Stephen Harper wants grannies to eat cat food and live in snow banks.
Did you hear that news?
He wants granny to move out of her house and live on the streets and he made the announcement to a bunch of billionaires in Switzerland.
Why Switzerland, well it ain’t for his love of Toblerone bars now is it?
No, he went to Switzerland because that’s where he and all his fat cat billionaire buddies keep their money stashed in Swiss bank accounts safe from you and I.
This is all part of his plan to steal money from granny and starve out the poor people he doesn’t care about.
Here’s what Liberal MP Scott Brison said about Harper’s evil plan.
“At a time when other global leaders at Davos are addressing income inequality not only is Harper ignoring it he’s threatening to make it worse.” Liberal MP Scott Brison
Brison should know, the former Bay Street executive and investment banker knows all about getting money and keeping it.
The NDP is also onto Harper’s evil plan to have you or your elderly relatives living under the bridge while he swims in a swimming pool of gold coins in Switzerland with his rich buddies.
“That’s completely unacceptable. We do not accept the proposition that more Canadian seniors have to live in poverty or that Canadians have to work longer in order to access retirement.” NDP MP Peter Julian
I’m so glad we are on to Harper’s plan to steal from the poor and give to the rich. His desire to rip pension cheques out of the hands of seniors.
Except that’s not what he said.
That’s not what he said at all. Stephen Harper didn’t say he was going to rip the pension out of grannies hand. He didn’t declare war on the poor. In fact he said he wants to make sure the system is sustainable in the future, just like health care and that current recipients will not be effected.
“We have already taken steps to limit the growth of our health care spending over that period. We must do the same for our retirement income system. Fortunately, the centerpiece of that system, the Canada Pension Plan, is fully funded, actuarially sound and does not need to be changed. For those elements of the system that are not funded, we will make the changes necessary to ensure sustainability for the next generation while not affecting current recipients,” Harper said in Davos.
Hmmm, did he use code words that I don’t know?
Was that a fancy kinda English that I just don’t speak?
No, Stephen Harper was clearly saying that he wants a sustainable pension system for the next generation while not affecting people already getting cheques.
So why do opposition MPs and some in the media immediately jump to the conclusions they do? Because they know the system is unsustainable.
They know that there should be changes.
That doesn’t mean cutting payments for those on Old Age Security or the Guaranteed Income Supplement right now – no, those are payments for the poorest in our society.
What it could mean is setting up a separate fund so that OAS is funded much the way the Canada Pension Plan is, with direct payments rather than relying on the government’s general revenue.
They could up the age from 65 to 67.
They could also decide that you don’t need to get the Old Age Security Benefit if you make a certain amount of money.
Right now if you make $10,000 a year, the government will send you a monthly cheque for $1,147
If you make $50,000 a year, more than the average Canadian makes working full-time, the government will send you a monthly cheque of $540.
In fact while they start clawing some of that money back by the time your income reaches $69,000 a year, they don’t claw it back completely until $112,000.
Why would we be sending income supplements to people in that income range?
The government has been clear, there will be no changes to people in the system and a long lead time for any changes but with the number of workers shrinking from 4 for every senior right now to just 2 for every senior by 2030, something has to change.
And that’s the Byline.
The msm never lets facts get in the way of torpedoing Stephen Harper, or any conservative for that matter. No matter what the PM says, he’s deemed wrong and evil.
I enjoy it when the NDP and Liberals make baseless attacks; it leads to more support for the conservatives. Especially the Liberals, they should know better by now. They’re diminishing support has little to do with the sponsorship scandal and more to their whining and shift to the left. Political correctness might have secured its hold in media and our school systems, but there is a silent majority that dislikes most of what it results in. Many people who dislike PC might not have a strong grip on the dire consequences, but they still know it’s wrong. So keep it up Rae, keep attacking Harper for wanting accountability for the mismanaged spending of First Nations and other justified, NON-RACIST actions. I find it funny when people label Harper “Neocon” when he is probably closer to what used to be Liberal than he is to being conservative. But us Cons will still gladly take him over the radical, illogical, extreme left wingnuts!
If one takes the time to look at the neverending articles being written by the canadian press for The Globe and Mail, CTV news, City TV and the CBC, you realize that there is an agenda against anything conservative in nature.
For example, Kirk Makin of the globe and mail recently wrote an article claiming that the conservative government is going to attack gay marriage. This was later proved incorrect and poor reporting by Andrew Coyne of the National post.
I find that I have to read 5 online papers just to get a clear view of the ‘truth’.
