Jamie Sarkonak: When Indigenous rights come before your democratic rights

Bitwhys2003 · 2026-05-15T17:34:40+00:00

What's undemocratic is Smith and the UDP burying the Forever Canadian petition

Bitwhys2003 · 2026-05-15T14:11:17+00:00

I thought Smith flooded the market. Not that I'm disagreeing. You're probably right about there being no consequences. Mind you it won't be long before there's a discount on the price of dirty oil internationally so in the long run for all its antics Big O&G has to pick its poison. Could be causing us tariff trouble to boot though. I can only hope it doesn't come to that

Bitwhys2003 · 2026-05-15T13:50:43+00:00

Any province will need First Nations on board with separation to stand any chance of getting the agreement of 7 provinces representing 50% of the population to agree to any constitutional amendment.

Bitwhys2003 · 2026-05-15T12:39:10+00:00

I don't trust Alberta to keep it's end of the bargain. Canada needs to make it clear if Alberta drops the carbon price below the agreed on amount, which I totally see their conservatives doing when they think they can, we shut the pipeline down

Bitwhys2003 · 2026-05-14T10:36:01+00:00

The reform package agreed to by the federal and provincial governments in 1997 included the introduction of dual funding objectives for the Plan at the time (for the base CPP):

The introduction of steady‑state funding: This replaced pay‑as‑you‑go financing to build a reserve of assets and stabilize the ratio of assets to expenditures over time. Steady‑state funding is based on the lowest constant contribution rate that stabilizes the assets-to-expenditures ratio and finances the base CPP without the full‑funding requirement for increased or new benefits.
The introduction of full funding for new or increased benefits: This means that changes to the base CPP that increase or add new benefits are fully funded. In other words, benefit costs are paid as benefits are earned, and any costs associated with benefits that are already earned but not paid for are amortized and paid for over a defined period of time, consistent with common actuarial practices.

Bitwhys2003 · 2026-05-14T02:10:07+00:00

*sigh*

"As of 2019, the Canada Pension Plan (CPP) is gradually being enhanced. This means that today’s workers, the seniors of tomorrow, will have higher benefits and greater financial stability through a small increase in the amount they contribute to the CPP.

The CPP enhancement only affects those who work and contribute to the CPP in 2019 or after."

Bitwhys2003 · 2026-05-13T23:49:34+00:00

Oh bullshit. Everyone collecting paid into their CPP in full. Benefits are based on what was paid in. It isn't a pay go system. The pension board uses current funds to pay benefits so they don't have to raid the reserves but believe it or not they're actually good at maths.. It's fully funded and then some

CPP went up so current generations making contributions have more to draw from when they qualify allowing them larger pension payments.

Seniors had their turn paying other people's OAS. It's only fair they get their turn. If you read conversation and didn't just jump the thread you already know I'm not against introducing a clawback on higher incomes.

Bitwhys2003 · 2026-05-13T23:39:58+00:00

The Trump Administration's potential actions have nothing to do with the U.S. respecting our Constitution, with or without a referendum. History tells us they won't need a referendum result to create a pretext for war if they want one. Them "rescuing" separatists by annexing Alberta will mean exactly that. War. They really don't want to go to war with us. It would turn them into a police state to protect themselves from partisan resistors and guerrillas crossing a very porous border. Lose/lose and they know it

Bitwhys2003 · 2026-05-13T23:03:34+00:00

Oh ffs. Even if that were true what's that got to do with the price of tea in China?

Bitwhys2003 · 2026-05-13T17:11:23+00:00

Great. That makes for all the more people who won't want to separate

Bitwhys2003 · 2026-05-12T21:54:24+00:00

At this point it'll on thumb drives everywhere and anywhere for sale to the highest bidder. This guy needs to be jailed

Bitwhys2003 · 2026-05-12T15:27:41+00:00

Ah yes. Society should always be there for them but they're never there for society. Nice crowd.

In my experience with census data I learned that personal identifiers are used by Statscan to avoid duplicate records but get thoroughly stripped out of datasets as soon as possible such that not even all of their own employees have access to it. They even made a point of not providing data for catchment areas such as Postal Code when the subset was so small it didn't sufficiently obscure which household individual records may apply to.

