't stand the times I see these same seniors pass on their houses to their children. If you ware not wealthy enough to look after yourself, in your lifetime, you are definitely not wealthy enough to being giving money away to children, who may not even need it.
> 
> I don't want to take any money from the seniors. I want to take it from their children, who do not deserve it. What I have described here happens a lot. It is not a rare situation.
> 
> Again, we are in a deficit position and giving money to adult children, who may have more then they need, is not something I think our country can afford. If it could. Great. Let's leave our seniors with a little more dignity. But we can't afford it, and if dignity was really important they should have saved for their retirement.


I have to agree. Seven years ago (Feb 13, 2012) IZZY a FWF member was discussing "OAS Changes Likely". I feel IZZY said it all "_because poorly thought out changes can produce unexpected and undeserving victims" _

Our older two story home located somewhere near Prescott, Ontario is worth at best $160,000. We both proudly collect full OAS and we vote for its continuance. If we were not allowed to file a Joint Election to Split Pension Income, the yearly income from RRSP/RRIF withdrawls, dividends and interest would put our OAS under the gun for a rather large OAS clawback.


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## robfordlives (Sep 18, 2014)

I was shocked to learn that Australia now has a means test for their version of OAS. IF as couple you have 375k in assets you do not get a penny. I'm sure it's coming to Canada


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## OptsyEagle (Nov 29, 2009)

Well, I might as well give you the whole list. These are either totally unfair and should be changed or required to reduce our enormous deficit:

1) Recoup GIS from estate where money is available (already mentioned)
2) Eliminate pension income splitting - (no specific reason why pensioners get yjod break when other hard working Cdns. do not) I will keep the age credit because it is income tested.
3) Eliminate the pension income tax credit. (again why pension income only)
4) Reduce charitable tax credit from 29% of donations above $200 to: 
20% tax credit for eligible Canadian donations
10% tax credit for donations for international charities
0% tax credit for religious charities
5) Personal exemption would be $12,000 for single person and $9,000 for each married individual. Spousal credit would also be reduced to $9,000
6) No more backing out "low income years for child rearing" for CPP benefits (how does having a child contribute money to a retirement program)
7) No small business deductions for incorporated professionals: Doctors, Lawyers, Dentists, - Just about anyone with less then 5 employees.
8) Aboriginal peoples will pay taxes like every other Canadian. 

That is about it for now. What do you think of my platform for Prime Minister. Would you vote for me? A snowball might make it in hell, so maybe I do have a chance. lol.


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## agent99 (Sep 11, 2013)

robfordlives said:


> I was shocked to learn that Australia now has a means test for their version of OAS. IF as couple you have 375k in assets you do not get a penny. I'm sure it's coming to Canada


This link describes their Age Pension. It is clearly not for all Australians. Maybe a bit more like our GIS? The amount paid is much higher than our OAS.
https://www.finder.com.au/australian-age-pension-eligibility-requirements

Their system is quite different from ours it seems. They have something called Superannuation. It is partly compulsory. Seems more like our RRSP/RRIFs. Maybe the compulsory part is something like our CPP. 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superannuation_in_Australia

A couple who we knew lived in Australia. He had spent some time in Canada and had married a Canadian girl. They went back and he worked there until retirement. But then they came back to Canada. Mainly because Australia doesn't treat seniors well. 

Even in Canada, we may not really get OAS and CPP . Depending on your income level, those payments might just cover taxes on your retirement savings!


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## AltaRed (Jun 8, 2009)

CPP is a function of what you put into it, just like a DB pension. Want 3 times the payment level? Pay 3 times as much into the system during your working years. Indeed, the recent move to increase YMPE is a step in that direction.


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## OptsyEagle (Nov 29, 2009)

Yes. You can't really ask a person to contribute to their retirement plan then take all the money just before they want it. 

It also makes my point about the ridiculousness and political correctness only, of backing out child rearing years when calculating a person's CPP entitlement. I doubt you would find an RRSP provider that would do the same thing. I am pretty sure they would laugh at you, if you asked.


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## andrewf (Mar 1, 2010)

Call it a 'blue tax'.


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## james4beach (Nov 15, 2012)

I just hope the budget doesn't waste more money on the oil & gas sector, like the $4.5 billion (!) spent on Trans Mountain. What a terrible use of hard working taxpayer dollars.

Other than that I think the current government has done a fine job managing the country's finances. The Canadian economy is one of the strongest in the developed world. The CAD has also been stable ever since Trudeau was elected.


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## AltaRed (Jun 8, 2009)

James, it is a profitable venture with solid returns per regulated tolls and tariffs. The taxpayer is likely getting a better return on TM than on most other things the gov't spends money on.That all said, it will be readily saleable back to private interests once the dust clears on TMEP, sunk costs trying to execute TMEP excepted. You simply don't understand how those things work. The same reasons they once owned a railway and an airline.


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## james4beach (Nov 15, 2012)

It's possible I didn't understand the economics of Trans Mountain. I just hope sufficient due diligence was done before such a massive purchase, along with long term plans. It felt rushed to me and I am not confident that there was sufficient due diligence & research before the purchase.


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## doctrine (Sep 30, 2011)

The Transmountain purchase is a product of the government's anti-investment climate, and another example of capital flight leaving this country for the far better environment in the United States. Kinder Morgan will return that $4.5B to the United States, it will not be reinvested in Canada. 

And I am 100% confident that the Canadian government cannot build the TM expansion as effectively or as efficiently as private capital. They will inevitably divest it at a loss once it is completed. Of this I have no doubt.


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## james4beach (Nov 15, 2012)

So doctrine, it sounds like you'd agree that this was a huge waste of money then?


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## doctrine (Sep 30, 2011)

It is a waste of money because the government should be supporting industry that invests billions of dollars, rather than creating such an unfriendly environment they have to buy the same projects in order to keep them afloat. Kinder Morgan should be building it, not the government. Do you think our main oil competitor, the United States, is having any problems building their own pipelines to get landlocked Permian oil to the Gulf Coast? This is the ultimate sign of domestic government ineptitude.


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## OptsyEagle (Nov 29, 2009)

james4beach said:


> I just hope the budget doesn't waste more money on the oil & gas sector, like the $4.5 billion (!) spent on Trans Mountain. What a terrible use of hard working taxpayer dollars.
> 
> Other than that I think the current government has done a fine job managing the country's finances. The Canadian economy is one of the strongest in the developed world. The CAD has also been stable ever since Trudeau was elected.


This is what I mean. They spent $18 Billion more in 2018 then they earned in revenue and you think they managed the country well. You should be livid. You and every other taxpayers owes someone another $1,000 that will just get tacked onto the many thousands of dollars they already borrowed on our behalf, to collect runaway interest, and you think they did well. This is a growth economy not a recession. 

_$18 BILLION DOLLARS !
_
We are a small country, measured by our very small population. What would you consider doing a bad job look like?

(I apologize for picking on you specifically, I know you are not alone in your views. It does seem like I am though.)


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## RBull (Jan 20, 2013)

OptsyEagle said:


> This is what I mean. They spent $18 Billion more in 2018 then they earned in revenue and you think they managed the country well. You should be livid. You and every other taxpayers owes someone another $1,000 that will just get tacked onto the many thousands of dollars they already borrowed on our behalf, to collect runaway interest, and you think they did well. This is a growth economy not a recession.
> 
> _$18 BILLION DOLLARS !
> _
> ...


No, you're not alone. But it seems we are becoming a rare breed though. Many of our governments fail with managing the countries finances. 

This article in yesterdays NP seemed to raise a good question.

For Liberals, always a good time to spend?

DEFICITS PROVED NEITHER MODEST NOR TEMPORARY.

From page A1 Here’s a very sincere, nonrhetorical question: when would our federal Liberals think that it was a bad time to be ramping up government spending? 

https://nationalpost.com/opinion/ma...-or-bad-the-liberals-see-a-need-to-spend-more


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## like_to_retire (Oct 9, 2016)

OptsyEagle said:


> (I apologize for picking on you specifically, I know you are not alone in your views. It does seem like I am though.)


Yeah, stop being such a bully Optsy. 

Somehow we all knew that budgets wouldn't balance themselves. That 18 billion of course isn't the debt, but the amount added to the debt, so the next year the interest will be even higher, and it compounds, and so on, and so on........

I think deficit spending can work, but only in tough times, and where you are drawing from a surplus that was built up during good times. But if this government is doing so well with our economy as James thinks, then why aren't we budgeting surpluses to draw the debt down?

ltr


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## sags (May 15, 2010)

The problem is that other than claiming they will cut the ever elusive "efficiencies" the Conservatives never say where they would apply cuts to services or benefits.

In Ontario, Doug Ford cut the carbon tax and claimed he would find inefficiencies and not a single job would be lost.

It turns out the "inefficiences" cupboard was bare, already raided by previous governments and he has begun to cut programs and jobs.

With each program and job they cut, the Conservatives lose another swath of voters. By the next election the voters will be looking to make another change.

It is easy to say "cut spending". The hard question is "where".


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## OptsyEagle (Nov 29, 2009)

By the way, I don't want this to sound like I am dumping on the liberals. Except for Flaherty, and I suspect Harper was probably against it, he seemed to be the last one that understood what managing a countries finances is all about. Even he was forced to go deficit in the recession and even he did not turn back after moving to the dark side.

*Deficits and democracy go together like pie and ice cream.* You will not find one without the other. It is because there are only three ways to deal with a budget shortfall. First is to cut spending. Unfortuneately, I don't care who you are, once you are given or promised a government benefit or service, it becomes an entitlement. To cut it is to face the wrath of god. The next is to raise taxes. We all know that the other guy should pay more, not us. Eventually we run out of other guys. Soooo, democracy governments are forced to borrow. Not because they want to, but because the voters want them to. Politicians are a direct reflection of the voters. If running a prudent budget was demanded by voters, that is exactly what they would do. Unfortuneately, voters seem to prefer deficits over the other two options. They don't understand that it is similar to opening up your credit card bill and seeing that someone used $1,000 of your credit for someone else. If this happened, you would be livid, but when the government does it, and they suppress the monthly bill from mailing, the voter seems quite fine with it.

I have a pretty good handle on the tax code. I am pretty sure I can transfer my $1,000 obligation, from last year, to some of the children of other Canadians, even the children of the posters on this forum, but that is not my preferred method of dealing with it. My preferred method is to stop the nonsense, and start acting like responsible adults. For that we need ANGER.


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## AltaRed (Jun 8, 2009)

doctrine said:


> It is a waste of money because the government should be supporting industry that invests billions of dollars, rather than creating such an unfriendly environment they have to buy the same projects in order to keep them afloat. Kinder Morgan should be building it, not the government. Do you think our main oil competitor, the United States, is having any problems building their own pipelines to get landlocked Permian oil to the Gulf Coast? This is the ultimate sign of domestic government ineptitude.


