Feds begin move to tighten up retirement

Earlier this week, the federal government made the smart move of abolishing mandatory retirement for employees in federally regulated industries/organizations. Where the employer had been able to force people to retire at 65 or even 60 in some cases, they have now lost that power. With people living longer, healthier lives, and with 1/3 of Canadians aged 55+ still having at least 16 years of mortgage payments left owing, the idea of freedom at 65 will not be attainable or realistic for many. For those reasons alone, this is a good move by the Feds, ignoring the discrimination of forcing people to leave their jobs when they reach an arbitrary "expiration date," regardless of their abilities.

There's been talk that this is the beginning of a tightening of retirement rules to being to deal with the coming Boomer surge and the pressure it will put on our public retirement schemes. If this is true, it's great news. Our pension plans are in good shape now, but without tweaking, they will be in the same mess as much of the rest of the world's. I hope the government continues down this path and investigates increasing the age you receive Old Age Security and CPP from 65 to at least 66 or even 67 and instituting means testing for OAS. Taking steps like these may be just what's needed to ensure there is something left of these cornerstone programs for the next generation.

Green Leader Highlights Pointlessness of Kyoto

This morning Elizabeth May, Leader of the Green Party of Canada, underscored the pointlessness of the Kyoto agreement in what I'm sure was meant to be a passionate defense of its ideals.

Speaking on CKNW, May lambasted the federal government for its recent announcement that it was pulling out of the Kyoto agreement, nearly 15 years after it ratified the agreement. When asked about the Tories' claims that staying in Kyoto would cost Canada more than $14 billion, May scoffed, explaining that this would only be true if Canada tried to meet the targets of Kyoto by purchasing carbon credits from other countries, which nobody is forcing us to do. In the very next breath, however, May admitted that the only way to reach Kyoto's targets for emission reductions would be to purchase these very credits, which she expected
would cost "much more than $14 billion."

But the mask really slipped when May insisted that it would have cost Canada nothing to simply stay in Kyoto and not try to achieve the targets. What leadership! What courage! Why couldn't Canada just agree to feel-good international agreements and then pay only lip-service to them like the good ol' days? That's the Canada that Elizabeth May and the Left want, not this principled, responsible and conservative approach we have now.

Tories Score Another Win with Burqa Ban

Yesterday, Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism Minister Jason Kenney announced that starting immediately, no one would be allowed to wear any face coverings while taking the oath of citizenship and pledging allegiance to Queen Elizabeth II. While some media outlets tried to play up the "controversial" nature of the law, Muslim Canadian groups paraded out, one after another to support the move and people across the country could hear their fellow Canadians nodding their heads in approval. Fundamental Islamic face coverings like burqas and niqabs are fundamentally oppressive and run counter to both the Western and Christian traditions and beliefs which have formed the basis of this country and the government's new policy is a smart move.

With this sudden announcement, the government tossed conservatives like me another hunk of red meat and notched another victory in the win column of the growing list of conservative accomplishments. It's impressive the scope of conservative changes this government has made in half a year: putting the "royal" back in the navy and air force, killing the gun registry, killing the wheat board, pulling out of Kyoto, passing the crime bill, expanding the number of Commons seats in the West, challenging Insite injection site, and the list goes on. With nearly years left in the Conservatives mandate, I'm looking forward to seeing how else this government will move the country away from the long, stale Liberal agenda that has defined it for years.

Edmonton or San Fran?

I spend a good deal of time reading Garth Turner's Greater Fool
blog where he has been sounding the alarm about Canada's unsustainable real
estate market. Recently, he compared what you could snap up for $600,000 in
Edmonton versus San Francisco and like all the stats surrounding Canadian real
estate, it makes you shake your head:

In Edmonton, six hundred buys a 1950s house that four years ago sold for less than $400,000. It’s a 1,400-square foot bung with all the curb appeal of a utility substation, a cheap suite downstairs and a jet tub imported from a garage sale.

In San Francisco, six hundred buys a house that was worth $866,000 at the end of 2007. It’s about the same size, and is now priced $25,000 less than it sold for in 2004. Built in 1928, it is a classic west coast villa, walking distance from Golden Gate Park. Kitchen to die for.

So, one home has risen in value by half, the other dropped by a third. One’s in a regional market dependent on volatile resource prices. The other’s in a hive tied to intellectual entrepreneurship. But in Edmonton you get a pine tree. Americans are total idiots without a clue how to value property and opportunity. After all, it couldn’t be us.

End Occupy Now

Only Vancouver's uber-liberal Mayor (as Bill O'Reilly calls him) Gregor Robertson could waste an opportunity like this. As if Occupy Vancouver's tents, permanent structures and open drug use wasn't enough reason to shut the protest down, there has also been an overdose, a death (!) and now Vancouver police officers are being bit by the protesters. It's time to end Occupy Vancouver now. Mayor Robertson should have had the place shut down the day after the woman was found dead in her tent. What better reasoning to end this than when people start to die?

