Tag: economy

GOVERNMENT CYNICISM PROLONGS A NEEDLESS STRIKE.

Regarding the current job action by public employee union OPSEU, any questions directed to one side of the issue, that being management, are met with virtually the same response.

The issue, says the Ministry of Children, Community and Social Services, is strictly “a matter between the employer and the union.”    

This is the brush-off line given to striking employees wanting answers, and members of the general public seeking the same.  It is the official response from the ministry under which these programs are funded, and its the boilerplate response given to workers when they approached their local MPP, who for the record didn’t meet with them, but still offered a statement saying that the dispute wasn’t with the Ford government, but rather was a matter between the employer and the union.

So, let me just say that I totally agree with that statement, or would totally agree with it if it was made in good faith, which it is decidedly not.

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FEDS TO PUMP MONEY INTO MILITARY

The federal government has indicated that they will begin to spend billions of dollars more on national defence.  In fact, billions and billions.

If you think that’s something that should have been done all along, you’d not be incorrect.  If you’re someone who wonders about stuff like this, and further wonders where the money is going to come from, you’d not be alone.  And if you’re afraid it may come at the expense of social programs or other areas of governmental involvement, and you wonder which ones?

Join the club.  Get in line.  Here’s your t-shirt.

I suppose there’s another category of person out there, the type that feels government should get out of everybody’s face and simply allow economic Darwinism to be the prevailing thought, then good for you, but sorry, you have no place in any reasonable discussion around the military budget specifically, or the federal budget generally.  Go home and count your money, and please try to stay out of the way of the grownups.  In other words, stay out of our face.

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VICTORY BONDS

It’s times like these where we, as Canadians, usually rise to our challenges.  Sorry, where we always rise to the challenge in front of us.

We were there at Queenston, at Chateuguay, at Ypres and Vimy.  We more than showed up for Italy and Normandy, and even Dieppe speaks to our courage in the face of overwhelming odds against, some of those odds courtesy of our friends, the British.  We fought and won the Battle of the Atlantic.

Were among the most-feared and most respected in Afghanistan, and lost over 150 good people in that demonstration of resolve.

We fought the Americans twice, in the Revolution and War of !812 and turned them back both times.  We fought the Kaiser’s army in World War 1 and earned the reputation as “shock troops” by the Germans who were always carefully aware of where the Canadians were along the front line.  We fought the best the Nazi’s had at Juno, up through Normandy and into the Low Countries, and liberated Holland before joining the Allied thrust across northern Germany.  And we chased the Taliban off of every battlefield in which they faced us.

So, in short, we’re more than up for the most recent challenge, economic war against the United States.

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CANADA HOLDS U.S. DEBT CARDS

Of all of the nations on this Earth, which one has the greatest level of national debt?  If you answered the United States of America, then you’re absolutely right.  It appears the world’s richest nation is also the one carrying the biggest debt load.  If you think that statement to be one that self-cancels, or doesn’t make any sense, then you haven’t considered why the “Land of the Free” is also the nation with the most citizens behind bars, another little oxymoron that competes with many others.  How about the nation with the greatest medical expertise in the world having over 40% of its population without health insurance?

You get the point.  The U.S. is a nation of many dichotomies.  And debt is one of them.

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STICKING UP FOR CANADA

When you’re at war, you usually find out pretty quickly who’s-who and what’s-what.  It’s in moments of high import, or a crisis, where you find out a lot about the people in your life, whether they be family or your circle of friends and associates.  Your colleagues at work fall into this as well.

We’re at war with the United States.

Economically, yes, but just like any shooting war, they aim to cause us harm, are doing it intentionally, and have as their end-goal the weakening of our own country to the point where we desperately request to be officially absorbed by them, or annexed if you will.

Whether it be done with bullets and missiles or tariffs and dollars matters little.

They have intentionally set out to cause us existential harm.  That, to my mind, meet the criteria for a declaration of war.