Of course, but that is no longer the business environment here. I just violently disagree the $5.4B is wasted. It is not. We may have paid too much for the existing system (time will tell), perhaps $0.5B too much, but it is highly marketable to a pipeline operator if/when the dust settles on TMEP. In the meantime, they collect all that free cash flow just like KM did and keep it.

I actually don't believe the gov't will build the expansion. It will be sold at some point during the 'build' to the likes of TRP or ENB, or some JV involving one of the pipeline companies as operator. 

Virtually all of the former KM employees are still working as new employees of a crown corp, with only certain American KM folks having been re-patriated to Houston. Canadians remain on the job. I suspect the right team will be assembled for the construction spreads once the green light is given. There are many seasoned veterans on the team either as employees or consultants hired by the Feds. The former head of Northern Gateway, John Carruthers, is one of them. I have worked with him in the past. You guys really need to be more objective.


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## like_to_retire (Oct 9, 2016)

sags said:


> The problem is that other than claiming they will cut the ever elusive "efficiencies" the Conservatives never say where they would apply cuts to services or benefits.
> 
> In Ontario, Doug Ford cut the carbon tax and claimed he would find inefficiencies and not a single job would be lost.
> 
> ...


The trouble is when a government actually does the right thing and makes those cuts, they get voted out, and replaced by the party that promises the moon. 

Those inefficiencies are extremely easy to find. There's more waste in the government than fish in the sea. I worked for the federal government most of my career and the waste is staggering. The process of creating a budget comes from the various departments that make up the Government when they submit their "Estimates" to The Treasury Board Secretariat. These are accumulated from all the department managers who spend a ton of time coming up with their list of planned expenditures and requirements for the future. You can't imagine how creative they have to get to justify the amount of funds and person-years they claim to need. If half your staff is sitting around doing nothing, it doesn't matter, they always need more.

I've long thought if they would just hand me the budget after they've given it their best shot, I could find those cuts. Real easy.

ltr


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## sags (May 15, 2010)

The difficult part is cutting spending without eliminating jobs or services to the public, neither of which have any support from voters.


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## off.by.10 (Mar 16, 2014)

RBull said:


> From page A1 Here’s a very sincere, nonrhetorical question: when would our federal Liberals think that it was a bad time to be ramping up government spending?


Never, obviously  You should look at this from a higher perspective. Liberals spend, cause deficits and use them to justify raising taxes. Conservatives cut taxes, cause deficits and use them to justify cutting programs. It goes round and round.


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## sags (May 15, 2010)

It sounds like a Pharmacare program for everyone and extending mortgage amortizations to 30 years are a couple of items in the budget.


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## sags (May 15, 2010)

off.by.10 said:


> Never, obviously  You should look at this from a higher perspective. Liberals spend, cause deficits and use them to justify raising taxes. Conservatives cut taxes, cause deficits and use them to justify cutting programs. It goes round and round.


Pretty hard to argue with that summation.


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## sags (May 15, 2010)

The Conservatives have countered with eliminating the federal tax on home heating and the carbon tax.


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## sags (May 15, 2010)

I think the Liberals should extend mortgage amortizations up to 100 years. Let's keep the housing ball rolling.


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## RBull (Jan 20, 2013)

sags said:


> The problem is that other than claiming they will cut the ever elusive "efficiencies" the Conservatives never say where they would apply cuts to services or benefits.
> 
> In Ontario, Doug Ford cut the carbon tax and claimed he would find inefficiencies and not a single job would be lost.
> 
> ...


This isn't really a political issue. I thought we were talking about fed budget. We'd all be able to come up with stories on waste/incompetence with different parties at different levels of govt etc. 

There is a ton of waste in government. My father worked his life for feds about 15 yrs in a zone director role, two different departments. I've heard plenty of stories about waste and resistance to being efficient and him being told to spend everything budgeted (unecessarily) by highest level management, so next years wouldn't be cut. I have some friends/acquaintances with similar govt. waste stories. 

This is a problem, growing appetite of voters demanding more benefits from government at any cost and expecting others to pay is a problem, and our election system that encourages governments to think short term and prioritize their own power is a problem. Some governments seems more prone to this than others however. 

Few governments have the guts to make tough financial decisions truly in the long term interest of the country and citizens.


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## RBull (Jan 20, 2013)

off.by.10 said:


> Never, obviously  You should look at this from a higher perspective. Liberals spend, cause deficits and use them to justify raising taxes. Conservatives cut taxes, cause deficits and use them to justify cutting programs. It goes round and round.


This is a quote from NP. Not mine. The higher perspective is to get people to think carefully about what is right for the future of the country now. I've done a lot of that, and acted to provide input. 

It seems you're offering statements that are generalities about parties and not always accurate.


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## AltaRed (Jun 8, 2009)

This document is set up to be an election platform. https://www.fin.gc.ca/n18/data/18-077_1-eng.asp

Expect a few more goodies based on the items therein. I agree something on Pharmacare might be possible. Maybe even another 0.5-1% cut in the 20.5% tax bracket. After all, most voters are in this for themselves, for the here and now.


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## fatcat (Nov 11, 2009)

on tmp expansion, there is the court decision that requires further consultation with first nations, there is a possible court challenge of the recent national energy board decision, there is the still looming threat of bill-c69 and finally there is a cohort of greenies and green organizations like the tides and 350.org ready and willing to fight if it gets past all the above hurdles, it is going to become a cause celebre 

finally there is a weak prime minister who really seems completely ambivalent about the whole project

i don’t see tmp ever getting twinned, it isn’t going to happen, i would love to be proven wrong


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## Eder (Feb 16, 2011)

fatcat said:


> i don’t see tmp ever getting twinned, it isn’t going to happen, i would love to be proven wrong


I have info that Trans Mountain modules are currently under construction in China. I wonder if the Liberals are aware of this as they used our money to buy the project. Maybe we will end up with a few billion of spare parts.


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## AltaRed (Jun 8, 2009)

fatcat said:


> on tmp expansion, there is the court decision that requires further consultation with first nations, there is a possible court challenge of the recent national energy board decision, there is the still looming threat of bill-c69 and finally there is a cohort of greenies and green organizations like the tides and 350.org ready and willing to fight if it gets past all the above hurdles, it is going to become a cause celebre
> 
> finally there is a weak prime minister who really seems completely ambivalent about the whole project
> 
> i don’t see tmp ever getting twinned, it isn’t going to happen, i would love to be proven wrong


Bill C-69 has nothing to do with projects already into the NEB process or approved, and the consultations required by the court are now completed, or near completion. That said, I agree the court challenges are not likely over, and I suspect the wimps in Ottawa might defer a final decision until after the election.


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## Mechanic (Oct 29, 2013)

Let's face it. The budget is mostly a vote buying scheme right now. All the spending on Trudeau's pet projects has to come from somewhere and his government obviously can't manage the countries finances, as they have shown by racking up another $18B in debt. I would like to see a government that runs the country like a business. Markets our resources, does what is in the best interest of the shareholders (us) and cuts all the blatant waste and overspending by management. And let's also cut out all the other waste, like handing out millions of dollars because the management team over 100 years ago didn't do a great job in the way they let you farm your buffalo, or whatever it is. I am so sick every day from watching the waste and corruption manifest itself. Where will it end ?


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## off.by.10 (Mar 16, 2014)

RBull said:


> This is a quote from NP. Not mine. The higher perspective is to get people to think carefully about what is right for the future of the country now. I've done a lot of that, and acted to provide input.


Indeed, I was replying to the question and not really you. I should probably have cut out your name from the quote. But good luck getting people to think carefully. Or even to think at all.


RBull said:


> It seems you're offering statements that are generalities about parties and not always accurate.


Of course, that is the very nature of a high level view. And it may no longer hold 10 years from now, who knows.


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## marina628 (Dec 14, 2010)

I met somebody yesterday who gets $2500 a month in child tax benefits and they are on ODSP receiving $2100 a month ,their wife does not work at all and barely scraping by with $4600 a month take home tax free money.I am in a wheelchair and have made alot of money ,actually more since being disabled .This example is very shocking to me how much free money people are getting.


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## MrMatt (Dec 21, 2011)

Mechanic said:


> Let's face it. The budget is mostly a vote buying scheme right now. All the spending on Trudeau's pet projects has to come from somewhere and his government obviously can't manage the countries finances, as they have shown by racking up another $18B in debt. I would like to see a government that runs the country like a business. Markets our resources, does what is in the best interest of the shareholders (us) and cuts all the blatant waste and overspending by management. And let's also cut out all the other waste, like handing out millions of dollars because the management team over 100 years ago didn't do a great job in the way they let you farm your buffalo, or whatever it is. I am so sick every day from watching the waste and corruption manifest itself. Where will it end ?


https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/affordable-housing-etobicoke-centre-1.5056395

A quarter million per apartment.

The thing is the solution to the housing problem is REALLY simple.
Build more housing, don't live in high demand areas.

If you don't increase supply or decrease demand, you're going to have a problem. 

As far as affordable housing, it's a government created problem, they make it too risky to be a landlord, so nobody wants to be a landlord, and then there is no housing.

Thing is when people believe they owe the government the roof over heads, you know where they are voting, thousands in government funding, again.

But I understand it, irrespective of the problem being decades of bad policy, you give me several thousand a month in Government money, and it's unlikely you're giong to vote against it.
Problem is they're so out of money it isn't funny. There is only a tiny fraction of the population paying all the taxes, it's not sustainable.


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## agent99 (Sep 11, 2013)

AltaRed said:


> Of course, but that is no longer the business environment here. I just violently disagree the $5.4B is wasted. It is not. We may have paid too much for the existing system (time will tell), perhaps $0.5B too much, but it is highly marketable to a pipeline operator if/when the dust settles on TMEP. In the meantime, they collect all that free cash flow just like KM did and keep it.
> 
> I actually don't believe the gov't will build the expansion. It will be sold at some point during the 'build' to the likes of TRP or ENB, or some JV involving one of the pipeline companies as operator.
> 
> Virtually all of the former KM employees are still working as new employees of a crown corp, with only certain American KM folks having been re-patriated to Houston. Canadians remain on the job. I suspect the right team will be assembled for the construction spreads once the green light is given. There are many seasoned veterans on the team either as employees or consultants hired by the Feds. The former head of Northern Gateway, John Carruthers, is one of them. I have worked with him in the past. You guys really need to be more objective.


I am happy to hear this. What sort of return is the government getting on the money they invested in the property purchased from K-M?


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## sags (May 15, 2010)

No sense building homes where there are no jobs and companies won't locate there because they require infrastructure in place.


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## AltaRed (Jun 8, 2009)

agent99 said:


> I am happy to hear this. What sort of return is the government getting on the money they invested in the property purchased from K-M?


You'd have to go into the previous KM (Canada) financials to see what the cash generation is from existing operations. They should be readily available as part of KM Canada going public and having Canadian shareholders.