Instead, the Mayor dithered and stalled, allowing the protesters to become more belligerent and entrenched, to the point that they claim to not recognize the city's authority and even declaring their own sovereignty. Vancouver's civic politicians need to find their backbone and shut this thing down. If the Occupy Vancouver sit-in doesn't recognize the government's authority, it's about time Vancouver shows them, up close and personal, who really runs the City.

Occupy Vancouver's Run of the Mill Protest

Well, Metro Vancouver's professional agitator and activist class has another pet project to fill its time. There never seems to be a shortage of people to protest....everything. Stanley cup playoffs, safe-injection site Supreme Court rulings, beginnings of Pickton inquiries, and now corporate greed, or whatever it is they are protesting against.

And that is the big problem with the "Occupy" protests. Despite the Left's attempts to compare the protests with the Tea Party movement, there are few discernible objectives or goals of this uprising. Look at the Occupy Vancouver group's mantras: "we are the 99%," and "end corporate greed." What do those slogans mean? Nothing. Like most of these protests, Occupy Vancouver is made up of bored old hippies, entitled college kids, and aggrieved minorities and their demands run the gamut of more organic farming, less war, lower housing costs, higher taxes, arrest George Bush, Free Mark Emery, and you can guess the rest. This is typical left-wing whining about everything under the sun.

Where the Tea Party in the US took real legislative concerns (government spending and debt) and turned that into legislative accomplishments (the biggest wave election--2010's midterms--in decades), Occupy Vancouver likely won't accomplish much. And the question remains why there would be an "occupation" in Vancouver. The American protests are a result of rampant and record-high unemployment, huge government debt, record-busting deficits, and a left-wing President who has failed and crushed the expectations of his liberal supporters. I don't quite see what the parallels are in Vancouver for all these iPhone clad, Arts Degree-holding, Save-the-Whale-chanting complainers.

There are real problems facing us, what with our economy weakening and our housing market bubbling, but these occupations, whether on Wall Street or in Vancouver, are't going to do anything to move us forward.

Amateur NDP and the Dick Cheney Protests

Former Vice President Dick Cheney's book tour was interrupted yesterday by protesters who argue Cheney is a war criminal who's admitted to torture. The protesters went on to attack police officers and choke on of the employees of the Vancouver Club venue.

Now, I expect the left-wing zealots to argue that interrogating 3 terrorists using water boarding, a process signed off by the US Justice Department as legal and which yielded tons of actionable intelligence is "torture". However, what surprised me is that Don Davies, the Immigration Critic in the NDP Royal Opposition (-shudder-) agrees and thinks Canada should have barred Cheney from entering the country.

The idea that "government in waiting" NDP would take such a stance regarding an American Vice President is preposterous and underscores the fact that the NDP is not ready for prime time. This isn't a government in waiting or a royal opposition, its a group of activists and partisans who've found themselves fortuitously on the brink of power.

Conservatives Restore Royal Candian Navy

Today, Defense Minister Peter McKay announced that the Canadian Navy and Canadian Air Force, which were stripped of their "royal" heritage back in 1968 by the revisionist and meddling Liberal federal government, would again be named the Royal Canadian Navy and the Royal Canadian Air Force.

As McKay points out, this would correct a historical mistake committed by a party that has committed to removing whatever links to Canada's colonial and British past it could, from renaming our armed forces to renaming our national day (eliminating Dominion Day in favour of the pedestrian-sounding Canada Day). This is a great decision, and an honour to the countless who served and died under the banners of the RCAF and RCN.

Of course, the NDP, ironically now the Royal Opposition, came out against this move, claiming its a step back to the 1950's. In fact, the NDP's Jack Harris even called it a divisive move! If honouring our past, knowing our own history and acknowledging the role the British crown has played in our country is divisive, then that would be a sad commentary on the shallowness of the Canadian story. For me, however, it's a honourable and wise move and just the first step along the way towards reclaiming our shared history and culture that has been whitewashed and ignored for too long.

HST Vote Deadline Today

It's been 2 years. TWO YEARS of fighting over the harmonized sales tax (HST) in BC. But today hopefully marks the end, as referendum ballots are due in today by 4:30pm. I have voted to keep the HST and I hope my fellow British Columbians have joined me.

The HST is more efficient, raises more money, is easier to apply, is more broadly applied, saves the government and business billions in administrative costs, makes business more competitive, fosters investment and job creation and eliminates the cascading PST, where tax is applied on tax.

The HST was and continues to be sound economic policy. It was implemented in a foolish and insulting way, but the people's distaste over that has cost a premier his job, and for a while at least, his legacy. It's time to end this. A vote to kill the HST would only serve to drag this sideshow on for months and year longer, as we untangle the existing system. I'm tired of hearing about it. I'm tired of debating it. Let's move on to other, more pressing priorities, and let this go.

I've voted to keep the HST. Here's hoping enough of you did too.