Never mind their nonsense involving hordes of undocumented immigrants pouring over the Canadian border into the United States.  And ignore their stated intention to stop the dangerous flow of fentanyl across that same border, a peril of epic proportions, what with 43 pounds of the stuff having crossed in the past year, about one one-thousandth of the amount sneaking into America through Mexico.

This is the casus belli of the American attack, their justification for being the jerks that they’ve become.  But it really has nothing to do with any of that, since the real problem at the Canadian border has to do with hard drugs and guns that flood across in the opposite direction, as in into Canada from the U.S.

It appears that, when it comes right down to it, they’re the problem at the border, but that doesn’t sell at home, so they blame us for their own failings and use it as a pretext to come after us and our country.

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BUILDING HOMES TO BEAT TARIFFS

Ontario’s municipalities want to build houses.  Lots of them.

They also want to tackle the problem of housing by taking existing buildings and infrastructure and bringing them up to speed so as to enhance efforts to add to affordable and supportive housing in the province.

All of this is ambitious, and all of this costs money, plenty of it.  And in the face of an economic downturn brought about by reckless and negligent trade policies originating south of the border, it may seem to be a hill with a slope that’s too tough to climb.

But that’s the point.

The Association of Municipalities in Ontario, or AMO, believes that this is precisely the time to beef up investment in housing starts and housing completions, along with upgrades to existing stock and buildings that seem to be lacking purpose.

The municipalities feel that this proposed injection of stimulus money, over and above current levels of funding, is just what the province and its citizens need in the face of troubling economic times.

It’s not a new concept, and it has worked before.

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THE RENFREW TAX MAN COMETH. AND HE COMETH WITH A VENGEANCE

In an earlier opinion piece, I threw out the notion that in Ontario, municipalities are not allowed to run operational deficits.

They’re not.  It’s as simple as that.  I didn’t make it up, agree or disagree, I just stated that fact as it currently stands.  Check out the Municipal Act 2001 if you wish.

It’s something that is obviously concerning if you live in Renfrew, pay property tax in Renfrew, and follow Renfrew news — such as it may be, and it ain’t much, unless you enjoy dollops of self-serving platitudes and accept them as “news” — so I can certainly see and understand some degree of anxiousness around someone coming along and telling you that the corporation that you fund — the municipality — isn’t allowed to carry a deficit term over term.  Because you know that, if deficits aren’t allowed, that shortfall will have to be made up somewhere.  And that you, as the primary source of income for that municipality, may — will — be called upon to make up a big chunk of that shortfall.  In other words, through no fault of your own, you’ll be required to pony up to make right the egregious mistakes or lack of rigour that has led to that deficit situation in the first place.

And by deficit, let me be clear.  We’re not talking about slipping into maroon territory here, where you you slide gently from black ink to red ink on the balance sheet.  We’re talking full-on red, dark red, the ugliest colour of ink possible when we’re talking about money, especially if it’s your money. 

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CHINA’S MAKING SOME REALLY NICE EV’S. AND YOU CAN’T HAVE ONE.

China has emerged as a blockbuster producer of electric, or EV, vehicles.  So much so that they can get one into your driveway for as low as $18,000 Cdn.  What a steal!  And they aren’t even crap, in case you’re thinking that.  They actually have technology that would make North American car-makers blush, so that old bird don’t fly in this case.

So why aren’t more Canadians buying these things?  Why are Canadian roadways not awash with Chinese EV’s similar to when the Japanese, and then Koreans, entered our market and took it by storm back in the 1970’s and 1980’s.

It probably has a lot to do with the 100% tariff the Canadian government has slapped on these vehicles, the intention being to specifically prevent them from entering our market.

Say what?  The Canadian government is purposely inhibiting our freedom to choose whatever vehicle we want?  Oh my God, get out the battle flags and fire up the big rigs!  We’ve got ourselves a convoy!  Okay, maybe a little dramatic there, but it was fun to say.

Continue reading “CHINA’S MAKING SOME REALLY NICE EV’S. AND YOU CAN’T HAVE ONE.” →

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