I am guessing the NEB regulated tolls and tariffs would allow a 6-7% rate of return on rate base.

Added: One bit of info I found https://www.kindermorgancanadalimited.com/content/docs/KML_2018_financial_guidance.pdf

And the 2017 Annual Report for you http://quote.morningstar.com/stock-...SE:KML&ft=&d=300a1dc8de6ec631a917faa34763a613 Though I don't remember offhand how much KML Canada kept for themselves, e.g. the Edmonton terminal? Would have to dig into the details.


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## agent99 (Sep 11, 2013)

AltaRed said:


> You'd have to go into the previous KM (Canada) financials to see what the cash generation is from existing operations. They should be readily available as part of KM Canada going public and having Canadian shareholders.


From this link, it looks like the assets bought from K-M are earning about $200Millio pa. 4.4%? If so, that's not such a bad deal for taxpayers. Assume some construction is continuing and eventually the project will be sold and the investment recovered.


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## james4beach (Nov 15, 2012)

doctrine said:


> Do you think our main oil competitor, the United States, is having any problems building their own pipelines


I can't comment on American pipelines, but the USA does spend massive amounts of government (public) money on their big industries. They have huge defense spending, and have also pumped billions of $ into their financial industry, and even tech/silicon valley a generation or two ago. So if we're using the USA as a model... and I'm not sure we should... the government would in fact be spending huge amounts of money to assist corporations. I currently work for a US company that is doing terrifically well, and the company has benefitted from direct US govt funding.

The argument could be made that energy is a core Canadian industry, just as defense/military is a core American industry.

Again I don't actually think we should aspire to do what the USA does, but my point is that the US spends huge amounts of public money on their big industries. So if someone wants to make the argument that we should do more of what America does, that means we have to really increase the public money given to corps via grants, major projects, multi-year contracts.


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## humble_pie (Jun 7, 2009)

AltaRed said:


> I just violently disagree the $5.4B is wasted. It is not. We may have paid too much for the existing system (time will tell), perhaps $0.5B too much, but it is highly marketable to a pipeline operator if/when the dust settles on TMEP. In the meantime, they collect all that free cash flow just like KM did and keep it.
> 
> I actually don't believe the gov't will build the expansion. It will be sold at some point during the 'build' to the likes of TRP or ENB, or some JV involving one of the pipeline companies as operator.
> 
> Virtually all of the former KM employees are still working as new employees of a crown corp, with only certain American KM folks having been re-patriated to Houston. Canadians remain on the job. I suspect the right team will be assembled for the construction spreads once the green light is given. There are many seasoned veterans on the team either as employees or consultants hired by the Feds. The former head of Northern Gateway, John Carruthers, is one of them. I have worked with him in the past. You guys really need to be more objective.




always happy to hear altaRed's reasonable voice describing reality in the O&G world

yes the gummint bought kinder morgan canada but they didn't buy a bottomless money pit, it's an operating money-making business

there's still a lot of work to be done working w the remaining indigenous nations in BC who oppose what they perceive as invasions of their sovereign territory. But since so many other indigenous nations see the benefits of supporting the enlarged transMountain pipe, i'm very hopeful on this score.

here's another positive note from eastern canada that was also originally germinated in cmf forum by altaRed. Has to do with the Valero refinery at Levis quebec (south shore of the st-lawrence river, opposite quebec city) which in 2015 inaugurated a new pipeline link from the Enbridge line ending in montreal east, to valero's jean-gaulin refinery at levis.

this pipeline is carrying alberta dilbit from the enbridge montreal terminal to valero's refinery for processing.

recently, Parkland fuels out of calgary purchased the quebec fuel distributor Ultramar. Gas stations, propane, diesel & home heating oil delivery systems are still operating under the ultramar brand name, but it's all really parkland fuels.

parkland/ultramar is obtaining all of its fuel products from the valero refinery at levis. Recently i learned that the above-mentioned 2015 pipeline from montreal east to levis is bi-directional, ie there are several pipes wrapped inside the principal structure. It transports alberta dilbit eastward *to* the refinery at levis & it also transports refined products such as gasoline, diesel fuel, propane, aircraft fuel westward *from* the refinery to the company's storage tanks in montreal east, where the ultramar/parkland fuel delivery trucks are able to load up.

recently we became ultramar/parkland customers for both city & country homes, buying home heating oil along with diesel & propane for the country property. Also buying gasoline at ultramar/parkland gas stations. Everything going very well. 

calgary's Parkland seems very happy here in quebec. What they bought, when they purchased ultramar, was texas-based Valero's excellent long-term relationship with the quebec gummint.

in these fractious times, it's important imho to counter the alarmists & the fake news flame-throwers with facts about the parts of reality that are ticking along just fine. IMHO we need to support those positive parts, each & every one.


.


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## sags (May 15, 2010)

If the pipeline is being competently operated and is profitable, I would see no reason to sell it to a private company.

The government doesn't need the money back and the pipeline provides a steady flow of revenue.

The government effectively nationalized the pipeline without creating a political ripple.


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## OptsyEagle (Nov 29, 2009)

sags said:


> If the pipeline is being competently operated and is profitable, I would see no reason to sell it to a private company.


I am pretty sure that you have accidently put those sentences in reverse. If you want it run competently and profitably, they will need to sell it to a private company.


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## like_to_retire (Oct 9, 2016)

sags said:


> The government doesn't need the money back...............


You may have forgotten about that pesky 18 billion dollar deficit.

ltr


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## sags (May 15, 2010)

OptsyEagle said:


> I am pretty sure that you have accidently put those sentences in reverse. If you want it run competently and profitably, they will need to sell it to a private company.


Government already operates businesses that are profitable. In Ontario the LCBO and Beer Store are very profitable Crown corporations. The sale of the Hwy 407 to private interests is considered a big mistake by many taxpayers because it is a revenue generating cash cow. Federally, the CPPIB seems to manage Canadian's retirement savings as well or better than private industry.

If the pipeline is already profitable run by competent management, there is nothing for the government has to do beyond raking in a steady revenue stream.

If the government sells the pipeline the majority of the profits could well go to the US or other foreign countries. Why accept a little when you own it all ?

Private business has displayed no special skills to increase the profits more than those already operating the pipeline.

If deficits are a concern, the profit can be applied to the debt every year.


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## andrewf (Mar 1, 2010)

like_to_retire said:


> You may have forgotten about that pesky 18 billion dollar deficit.
> 
> ltr


How does selling a $5B pipeline meaningfully impact an $18B/year deficit? It's like selling your couch to make a mortgage payment.

Notwithstanding the fact that $18B deficit is not large or even unsustainable for the federal government. Around these levels debt:GDP remains stable or declines. I would prefer it declines further, but this sort of deficit is not a crisis.


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## andrewf (Mar 1, 2010)

sags said:


> Government already operates businesses that are profitable. In Ontario the LCBO and Beer Store are very profitable Crown corporations. The sale of the Hwy 407 to private interests is considered a big mistake by many taxpayers because it is a revenue generating cash cow. Federally, the CPPIB seems to manage Canadian's retirement savings as well or better than private industry.
> 
> If the pipeline is already profitable run by competent management, there is nothing for the government has to do beyond raking in a steady revenue stream.
> 
> ...


The Beer Store is privately owned by a consortium of brewers. The LCBO has a monopoly on selling a vice, and can set their own prices. Hard for them not to be profitable.


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## agent99 (Sep 11, 2013)

Don't see why beer and wine shouldn't be sold in supermarkets like they are in USA where domestic beer is less that $1.00/can.

One Lowes Foods supermarket here in SC has an area where you can sit and have a draft beer (actually max of two) or wine while you take a break from shopping. You have to pay for it, but low price. They also have free coffee for shoppers.

Hard to imagine in Ontario, but we can buy beer, wine and liquor on open shelves at our local Ontario gas station convenience store! Even a single can of beer!


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## andrewf (Mar 1, 2010)

Beer isn't cheap because it is sold in grocery stores, or at least not primarily. Alcohol is much less taxed in most states. The tax is as much about harm reduction as revenue raising, similar as with cigarettes.


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## sags (May 15, 2010)

Nationalizing a pipeline would come with a great political debate. Retaining ownership in this one is an equivalent without the political hoopla.

I say we keep it and collect fat profits for decades to come.


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## agent99 (Sep 11, 2013)

sags said:


> I say we keep it and collect fat profits for decades to come.


At present, income only seems to cover cost of the capital. It will have to be built before fat profits can be collected. If that ever happens, I just hope we don't give it away for a song.


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## humble_pie (Jun 7, 2009)

i doubt they could sell transMountain until all the indigenous objections have been settled

what private company would buy such a complex project with so much opposition still festering


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## sags (May 15, 2010)

True Humble, and if they can manage to do that the pipeline would be a lot more valuable, profitable and worth keeping.


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## MrMatt (Dec 21, 2011)

humble_pie said:


> i doubt they could sell transMountain until all the indigenous objections have been settled
> 
> what private company would buy such a complex project with so much opposition still festering


They'll never settle the pipeline issues. Trudeau wants to destroy the oil industry. He doesn't care how much it costs in jobs or dollars, as long as it isn't votes in Liberal ridings.
He's actively trying to shut down jobs in my area, of course that happens to be heavily NDP.


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## AltaRed (Jun 8, 2009)

humble_pie said:


> i doubt they could sell transMountain until all the indigenous objections have been settled
> 
> what private company would buy such a complex project with so much opposition still festering


The existing line is an operating entity and is the one making a return on investment. It is the expansion that is the issue, and I agree no private entity is going to buy the 'whole package' until, and if, all court issues are settled and the line is well under construction. If the expansion dies a permanent death, the existing entity is highly saleable back to private industry.


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## doctrine (Sep 30, 2011)

james4beach said:


> I can't comment on American pipelines, but the USA does spend massive amounts of government (public) money on their big industries. They have huge defense spending, and have also pumped billions of $ into their financial industry, and even tech/silicon valley a generation or two ago. So if we're using the USA as a model... and I'm not sure we should... the government would in fact be spending huge amounts of money to assist corporations. I currently work for a US company that is doing terrifically well, and the company has benefitted from direct US govt funding.
> 
> The argument could be made that energy is a core Canadian industry, just as defense/military is a core American industry.
> 
> Again I don't actually think we should aspire to do what the USA does, but my point is that the US spends huge amounts of public money on their big industries. So if someone wants to make the argument that we should do more of what America does, that means we have to really increase the public money given to corps via grants, major projects, multi-year contracts.


The US government is not spending any money on their pipelines. But they support their own industries. And attack foreign ones, including Canadian. Look at Keystone XL - blocked for 13 years now. Yet, there are the equivalent of 8 times the volume of Keystone XL pipelines in excess of 6 million barrels of oil a day under construction or being planned to move Permian oil to the Gulf Coast. That oil hasn't fully displaced Canadian oil, but it is only a matter of time. 