Now,certainly not everything Sun news or National post reports can remotely be considered as gospel, but in a world of fake reporting thank goodness for their existance.
Well said Ross. I’m also very glad to have access to news and editorials like Brian Lilley and other Sun News reports. Otherwise we would have a difficult time sorting through the hysteria. I have been a Liberal and switched over in 2006. Only in the last year did I find the wealth of information on line to combat the mainstream media hype. It is a problem however that our young people are not being taught a wide range of political veiw points.
Some of my friends who remain Liberal supporters are still stuck in the “Harper’s scary hidden agenda” black hole. It gets infuriating.
Raising the age for OAS, which is not a pension, may be worth discussing. I don’t think the place to start the discussion is at a meeting with foreign rich people.
The increased age limit won’t affect seniors with net incomes over $110,500 because their OAS has been totally clawed back. It will have minimal effect on those with net incomes over $67,668 where clawback starts. It will have an increasingly negative effect on seniors as their net incomes decrease below $67,688 and depending on their circumstances they will be less inclined or unable to retire as planned. This may mean fewer entry level jobs for young people and will definetly have students competing with their elders for minimum wage part time jobs.
I am not an economist but I would need a lot of convincing to understand how increasing the age limit to apply for OAS to age 67 would have a positive effect on our country.
The opposition parties don’t have to find the money to fund the pension systems as they are now, so of course they are free to go apoplectic at any suggestion of cut backs. This may also be in honest self interest. As we all know any planned pension cuts for the unwashed masses will bring about howls of rage from those same masses for politcos to cut their own fabulous pension packages. Our governments and oppositions at all levels are noticeably silent on that. Good generals lead from the front, with bold examples of self sacrifice so that others are inspired to suffer likewise.
This is part of a larger debate on how to fund and administer a system to make sure people have enough money to take care of themselves. We have layer upon layer of different programs for different circumstances provided by different levels of government. CPP is something of an exception because it is a segregated fund that clearly belongs to the people who contributed to it. However, there is EI, OAS, GIS, Worker’s Comp, Social Assistance, subsidized housing, et al. The last time I looked, the government paid a flock of bureaucrats between $30 billion and $50 billion simply to shuffle money around.
A simpler approach would be to have a refundable income tax credit that allows people to get by if they have no income, and then a flat income tax on all income earned. Fire the bureaucrats and plow the savings back into the system. If the tax credit is close to the poverty line (the real poverty line, not the fake LICO “poverty line”) then poverty can basically be eliminated over night. With a flat tax, depending on how you look at it, there would be either no clawback, or a total clawback for incomes of about $30k per year.
Very well written Brian. Is it any wonder folks are flocking to SNN in droves?
Canadians are quickly leaving the twisting left-leaning media because like so many of us before them we’re tired of reading and viewing crap. We much prefer the facts thanks very much! Keep telling it like it is Brian, as you do so well and we’ll be all the better for it.
Keynote speakers are usually crafting their message for the folks back home but I believe that in Davos, PM Harper was also trying to inform members of the eurozone about retirement age limits and a healthy more sustainable economy, like Canada has been lauded for. Given that retirement age is much much later in Canada than in much of the euro countries, he had a duty to inform. Very few in the european media are courageous enough to even write about the absurdity of current retirement age levels.
It always infuriates me when Boomers get indignant about their golden-years goodies.
You mortgaged my generation, and expect us to feel any sympathy about cuts of a few percentage points to programs that are mathematically impossible for us to collect on? At least Bernie Madoff never held a gun to anyone’s head for his Ponzi scheme.
Cat food is an acquired taste, according to one of my stranger friends. I suggest you start learning to like it now. Me, I intend to save enough to at least afford the gourmet brands.
My wife and I both just gave retirement resignations to our employers, sold our home, and spent our life savings to construct a small retirement home outside Ontario. We are not entitled to collect OAP unti next January. Not getting the OAP at 65 will be devestating, we’d end up with no jobs, no money, and forced to live in the basement of my daughters home for two years. Plus worrying about the retirement home sitting empty. We are in a state of shock, how can this happen after working in Canada for about forty three years?
Mr. Newton, read what the prime minister has said, not what the media say. He has said current recipients will not be affected. His office has said any changes will be with plenty of advance warning. As a 40 year old, the rules may be changed for me but not for you. You have worked a lifetime under the present rules, to change them now would be unfair. It won’t happen. Don’t lose sleep over this, you will get your payments in January.
Thank you Brian ..”You have worked a lifetime under the present rules”..that’s my point. The government cannot, will not, better not change the rules I began working under in 1972. If they do…I hate to think what all us “almost retired” people will do.