The Americans will, if they can, fully replace Canadian oil with their own domestic oil. Blocking Canadian oil will only ruin our economy while having zero effect on worldwide oil consumption or carbon emissions.

It is like shooting ourselves in the feet multiple times, 5 times to be specific, once for every pipeline blocked or cancelled by the current Liberal government. 

The Canadian economy is one report away from being in recession. These $18 billion dollar deficits that look so nice and affordable when GDP is growing by 3% a year will rapidly spiral out of control when the economy is shrinking due to the uncompetitive and unsupported economic and taxation policies in effect. What, shall we raise taxes again on corporations once the recession hits? Surely they will all stick around and invest more here because we're worth it.


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## doctrine (Sep 30, 2011)

sags said:


> Nationalizing a pipeline would come with a great political debate. Retaining ownership in this one is an equivalent without the political hoopla.
> 
> I say we keep it and collect fat profits for decades to come.


Only the government would buy a 60 year old pipeline and think they can collect fat profits for decades to come. As it ages, it requires more capital investment to maintain and will become uneconomic as flows are reduced and the money disappears. TM is nearing end of life. We can't even upgrade an old pipeline that is already in the ground with full legal and historic right-of-way, let alone build new ones.


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## humble_pie (Jun 7, 2009)

doctrine said:


> It is like shooting ourselves in the feet multiple times, 5 times to be specific, once for every pipeline blocked or cancelled by the current Liberal government.



pardon me for being so dumb, but which were the 5 different pipelines blocked or cancelled by the current liberal gummint?

i don't know of any

Energy East was never blocked or cancelled by current liberal gummint or any other gummint other than the then-mayor of montreal, who is long gone. Interestingly, while speaking out against extension of the TRP Mainline through quebec to new brunswick, that same mayor quietly OK'd a brand new pipeline to carry alberta dilbit from montreal east to the big tidewater Valero refinery at levis quebec. The dilbit pipe was inaugurated in january 2015. 

valero's refinery can only take a certain proportion of alberta dilbit so its new pipeline is not any kind of total solution for alberta. Nevertheless it is an important baby step in the right directon.

montreal's current mayor valerie plante is not anti-pipeline. Newly-elected quebec premier francois legault is more anti-pipeline than his liberal party predecessor philippe couillard; although the entire issue is not headline news at the moment in this province & could probably be resurrected.

TRP quit Energy East on their own. They simply withdrew. There was substantial indigenous nation opposition to Energy East from all across canada. The company had just ended 13 long years of exceptionally hard & patient work on Keystone XL in the US, all of which had failed in US jurisdictions, at least for the time being. Facing the same travail in canada was simply more than the company could undertake at the time.

the common practice for right-wing conservatives to bash trudeau liberals for having destroyed 2-3-4-5 pipelines is a grotesque piece of propaganda. There is not a germ of truth to the accusation. Keystone XL in particular was blocked by levels of US gummint from the white house on down, during stephen harper's tenure as prime minister.


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## sags (May 15, 2010)

I think every Canadian over the age of 65 should receive a lifetime Via Rail pass to travel coach class for free across Canada. (My uncle has one from CP Rail)

It would encourage seniors to remain active and visit the country. It would provide a strong source of income to Via Rail to spend on infrastructure improvements.

The additional ridership would create the demand for better service by Via Rail.

The cost could be paid by lowering the OAS claw back level.


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## humble_pie (Jun 7, 2009)

sags said:


> I think every Canadian over the age of 65 should receive a lifetime Via Rail pass to travel coach class for free across Canada. (My uncle has one from CP Rail)
> 
> It would encourage seniors to remain active and visit the country. It would provide a strong source of income to Via Rail to spend on infrastructure improvements.
> 
> ...





sags u are going to receive such a ribbing over this one, better duck now

lower the OAS threshhold? rob rich seniors so middle-class seniors can go swanning across canada?

& where's the "strong source of income to Via Rail?" surely you're not saying the federal gummint should pay Via for every middle class senior who wants to swan from belleville ontario to banff alberta?

there are excesses being paid to seniors right now & a few cmffers have posted some great analytics on what those excesses are & how to trim them. Especially welcome imho are suggestions on how to put a TFSA back into a wealth profile when calculating eligibility for the GIS.

doesn't Via Rail sometimes offer senior discounts anyhow? like buy one ticket, friend travels for free? hey that's already 50% off


.


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## humble_pie (Jun 7, 2009)

doctrine said:


> Only the government would buy a 60 year old pipeline and think they can collect fat profits for decades to come. As it ages, it requires more capital investment to maintain and will become uneconomic as flows are reduced and the money disappears. TM is nearing end of life. We can't even upgrade an old pipeline that is already in the ground with full legal and historic right-of-way, let alone build new ones.



my understanding from what i've read is that large parts of expanded transMountain will be brand-new pipe installation using the ROW. In certain locations, from maps i've seen, new transMountain will deviate from the old ROW & a new ROW will have to be maintained. 

this new build is one of the principal objections coming from the enviros. It's a brand-new pipeline that's environmentally dangerous, they keep insisting.


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## AltaRed (Jun 8, 2009)

Humble, it is fair to say Energy East was stymied by the Federal gov't. Once it was seen that there would be no federal support, never mind a full court press, to counter both the Quebec premier and especially the Montreal mayor, TRP wisely recognized those were political headwinds that were not worth fighting. They saw what happened with the Feds effectively killing Northern Gateway. 

It was really only Quebec interests that really stood in the way of Energy East, wacko activists notwithstanding. Montreal in particular, just was not prepared to have that volume of dilbit flow through the city enroute to Saint John tidewater for export. Ultimately Valero likely would have invested more capital to handle more dilbit and even Irving would have likely invested capital to handle at least some dilbit but the bulk of the volume was indeed meant for export. Better for TRP to spend their capital elsewhere, e.g. the USA. I agree the politics have changed some in Quebec but the overall environment is still not receptive and is at the whim of the next election. Big projects are 5+ years in the making and without strong grassroot support that spans a decade. It seems that it just isn't going to happen in Canada any more. 

It is fair to say that even very large corporations are not going to risk hundreds of millions of dollars trying to push a mega-project through if they don't have political support. It is much easier to go elsewhere in the world where they are more welcome. I spent 2 years in global planning at the HQ of our multi-national, in which projects were prioritized around the world. Even in the 1990's, Canada was considered a relatively high risk place to invest due to the lack of balls in federal/provincial capitals and that has only magnified by orders of magnitude. 

For those that say existing TM is an old pipeline that will die soon, news of its imminent death are greatly exaggerated. The line is old, but there can be decades of life left albeit replacement capex is required on an ongoing basis to maintain pumps, pigging stations, valving and even storage terminal repairs. Even some sections of pipe in certain soils may need replacement but good preventative maintenance with pigging, ultrasonic monitoring and cathodic protection does wonders for longevity. I don't know the circumstances behind the deterioration of Enbridge's Line 3 that was originally built in the very early 1960s, but it is unusual to replace a line that quickly. There are crude and product lines in the USA from at least the '50s, if not the '30s and '40s that still operate at high levels of performance.


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## AltaRed (Jun 8, 2009)

humble_pie said:


> my understanding from what i've read is that large parts of expanded transMountain will be brand-new pipe installation using the ROW. In certain locations, from maps i've seen, new transMountain will deviate from the old ROW & a new ROW will have to be maintained.
> 
> this new build is one of the principal objections coming from the enviros. It's a brand-new pipeline that's environmentally dangerous, they keep insisting.



Interestingly, had Kinder Morgan instead done a a series of new loops on the old line over a period of 10 years, little of this might have been a lightening rod. It is simply a lot less disruptive and more cost effective to build a new parallel line. The activism is less about the pipeline itself than it is a lightening rod for a bunch of 'social ills'. I strongly recommend folks read Chris Turner's book 'The Patch' to get a sense of oil sands history. If nothing else, at a high level, it explains how pipelines got to become the focus of activist protest. I learned a number of things from that book though I have not yet quite finished reading it. Good insight.

A total new line for expanded volumes makes the most economic sense rather than a series of loops. Staying on existing ROW is the obvious best solution where that is feasible, and pipeline operators would definitely not prefer to obtain and maintain additional new ROW. Sometimes it is just not feasible to use existing ROW, such as excessive urbanization. KM would not have deviated if that was not necessary and all of that would have been thoroughly considered by the NEB. We shouldn't armchair quarterback the decisions taken.


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## humble_pie (Jun 7, 2009)

AltaRed said:


> Humble, it is fair to say Energy East was stymied by the Federal gov't. Once it was seen that there would be no federal support, never mind a full court press, to counter both the Quebec premier and especially the Montreal mayor, TRP wisely recognized those were political headwinds that were not worth fighting. They saw what happened with the Feds effectively killing Northern Gateway.



thankx very much for taking the time to pen this long post. I promise i will digest every single valuable word very carefully! and thank you for stewarding this most core of canadian topics - pipelines - so well in cmf forum.

but for the time being, on a preliminary basis, might i question your statement about then-quebec premier philippe couillard. I cannot find any records indicating that couillard ever opposed Energy East. Do you know of such statements? is it possible that this is just another western-based attack-quebec myth?

all that couillard said, to best of my knowledge, is that EE could pollute some water systems. Which is perfectly true. The pipe traverses the lower ottawa river at its junction with the st-lawrence. Immediately upstream from the city of montreal, which obtains all of its water from that same water system. 

of course this is a concern to montrealers. 

it's my understanding that current alberta dilbit flow through the Enbridge line has had to be reduced in order to lower pressure, since the engineers are not sure the old pipes are able to tolerate the higher pressures that full dilbit transmission would produce. It's my further understanding that the same concern applies to the aging transCanada Mainline pipes (there are said to be 3 separate pipes inside the structure)

what i like about the new Valero-Parkland fuels pipeline is that it's a small baby step. I'm a huge believer in real progress via baby steps.

valero & parkland/ultramar are today providing excellent, reasonably priced fuel delivery services to farmers, city dwellers, vehicle drivers & businesses everywhere, throughout quebec, across large parts of ontario & northeastern USA. That new montreal east-levis pipeline is a flagship for further advances that could be built, provided it works without untoward incident. Which i am confident it will.

might i also mention something i've posted in the past. Scribes as you know are always looking for tomorrow's story, for the about-to-break news. My hunch is that the valero vs transCanada pipe story has to do with valero's long-time success in getting along in this province. If i were officially doing a story about why valero has succeeded long-term whereas TRP's short-term Energy East initiative failed, i'd be looking for subtle issues like valero's hiring practices.

has valero, for example, always followed a practice of hiring french-speaking engineers, say out of Laval University, which is situated right there across the st-lawrence river? has valero, across the decades it's owned the jean-gaulln refinery at levis, ensconced itself comfortably in the almost entirely french-speaking culture that surrounds it? geographically speaking, the jean-gaulin is located in a small levis suburb named saint-romuald, i am telling you, st-romuald is about as pure laine/vieille souche as it gets!

how a company behaves in a community very much affects its integration into that community & ultimately its success.

i wasn't active when Energy East was being discussed. Certainly observed that there were enviro extremists, including outsiders who came here to protest. Certainly observed that the Mohawk at Oka were opposing Energy East fiercely, also mohawk nations along the TRP route in eastern ontario.

as for Northern Gateway, why are we even discussing it? there was such massive indigenous opposition all along its supposed route through BC that the project was dead in the water almost from the getgo. Nothing to do with the federal gummint, which is now trying to deal with the same opposing indigenous nations over the proposed LNG terminal at kitimat.

.


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## humble_pie (Jun 7, 2009)

AltaRed said:


> A total new line for expanded volumes [transMountain] makes the most economic sense rather than a series of loops. Staying on existing ROW is the obvious best solution where that is feasible, and pipeline operators would definitely not prefer to obtain and maintain additional new ROW. Sometimes it is just not feasible to use existing ROW, such as excessive urbanization. KM would not have deviated if that was not necessary and all of that would have been thoroughly considered by the NEB. We shouldn't armchair quarterback the decisions taken.



oh i wasn't implying that KM should not have deviated from old ROW or should not have built new, quite the contrary. I was replying to a poster who condemned the transMountain pipe because it's 60 years old & end-of-life.

of course the KM engineers designed new TMP based on contemporary environomics. Of course there are better deviations from the old ROW, better technologies available today. I'm not armchairing, you're not armchairing; but evidently there are still some indigenous nations & some enviros who are armchairing/opposing.

me i thought the germ of the idea to offer indigenous nations more ownership of the eventual transMountain pipe was a good idea. It would be horrifically challenging to figure out How-To, since some of the nations have no money & would have to take loans against future production revenue sharing. I would not be in favour of offering full ownership to any minority partner though.


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## AltaRed (Jun 8, 2009)

There are dozens of links via Google search 'montreal opposes energy east" that talk about Quebec/Montreal opposition to Energy East in the 2015/2016 time period, albeit not the only ones, e.g. some indigenous and activist groups. Certainly there were legitimate concerns but all concerns that have been managed time and again through hundreds of thousands of kilometres of pipelines in North America. Ultimately, there were just too many headwinds to keep pushing on a rope and TRP can invest in more friendly places. I would do the same in that position.

The Valero situation is very different in that it needed an alternate source of supply to diversify and protect itself from sole reliance on imports (risk management), and perhaps most importantly benefits were essentially fully accretive to Quebec. It was also relatively insignificant in size compared to Energy East. Not only that, Energy East was mostly a 'pass through' and it got social attention. Regardless of all the reasons and nuances that ebbed and flowed, that ship has sailed.

Again, I will suggest the Chris Turner book for an assessment of how the planets all lined up to make pipelines the lightning rod for all that is ill in the world. It is about 300 pages, some of the early chapters take a bit of patience slogging through but sets the framework for the latter chapters. I think Chris has done a good job of objectivity on how the oil sands itself, and Harper's government of the day, became precursors for the pipeline mess.


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## humble_pie (Jun 7, 2009)

AltaRed said:


> There are dozens of links via Google search 'montreal opposes energy east" that talk about Quebec/Montreal opposition to Energy East in the 2015/2016 time period, albeit not the only ones, e.g. some indigenous and activist groups.



i was specifically asking why you said, just upthread, that the quebec premier himself had opposed Energy East.

once again, there is no evidence that then-premier philippe couillard ever opposed Energy East. All couillard said is that a dilbit pipe could put the lower ottawa-st-lawrence river system, which supplies montreal & all surrounding municipalities with water, at risk. Couillard was 100% correct in saying that.

it's not enough to wave off questioners with vague references to google search. You are the latest to accuse quebec province with officially denying Energy East. It's only fair to ask What, exactly, is your Evidence?

once again, my take is that transCanada simply gave up. Worn out, in fact burned out, by more than a decade of US opposition to keystone XL.

the ugly accusation that premier couillard was responsible for Energy East withdrawal, or that justin trudeau was responsible for Energy East withdrawal, looks like just another anti-quebec urban myth. Another myth of the type that angry westerners keep launching these days. Unfortunately we've seen many such accusations here in cmf forum.


.


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## doctrine (Sep 30, 2011)

humble_pie said:


> my understanding from what i've read is that large parts of expanded transMountain will be brand-new pipe installation using the ROW. In certain locations, from maps i've seen, new transMountain will deviate from the old ROW & a new ROW will have to be maintained.
> 
> this new build is one of the principal objections coming from the enviros. It's a brand-new pipeline that's environmentally dangerous, they keep insisting.


Very dangerous. The Fraser river will run black with oil, only slightly diluted by the tears of environmentalists who knew better.


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## AltaRed (Jun 8, 2009)

humble_pie said:


> i was specifically asking why you said, just upthread, that the quebec premier himself had opposed Energy East.
> 
> once again, there is no evidence that then-premier philippe couillard ever opposed Energy East. All couillard said is that a dilbit pipe could put the lower ottawa-st-lawrence river system, which supplies montreal & all surrounding municipalities with water, at risk. Couillard was 100% correct in saying that.
> 
> ...


I believe you are correct in that he did not say no unequivocally. He and Wynne did impose 7 conditions. https://canadians.org/fr/node/11862 Some of them likely not achievable given what I read in the link. TRP rightfully threw in the towel once the Feds banned oil tankers off Kitimat/Prince Rupert effectively killing Northern Gateway. Again, it is important to understand timing and sequence of events. TRP rightfully threw in the towel. They were going to end up wasting hundreds of millions of dollars of shareholder money not recoverable in the rate base.


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## fatcat (Nov 11, 2009)

i want to second pie’s commendation of your deep knowledge of the energy space ar, thanks for your many insightful posts ...


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## kcowan (Jul 1, 2010)

sags said:


> I think every Canadian over the age of 65 should receive a lifetime Via Rail pass to travel coach class for free across Canada. (My uncle has one from CP Rail)
> 
> It would encourage seniors to remain active and visit the country. It would provide a strong source of income to Via Rail to spend on infrastructure improvements.


I vote for this as the non-sequitur of the year so far!


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## kcowan (Jul 1, 2010)

fatcat said:


> i want to second pie’s commendation of your deep knowledge of the energy space ar, thanks for your many insightful posts ...


and I also think you have displayed great balance in your assessments AR.

The fact that international companies are abandoning infrastructure investment in Canada is the ultimate sign that our governments have failed us. The social programs will have to be funded by higher taxes, further discouraging investment expansion.


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## james4beach (Nov 15, 2012)

Absolutely tragic, I guess, this lack of love & tenderness for the besieged energy industry by the government. The giant energy corporations have it so tough! Government is trying to destroy them!

The one thing I can't square, however, is the presence of so many ultra wealthy people from oil & gas, including on this forum. The money diaries on this site illustrates the immense wealth attained by these people as they extracted Canada's resources out of the ground for personal profit.

I have a wee bit of trouble believing that the energy industry is so unloved, constantly attacked by the government, to the point it ruins business conditions. I know the salary level of energy sector workers, and the numbers in the money diaries show just how rapidly these people have been able to build wealth.

For an industry that is supposedly under tremendous attack by our horrible governments, people who work in that sector sure do make a ton of money and become very wealthy.


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## sags (May 15, 2010)

AR is an expert and I ain't but,

The problem I have with pipelines and oil is that so many "experts" disagree with each other.

Many say we need pipelines and then others come on the business news and say pipelines will be white elephants in the future. They call them "pipelines to nowhere"

It would be a lot easier for Canadians to support pipelines and other oil projects if the experts provided a consensus of opinion supporting them.

I guess I have to make a judgement based on my own knowledge of the complex oil network......which is diddly squat.


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## sags (May 15, 2010)

kcowan said:


> I vote for this as the non-sequitur of the year so far!


I throw that in the mix every year.


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## agent99 (Sep 11, 2013)

sags said:


> I think every Canadian over the age of 65 should receive a lifetime Via Rail pass to travel coach class for free across Canada. (My uncle has one from CP Rail)
> 
> It would encourage seniors to remain active and visit the country. It would provide a strong source of income to Via Rail to spend on infrastructure improvements.
> 
> ...


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## AltaRed (Jun 8, 2009)

sags said:


> The problem I have with pipelines and oil is that so many "experts" disagree with each other.
> 
> Many say we need pipelines and then others come on the business news and say pipelines will be white elephants in the future. They call them "pipelines to nowhere"
> 
> ...


The trouble is most so called experts are not experts, but individuals with opinions and agendas. They simply throw data around with intentional misrepresentation to suit their purposes. Sags, please buy and read the book "The Patch" by Chris Turner. About 300 pages and he does an excellent, and objective, job of explaining the oil sands industry and how we got to the pipeline crises we are in today. The early chapters are laborious but set the stage for the latter chapters where it really comes together in an 'ah ha' moment. Tip: The industry itself and primarily the Harper governments of the day provided the basis for pipelines becoming lightening rods for activism. It is not pipelines themselves that are the issue. It is everything else leading up to the pipelines......

As for whether oil is needed in the future, this McKinsey report https://www.mckinsey.com/solutions/...~/media/231FB01E4937431B8BA070CC55AA572E.ashx provides a very nice summary of a Reference Case for oil to 2035, and an Accelerated Case for oil to 2035. It may be a bit hard for a layman to follow, but is worth some time and effort. Slide 19 kind of says it all. The Reference Case suggests oil demand will still be 108 million barrels a day in 2035 despite considerable uptake in EVs and recycling of plastics, but could be 82 million barrels per day in 2035 in an accelerated EV case. For context, global oil demand is expected to be ~100-101 million barrels per day by the end of 2019. 

Even at the low demand case, hundreds of billions of dollars will need to be spent to develop new sources of declining existing oil supplies over the next 15 years. There is no scenario where existing production will be stranded simply due to the rate of decline of production. Much of the global oil supply operates on a R/P ratio of 10 or so, i.e. 10 years of reserves at a set production level.... meaning an annual decline in the range of 5-6% per year. That means natural supply decline will far exceed any global oil demand declines under any scenario. News of oil's death is greatly exaggerated.

We don't know all the underlying assumptions in the McKinsey report so obviously the conclusions need to be taken with a grain of salt, but in every case in the oil demand charts, the highest variability in where oil supply comes from will be from the offshore. Oil sands volumes will remain virtually unchanged in either scenario (slight growth in the Reference Case, about status quo in the Accelerated Case). Why is that? It is because the refineries configured for dilbit will continue to want dilbit, and the mines that provide synthetic oil are sunk costs and the SCO goes primarily to land constrained refineries not on tidewater. News of Canada's oil export death are greately exaggerated. Does the industry need 3 more export sources, i.e. TMEP, Enbridge Line 3 and Keystone XL? Maybe not but Enbridge Line 3 and TMEP will indeed be long term survivors with ready markets. I think Keystone XL may be most at risk, but that is partly dependent on Venezuela's oil industry not being competitive. Hard to know if South America and Venezuela in particular will ever get their act together. 

I have reasonable certainty that global oil demand will be somewhere within the McKinsey range of numbers depending on their gross assumptions on GDP growth which I don't know, and I have reasonable certainty Canada will be able to maintain, and even increase, export volumes provided our politicians don't try to kill it any more than they currently are. We need to remember Canada's volumes are a fairly small part of the overall global supply/demand picture. Our 4 million barrels per day or so is a pretty small part of the overall picture.


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## AltaRed (Jun 8, 2009)

james4beach said:


> The one thing I can't square, however, is the presence of so many ultra wealthy people from oil & gas, including on this forum. The money diaries on this site illustrates the immense wealth attained by these people as they extracted Canada's resources out of the ground for personal profit.
> 
> I have a wee bit of trouble believing that the energy industry is so unloved, constantly attacked by the government, to the point it ruins business conditions. I know the salary level of energy sector workers, and the numbers in the money diaries show just how rapidly these people have been able to build wealth.
> 
> For an industry that is supposedly under tremendous attack by our horrible governments, people who work in that sector sure do make a ton of money and become very wealthy.


That is because you are seeing a concentrated group of professional and technical oil people here from an industry that provides a very high GDP per capita. Oil and gas production is perhaps the least labour intensive industry in Canada.

Additionally, working conditions, on an overall basis, except for the relatively few technical and professional individuals in offices, are rather harsh at the best of times. They are tough jobs demanding great physical perseverance, e.g. like the vacuum truck operator who is called up at 3am to come to a rig site in -30C weather, or the roughneck on a drilling rig, or an upgrader compressor technician that is called out at 2am to repair a compressor. or the oil sands truck operator at an oil sands mine in a 3am rainstorm, or..... They have to be paid those wages to attract workers to the industry.

Yes, there are other industries that have tough working environments but the O&G industry (and mining) stand out. Armchair quarterbacking of the type you have just articulated come from a place of lack of knowledge and ignorance. Don't berate if you have not walked in their shoes.

P.S. O&G companies are not charities. They don't pay more than they have too... any more than any other industry. It is just that they have to pay what they have to pay to attract the kinds of workers they need. Further footnote: Few O&G office professionals get paid more than others if they have standard 40 hour office jobs. The thousands that work for O&G companies or the likes of Fluor, SNC, etc. are not wealthy.


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## peterk (May 16, 2010)

james4beach said:


> Absolutely tragic, I guess, this lack of love & tenderness for the besieged energy industry by the government. The giant energy corporations have it so tough! Government is trying to destroy them!
> 
> The one thing I can't square, however, is the presence of so many ultra wealthy people from oil & gas, including on this forum. The money diaries on this site illustrates the immense wealth attained by these people as they extracted Canada's resources out of the ground for personal profit.
> 
> ...


Would you like a supposed donation? :biggrin:


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## OnlyMyOpinion (Sep 1, 2013)

James has a case of sour grapes. Well- paying jobs for Canadians across the country, from all walks of life are bad for the economy I guess? 

Unlike James, I'll assume many people simply don't fully understand the importance of resources to Canada's economy and the carnage that has occurred. Its easier to understand a GM plant where 2500 people walk through the gate.

I do see some instances of smugness like James expresses though. People gloating that Alberta has taken a fall, 100k out of work, Calgary w the highest unempl in the country, downtown gutted.

Trust me, all Canadians are going to be affected by the castration of Canada's most important economic drivers. You'll be blaming it on something else though.

Ironically James, it is Canadians in the future who will suffer. You seem concerned about younger generations and then post an uninformed post like that.


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## Eder (Feb 16, 2011)

At any rate the pendulum is beginning to swing the other way now that the interference of American special interest groups are becoming public knowledge. 

Thanks so much AR for articulating lucid thoughts about our oil. Being from the patch makes me just want to start kicking some flaccid *** rather than putting forth a constructive argument.


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## MrMatt (Dec 21, 2011)

https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/budget-cmhc-home-buyers-1.5063204

The interest free loan? That's clearly going to boost the cost of a house by 5 or 10% for resale or new respectively. 

People buy houses like cars, they buy off the payment, make payments smaller and they'll pay more.
This is just going to make homes even MORE unaffordable.

Why don't we just allow writing off of mortgage interest and 40 year mortgages? I'm sure that will cause a drop in house prices too.


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## andrewf (Mar 1, 2010)

Terrible idea, I think. If the government owns 10% of your house, it is effectively a tax on improvements.


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## Beaver101 (Nov 14, 2011)

What an exciting budget :sleeping: :sleeping: :sleeping:


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## agent99 (Sep 11, 2013)

MrMatt said:


> https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/budget-cmhc-home-buyers-1.5063204
> 
> The interest free loan? That's clearly going to boost the cost of a house by 5 or 10% for resale or new respectively.
> 
> ...


The 5/10% is limited to mortgages up to a certain limit ($480,000 incl incentive) and to those with under $120,000 household income. As a result, it will have little effect in the markets where there is concern over a bubble (Toronto, Vancouver), but will help in more sluggish markets. I wondered just what they could come up with. This is not perfect, but it is quite clever.

Pleased to see something on EVs. Haven't read the details, but at least in Ontario there will be some incentive. I would like to see them do something to encourage manufacture of EVS. In the Oshawa GM plant, for example.


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## peterk (May 16, 2010)

andrewf said:


> Terrible idea, I think. If the government owns 10% of your house, it is effectively a tax on improvements.


Ohh I missed that part. Actually in the article it says it's specifically unclear and not yet defined if it's just an interest-free loan or a share of ownership with a likely larger bill owing to the government when an eventual higher selling price gets realized.

The latter sounds both better and worse. Better for government getting a return on tax-payer money and not just giving it away... worse for government getting their sticky fingers even more involved with a vested interest in manipulating the markets. 

Overall this seems silly and convoluted with not much benefit, probably hidden costs to tax-payers (how many million more spent for specialists and employees to manage the "equity mortgage portfolio"?), and further normalization of government involvement in more and more areas of free society when there is no clear need. Is there anything they can't/won't touch?


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## OptsyEagle (Nov 29, 2009)

*$19.8 Billion dollar deficit.
*
That's is about all I see. Any idiot could run the government when voters accept these things. Our children should be ashamed of us.


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## andrewf (Mar 1, 2010)

So Harper's $55 billion deficit was almost three times as idiotic?


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## OnlyMyOpinion (Sep 1, 2013)

I recall a deficit being run when it looked like banking and the ecomony were freezing up.
The liberals claim things are so good now, the economy, employment. So why the need to cotinue to run a deficit?
It is pure vote-buying.


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## OptsyEagle (Nov 29, 2009)

andrewf said:


> So Harper's $55 billion deficit was almost three times as idiotic?


I hope that is not some sort of justification of a deficit. All deficits are idiotic and irresponsible. 

I am not trying to make a statement about current or former governments. I am trying to say something about current and former voters. We are the ones responsible for this.


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## AltaRed (Jun 8, 2009)

andrewf said:


> So Harper's $55 billion deficit was almost three times as idiotic?


It is this sort of thing that destroys credibility. You are better than that. 

You know full well deficits are necessary in times of deep recession/financial crisis, if for no other reason than revenue generation drops sharply. No credible entity runs deficits during the greatest bull run in history.


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## agent99 (Sep 11, 2013)

AltaRed said:


> No credible entity runs deficits during the greatest bull run in history.


Lost me there. What does a bull run (assuming you mean in stock markets) have to do with financing government expenses? 

Have Canadian markets actually experienced the greatest bull run in history? I thought that was the S&P index? And that would be even further removed from GOC financing. 

https://www.fool.ca/2018/08/24/why-the-tsx-index-has-been-a-dog-during-this-record-bull-run/


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## andrewf (Mar 1, 2010)

OptsyEagle said:


> I hope that is not some sort of justification of a deficit. All deficits are idiotic and irresponsible.
> 
> I am not trying to make a statement about current or former governments. I am trying to say something about current and former voters. We are the ones responsible for this.


I disagree, not all deficits are idiotic or irresponsible. It's about maintaining a responsible level of indebtedness (stock vs flow), and the effectiveness of spending. A $20 billion deficit, while impressive-sounding, is 1% of GDP and not enough to keep the debt:GDP ratio from continuing to decline.


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## andrewf (Mar 1, 2010)

AltaRed said:


> It is this sort of thing that destroys credibility. You are better than that.
> 
> You know full well deficits are necessary in times of deep recession/financial crisis, if for no other reason than revenue generation drops sharply. No credible entity runs deficits during the greatest bull run in history.


Mine was a rhetorical question. Being as reductive as saying that the only thing we need to know about the budget is that it has $X deficit is what I was challenging.


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## Mechanic (Oct 29, 2013)

I wonder if some future government will apologize to Canadians, for the way finances and management of the country was handled by this government ? I don't think the current government could organize a drinking party at a brewery. Unbelievable, the way our finances and resources are managed. But the taxpayers just have to keep paying for the steady stream of fraud and incompetence. How did we get to the point where we have an unqualified, inexperienced trust fund idiot running the country anyway ?


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## sags (May 15, 2010)

Canada's finances appear to be on a solid foundation. Debt to GDP is declining and among the lowest for developed countries.

Government revenues were up as more people are working and paying taxes. This despite the GDP being relatively flat.

If anything, I think it would have been a good time for the Liberals to introduce a big ticket item into the budget. 

The Liberals revamped child care benefits. They revamped the CPP. A universal basic income would have allowed them to revamp a myriad of social programs into one.

Alas, perhaps another time or place. I think this budget won't be the end of the announcements and spending. There will be an update before the election as this was a bit of a dud.


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## OptsyEagle (Nov 29, 2009)

andrewf said:


> I disagree, not all deficits are idiotic or irresponsible. It's about maintaining a responsible level of indebtedness (stock vs flow), and the effectiveness of spending. A $20 billion deficit, while impressive-sounding, is 1% of GDP and not enough to keep the debt:GDP ratio from continuing to decline.


The only one, in most recent memory, that wasn't was the one you pointed out. The rest are irresponsible. It is your kind of justification that keeps them going, and that was my point on where the blame lies. You would not want to run your household like this, why would running the country that way work out any better?

Anyway, they are not my kids who will get the bill. Good luck to the people who do.


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## AltaRed (Jun 8, 2009)

agent99 said:


> Lost me there. What does a bull run (assuming you mean in stock markets) have to do with financing government expenses?
> 
> Have Canadian markets actually experienced the greatest bull run in history? I thought that was the S&P index? And that would be even further removed from GOC financing.
> 
> https://www.fool.ca/2018/08/24/why-the-tsx-index-has-been-a-dog-during-this-record-bull-run/


You don't have stock market growth without earnings growth, and you don't have earnings growth without GDP (and/or productivity) growth, and all those things mean more taxes, aka government revenue, year after year. There is no reason why substantial revenue growth cannot lead to balanced budgets. How much has Canadian GDP grown since the depths of 2009? 

https://www.ceicdata.com/en/indicator/canada/real-gdp-growth and click on 10 year for % year over year

https://tradingeconomics.com/canada/gdp for absolute numbers 2009 = 1.371 trillion, 2017 = 1653 trillion. Yes, there was a decline 2014 through 2016 almost exclusively due to the end of the super commodity cycle, primarily oil.


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## agent99 (Sep 11, 2013)

AltaRed said:


> You don't have stock market growth without earnings growth, and you don't have earnings growth without GDP (and/or productivity) growth,


Perhaps, but did Canada have that record bull market


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## AltaRed (Jun 8, 2009)

I don't remember if we had a 20% bear or not in either 2015 or 2016. If we did, did it last 2 quarters?


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## RBull (Jan 20, 2013)

andrewf said:


> I disagree, not all deficits are idiotic or irresponsible. It's about maintaining a responsible level of indebtedness (stock vs flow), and the effectiveness of spending. A $20 billion deficit, while impressive-sounding, is 1% of GDP and not enough to keep the debt:GDP ratio from continuing to decline.


 This government has run budgets far in excess in what was promised, and for longer, and projects them to continue. I have yet to see credible evidence where this is even remotely necessary or beneficial. This and the "effectiveness of spending", and pointing only to GDP/debt ratios, are probably where some of us disagree. 

It's vote buying and irresponsible. Budgets haven't and won't balance themselves. Some don't care including our leader and his finance minister. Wrapping up all government spending -structural deficits as "investments" is disengenouous. 

I know you'll disagree and that's okay.


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## andrewf (Mar 1, 2010)

OptsyEagle said:


> The only one, in most recent memory, that wasn't was the one you pointed out. The rest are irresponsible. It is your kind of justification that keeps them going, and that was my point on where the blame lies. You would not want to run your household like this, why would running the country that way work out any better?
> 
> Anyway, they are not my kids who will get the bill. Good luck to the people who do.


A country is not a household. It's a specious analogy. Countries don't have a lifecycle, for one.


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## andrewf (Mar 1, 2010)

RBull said:


> This government has run budgets far in excess in what was promised, and for longer, and projects them to continue. I have yet to see credible evidence where this is even remotely necessary or beneficial. This and the "effectiveness of spending", and pointing only to GDP/debt ratios, are probably where some of us disagree.
> 
> It's vote buying and irresponsible. Budgets haven't and won't balance themselves. Some don't care including our leader and his finance minister. Wrapping up all government spending -structural deficits as "investments" is disengenouous.
> 
> I know you'll disagree and that's okay.


Maybe you didn't understand me. If you're going to complain about a relatively small deficit. you're not going to persuade a lot of people. Better to focus on the bad spending, such as it is. It's like complaining about someone who lets their credit card balance increase by $100 a month rather than critiquing their spending habits.


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## sags (May 15, 2010)

There are only 10 companies in the S&P 500 that don't carry debt.

https://www.fool.com/slideshow/only-10-debt-free-companies-sp-500/

It doesn't seem to bother investors much.


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## AltaRed (Jun 8, 2009)

sags said:


> There are only 10 companies in the S&P 500 that don't carry debt.
> 
> https://www.fool.com/slideshow/only-10-debt-free-companies-sp-500/
> 
> It doesn't seem to bother investors much.


That is not remotely the same issue. The question is how much debt. For corporate entities, carrying some debt is advantageous for ROCE and ROE because debt is cheaper than what equity demands.


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## andrewf (Mar 1, 2010)

Same does not apply for governments, who can borrow at more attractive rates?


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## agent99 (Sep 11, 2013)

I don't know much about these things.

If we had a balanced budget, would that mean that the government's revenue is just enough to cover expenses including interest payments?
If so, then if we have a deficit presumably the federal government's debt will increase each year by the amount of the deficit?

The numbers everyone is excited about here, are the Federal numbers. But how about the provincial numbers? 

Numbers I saw for Ontario were about 50% of the federal debt. Shouldn't we be worried about those too? IOW, lets look at the whole picture instead of slamming just one government?


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## AltaRed (Jun 8, 2009)

Okay. Slam the Liberals and NDP of Ontario for ruining the future lives of your children and grandchildren. That should be for a 2019 Ontario budget thread... and Alberta budget thread especially since Notley came to power, and a few others like MB when they had the socialists in power too. IIRC, only Quebec and BC are running, more or less, balanced budgets these days.


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## OptsyEagle (Nov 29, 2009)

OptsyEagle said:


> I hope that is not some sort of justification of a deficit. All deficits are idiotic and irresponsible.
> 
> I am not trying to make a statement about current or former governments. I am trying to say something about current and former voters. *We are the ones responsible for this*.


OK, perhaps I should adjust this statement. We are not the ones responsible for this mess, Andrewf is.

Andrew, the last time we had a debate, if I recall, it was about Universal Basic Income. You wanted to run an experiment and I kept saying that an small experiment would tell you nothing, the program cannot work anyway, but more importantly *WE CANNOT AFFORD IT*. The reason we cannot afford it is because governments in the past thought it was OK to overspend beyond what we make. If we did not have large debts already and of course a maximum deficit currently, perhaps we could afford such things.

We know for sure, because it happens all the time, that sometime in their future your children, or your nephews or nieces, or some other younger people you know will have a national issue, but they will be seriously impeded in being able to fix it, because our generation thought it was OK to spend more money then we make. To effectively spend their future. I suppose they can just bite the bullet on their futures.

I am sure they will thank you for that, immensely. Your 1% GDP economic strategy. Why not 2%. Why not 3%. When we need money desperately that number will shoot up to stratospheric digits anyway, so pick one. I think the best number is "spend less then you make". Kind of hard to go wrong with that.


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## sags (May 15, 2010)

The countries with deficits and debt try to figure out how little they can pay in taxes and then try to spend within it.

Second on the list of countries that have surplus budgets is Norway, who decide how much they want to spend and then apply the taxes to pay for it.

_2. Norway_

_As the rest of Europe is stagnating, Norway is continuing to grow. The country has a projected 3.7% economic growth and 10.7% projected surplus in 2013, compared with a flat year ahead for the EU, the destination for most of the country’s exports. Rising oil prices have helped boost the Norwegian economy, but its investments and relatively sound policy have kept it in the black. *It’s no secret Norway is proud to run a generous social welfare state funded by high taxes*; one government official commented that their economic success allowed them to *both increase social spending and bank money in the world’s largest sovereign wealth fund*._

High taxes or debt are the two choices in Canada, but unfortunately neither party advocates for raising taxes to balance the budget.

The Liberals choose to spend and the shortfall is added to the debt. The Conservatives cut spending to give tax breaks, and the shortfall is added to the debt.


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## agent99 (Sep 11, 2013)

andrewf said:


> I disagree, not all deficits are idiotic or irresponsible. It's about maintaining a responsible level of indebtedness (stock vs flow), and the effectiveness of spending. A $20 billion deficit, while impressive-sounding, is 1% of GDP and not enough to keep the debt:GDP ratio from continuing to decline.


1% of GDP might not be a bad number. Seems to me that deficit is really just growth of debt due to inflation (or growth of GDP). But I think you should be looking at overall government debt including the provinces if you are using Canada's overall GDP.

Household, corporation and government debt all increase over time roughly in step with inflation/GDP growth. To me, a deficit doesn't really seem to be the bad thing some say. It would be nice not to have it, just like a mortgage, but not many countries achieve that.


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## OptsyEagle (Nov 29, 2009)

Spending more then you make, with no emergency reason to justify it, is not prudent governance. 

I am sorry, but making excuses to believe that it is something that helps is ridiculous.

Anyway, I mentioned, many posts ago that the one benefit of an $18 Billion deficit (last years) was that it starts putting the spending breaks on whoever is running the government, at the time. I have absolutely no doubt, that if the current government got a windfall that made the current deficit go away, they would have added another $18 Billion or so of new spending, and the deficit would magically appear again.

Democracies will not remove deficits. My concern is what form the government will take when all this debt implodes on us. By the way, my real concern about deficits is actually not ours, it is our American friends. No one will be able to bale them out when they hit their debt wall, and when that happens we will be following them down, right behind them. Add to the scary picture that it will make them very, very angry AND they have nuclear weapons and you might get a glimpse of my concern about what can happen when you spend more then you make and you have no bankruptcy courts to protect you...only nukes.

Alright, that might be a little far fetched, but spending more then you make, rarely ends well and no one really knows the tune that the fat lady sings, just before she sit down.


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## doctrine (Sep 30, 2011)

andrewf said:


> A $20 billion deficit, while impressive-sounding, is 1% of GDP and not enough to keep the debt:GDP ratio from continuing to decline.


All good until the economy inevitably hits a recession. Debt is absolute, and a declining economy will provide a double whammy of increasing the debt to GDP ratio while increasing interest rates on government debt at the same time. It takes a lot longer to dig the grave than to get out once you've been buried.


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## AltaRed (Jun 8, 2009)

Servicing the federal debt alone is currently about $30B per year. Double or triple interest rates and see where that gets you... at the same time servicing of provincial debt and that of households that currently have 179% debt to income levels. A significant/deep recession right now could be cataclysmic in scope. It is absolutely necessary to eliminate deficits NOW and reduce household debt levels to avoid a major crisis in the not too distant future.


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## andrewf (Mar 1, 2010)

OptsyEagle said:


> OK, perhaps I should adjust this statement. We are not the ones responsible for this mess, Andrewf is.
> 
> Andrew, the last time we had a debate, if I recall, it was about Universal Basic Income. You wanted to run an experiment and I kept saying that an small experiment would tell you nothing, the program cannot work anyway, but more importantly *WE CANNOT AFFORD IT*. The reason we cannot afford it is because governments in the past thought it was OK to overspend beyond what we make. If we did not have large debts already and of course a maximum deficit currently, perhaps we could afford such things.
> 
> ...


Chart 4
Federal Debt-to-GDP Ratio








https://www.budget.gc.ca/2019/docs/plan/overview-apercu-en.html

From the 2019 budget summary. You're engaging in histrionics. Why not 20%? As long as the debt is growing more slowly than the rate of nominal GDP growth, the debt:GDP ratio continues to fall. Nominal GDP is growth is typically 4-5%. $20B on $685B is about 3%. Therefore, the debt:GDP ratio will continue to fall. Obviously, you want this to be true over time, which requires lower (or negative) growth rates in favourable economic times to offset higher growths in depressed times.


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## OptsyEagle (Nov 29, 2009)

andrewf said:


> As long as the debt is growing more slowly than the rate of nominal GDP growth, the debt:GDP ratio continues to fall.


and when it doesn't, what do you do then. 

In the US, if house prices kept going up they would not have hit a credit wall. But they didn't.

As long as Canadians don't lose their jobs, their debt loads will be serviced just fine as well, but we always seem to have a boat load of bankruptcy filers, crying about what happened to them when they lost their job. They just never assumed their income would change. I have no idea why they would think like that, but here we are with all these economists, saying just what you are saying, thinking pretty much the same thing.

GDP always goes up so don't worry about it. What happens to your debt graph if interest rates go up to 5%, 7%, 10%. I doubt the economy will be growing GDP to keep up with that, when interest rates are that high.

Even if GDP did keep going up would it hurt us to have less debt. As I see it, every Canadian could probably save a few thousand dollars a year in taxes, if they did not need to pay the interest on all the previous deficits that their Federal, Provincial and Municipal governments thought was OK...because the graph said so.


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## RBull (Jan 20, 2013)

andrewf said:


> Maybe you didn't understand me. If you're going to complain about a relatively small deficit. you're not going to persuade a lot of people. Better to focus on the bad spending, such as it is. It's like complaining about someone who lets their credit card balance increase by $100 a month rather than critiquing their spending habits.



If you're suggesting a $20 billion dollar deficit on top of the 50 billion or whatever and with significant deficits being forecasted to continue for another 4 yrs is a "relatively small number" than clearly yes I don't understand you. To me 20 Billion is not small, it's large, it's structural, 5% spending increases are high, and a tiny amount of new spending is on infrastructure (useful) something like ~12 or 13% vs ~87-88% on new program spending. Overall net federal debt something like 30% of GDP already-gross a lot more. Small? 

Complaining about or criticizing the way I framed my points doesn't do much to substantively address the actual points I raised. Budgets don't balance themselves and more govt spending isn't necessarily an "investment" in the middle class. Saying it over and over doesn't make it so. Why not just cut our taxes and let us have more to spend instead? I'd rather that but I guess 40% of people don't pay effectively pay fed tax and a small percentage pay most of the freight already, so governments are tying their own hands in the wealth transfer game. 

I usually stay away from criticizing other peoples spending habits as its not my business vs the public (over) spending of our government. 

Didn't this government have a massive unexpected surge in revenue this period? Instead of simply running a smaller deficit closer to the zero promised the government has really knocked itself out trying to figure out ways to spend the extra. Ironically their "comprehensive review" of all dept spending managed to find a "huge" savings of 237 million on their budget of 367 billion. Doesn't seem to be much of an effort in efficiencies. 

What were there a couple of hundred spending initiatives? Partnering in home ownership? Driving up home prices? Really? Just a tiny inconsequential thing but probably indicative of the lengths the government has gone to with unnecessary spending and helping prove its really their choice to run a deficit and not a necessity ....a 15% tax credit on a digital subscription up to $75. Is this really helpful in my life or needed or is just some feeble attempt at helping other media vs. the large funding increases previously to the unfairly uncompetitive CBC. 

At some point there will be reckoning for the debt many governments have racked up over years since the kingpin spender PET. With record setting per capita spending now we're advocating and accepting gorging on more debt regardless of the economy. Pray that we don't have big interest rate increases, or a huge recession or depression to really feel the affect of deficits and debt. 

I don't expect to convince anyone financing our present lives for other generations to pay isn't good or fair and there will surely be a day of reckoning. Unfortunately it's becoming increasingly acceptable to embrace debt in peoples daily lives as well as in government. Maybe low rates for too long along with huge consumerism pushes, and comparing ourselves to other debt basket case G7 economies have numbed us re debt. Ironically I care about govt debt (fed & prov) but I have no children that will be the future generation that likely will have to shoulder most of the burden so many now encourage. 

Hopefully we can find a genuine strong fiscally saavy leader that can actually convince all of us that we've had enough and will start to reverse the trend. A tall order indeed.


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## OnlyMyOpinion (Sep 1, 2013)

The feds have tried to obfuscate the debt and 'change the channel' by referring to debt/gdp ratio. 
While the future direction/impact of debt can be reckoned, the ratio makes a more a attractive story, but depends on predictions of future economic performance. We know how often such predictions are wrong.
Take that page of the budget and use it as toilet paper.


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## AltaRed (Jun 8, 2009)

andrewf said:


> As long as the debt is growing more slowly than the rate of nominal GDP growth, the debt:GDP ratio continues to fall. Nominal GDP is growth is typically 4-5%. $20B on $685B is about 3%. Therefore, the debt:GDP ratio will continue to fall. Obviously, you want this to be true over time, which requires lower (or negative) growth rates in favourable economic times to offset higher growths in depressed times.


Morneau's crystal ball is opaque. It is fantasy to believe nominal GDP growth will be 4-5% forward. Inflation is running under 2% and real GDP growth is set to be under 2%, perhaps as little as 1%, for the foreseeable future. It may well be 0% this year...time will tell. Oooops! Oh well, the election will be over by then.

P.S. You haven't yet grasped that the ratio needs to fall more aggressively so as to manage the next recession. Or is it okay to run it back up to 35%? 40%?


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## MrMatt (Dec 21, 2011)

OnlyMyOpinion said:


> The feds have tried to obfuscate the debt and 'change the channel' by referring to debt/gdp ratio.
> While the future direction/impact of debt can be reckoned, the ratio makes a more a attractive story, but depends on predictions of future economic performance. We know how often such predictions are wrong.
> Take that page of the budget and use it as toilet paper.


The thing is they said modest deficits, leading to balance, $20B isn't "modest" and it definately isn't balanced.

I think the debt/GDP ratio is not as bad as it has been, but IMO it's too high, and we should be trying to actively shrink it.


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## agent99 (Sep 11, 2013)

Too bad there are no CMFers who actually understand and can explain government financial issues in an apolitical way. I would like to learn more, but this is clearly not the place 

This link might be worth reading. (particularly the section titled - Is debt OK? ) The link is US based, but does cover debt and deficits as well as other ways a government might handle it's finances in a general way:

https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=99927343


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## andrewf (Mar 1, 2010)

OnlyMyOpinion said:


> The feds have tried to obfuscate the debt and 'change the channel' by referring to debt/gdp ratio.
> While the future direction/impact of debt can be reckoned, the ratio makes a more a attractive story, but depends on predictions of future economic performance. We know how often such predictions are wrong.
> Take that page of the budget and use it as toilet paper.


Debt:GDP is the only meaningful way of measuring it, because it measures debt vs our collective ability to service it. Harper frequently commented on it as a measure of indebtedness. It's like saying a $300k mortgage is *too! much!*. I dunno, it depends on the income of the person taking the mortgage.

To hear everyone here speak of it, it sounds like you would be pleased as punch if the feds raised taxes by $20B in order to balance the budget. If not, it sounds like the real problem is not the deficit, but dissatisfaction with spending.


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## andrewf (Mar 1, 2010)

AltaRed said:


> Morneau's crystal ball is opaque. It is fantasy to believe nominal GDP growth will be 4-5% forward. Inflation is running under 2% and real GDP growth is set to be under 2%, perhaps as little as 1%, for the foreseeable future. It may well be 0% this year...time will tell. Oooops! Oh well, the election will be over by then.
> 
> P.S. You haven't yet grasped that the ratio needs to fall more aggressively so as to manage the next recession. Or is it okay to run it back up to 35%? 40%?


Who is saying that real GDP growth is only going to be 1%? That means zero per capita real GDP growth in Canada. OECD is forecasting 4-4.2% growth this year and next. Sure, there are recessions, but long run real GDP growth is closer to 2%.

I wrote several sentences, which you quoted, acknowledging the need to consider the business cycle. And no, I don't think 35-40% from a recession would be a disaster. The $150B that Harper added to the debt during the last recession caused a spike from about 30-35%, which we have been working off in the mean time. To be in similarly dire straights as the mid 1990s, we would have to borrow upwards of $700B.


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## OnlyMyOpinion (Sep 1, 2013)

andrewf said:


> Debt:GDP is the only meaningful way of measuring it...


You miss the point. The Feds are saying 'don't worry, here is the projected decline in debt/gdp'. That ratio only looks good if gdp performs as assumed - a tenuous assumption.
You miss the point (or simply choose to defend the Feds for your own reasons) that has been pointed out - in an apparently robust economy, they shouldn't need to be adding debt and jeopardizing their capacity to respond to the next downturn.



> it sounds like the real problem is not the deficit, but dissatisfaction with spending.


Ya think? I thought that was a given. This is a budget designed to buy votes. It's disgusting. I'm surprised a taxpayer can support of it.


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## sags (May 15, 2010)

If the envisioned catastrophic financial event were to happen in Canada, the US and world economies would have already collapsed or been prevented by intervention.

In such a scenario, it is likely solutions from the past would be part of the intervention.

Debts would either be negotiated downwards or forgiven, interest rates eliminated or capped, or IOUs issued to debt holders.

As Peter Schiff asked an audience of bankers......"Does anyone here really believe American politicians would tell the people, sorry we have to take away your social security because we have to pay the Chinese back the money because they were nice enough to lend it to us" ?

The audience laughed and laughed.....


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## OnlyMyOpinion (Sep 1, 2013)

Thanks Sags. That seems a very good reason to support mindless spending - not.

Case in point: $300 million to help people buy electric cars. Do you really think that is anything more than handing $5k to people who are already inclined & able to buy one themselves anyway? It's a vote-buying program.
What about incenting Canadians to get rid of one of their two existing vehicles? What about bringing back the transit credit to incent people to take transit...


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## humble_pie (Jun 7, 2009)

OnlyMyOpinion said:


> This is a budget designed to buy votes. It's disgusting. I'm surprised a taxpayer can support of it.



shouldn't conservatives be directing their ire at the white house though. Those are the real deficit budgets. As somebody has pointed out, what if the chinese decide to redeem their greenback tokens.


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## andrewf (Mar 1, 2010)

Agreed, shouldn't subsidize electric cars or oil and gas industry...


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## OnlyMyOpinion (Sep 1, 2013)

I agree andrew. 
Government policy/regulation should also be non-discriminating.

Humble, I for one am glad the US has finally taken a back seat. You know the adage, 'if you don't like it - change it. If you can't change it - don't worry about it.'
I don't see us being able to do much to change or influence the US. Our own leaders, maybe more so.


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## AltaRed (Jun 8, 2009)

The real point is one does not run deficits in good times. Save the powder for the bad times when it is really needed. It is really that simple.


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## agent99 (Sep 11, 2013)

AltaRed said:


> The real point is one does not run deficits in good times. Save the powder for the bad times when it is really needed. It is really that simple.


Funny thing - Households (and maybe businesses too) do just the opposite. In good times, they may borrow more money and do, say an upgrade on their home or take a trip. Things are good so lets do it now while we can afford it!


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