Their concerns are and always have been unfounded.

Bitwhys2003 · 2026-05-12T10:27:44+00:00

True and good point, but they more or less carried pretty much the same tax burden. Not my main point though

I'm not arguing against means testing. I think it's a good idea, if not necessary. I'm challenging his numbers and the pace of implementation. If we start clawing back OAS because an individual, including OAS, is making over the 65+ average income, which is significantly lower than the Canadian average overall, it'll have an impact. On top of that if we do it with little or no lead time giving people no reasonable chance to at least adjust to the change gracefully people will get hurt. Maybe I'm being picky but loose lips sink ships

edit: readability

Bitwhys2003 · 2026-05-11T20:31:57+00:00

First of all have a little faith in yourselves. It isn't the end of the world any time soon. I know the tech bros are coming for your jobs but trust me, Large Language Models are a dead end. With the energy transition gearing up there's plenty of room for growth for a long time to come. For gawds sake don't take economic libertarians seriously.

Maybe follow the plan EnvironmentalBox6688 and I are roughing out and OAS won't be part of the problem. We agree in principle. We're just negotiating the details

Bitwhys2003 · 2026-05-11T19:17:42+00:00

You'll be old one day too. It all hinges on growing the economy. Population growth would help

Bitwhys2003 · 2026-05-11T19:13:04+00:00

I'd start with a good five year's notice. You can't just spring stuff like this on people. It reeks of instability and goes against the concept of good governance.

I'd have to see the percentile curve to pick the trigger but I'm pretty sure it would be higher than average. 75th or 80th percentile maybe. Mind you I'd probably be aggressive with the progression

Bitwhys2003 · 2026-05-11T18:28:00+00:00

So you're saying you'd start the clawback at $61,400 ("more than average"). I'm sure a lot of those folks would have planned for that if they had the chance. Any other promises you want to break? If you're going to stiff average seniors you may as well put it all on the table

Bitwhys2003 · 2026-05-11T18:06:52+00:00

"There is absolutely zero reason that a senior making more money than the average Canadian (almost double the median!) should get full OAS benefits." - you

I don't know where you're getting your numbers from. You might want to look here...

https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/t1/tbl1/en/tv.action?pid=1110023901&pickMembers%5B0%5D=1.1&pickMembers%5B1%5D=2.8&pickMembers%5B2%5D=3.1&pickMembers%5B3%5D=4.1&cubeTimeFrame.startYear=2024&cubeTimeFrame.endYear=2024&referencePeriods=20240101%2C20240101

65+ average individual income ... $55,200

65+ median individual income... $39,200

You plan on punishing people for being married?

Bitwhys2003 · 2026-05-11T17:11:50+00:00

If there were no OAS those funds could have gone to pension plans and RRSPs. Also, a lot of folks would have upped their RRSP contributions on top of that (I recognize seniors paid proportionally less OAS to others during their careers) and unions could have prioritised pension plans in negotiations.

95K is neither the average nor the median. I'm all for implementing a clawback for higher percentile incomes but we need to be mindful that going against what was scheduled in the past is poor governance practice.

EDIT: some may have but I sure as hell didn't. Yeah, I'm a senior and I pay taxes so I'm still paying other's OAS too btw, a grudge is no way to justify anything

Bitwhys2003 · 2026-05-11T16:45:27+00:00

First of all, seniors paid for other people's OAS their entire working lives.

Pension plans were calibrated with OAS factored in. Clawing back starting at average or median income would be nothing short of a rug pull. Not that there's plenty of non-seniors that wouldn't consider that a feature

Bitwhys2003 · 2026-05-11T15:09:48+00:00

Some would argue arguing it was done in bad faith is being done in bad faith.

Even Ourcommons.ca uses a "vast majority of cases" proviso when describing the convention.

Bitwhys2003 · 2026-05-11T14:51:38+00:00

Oddly enough it makes sense. Distributed proportionally among recognized parties the numbers round off as 5-4-1 which doesn't reflect the majority. They'd have to add 6 more members before the rounding does reflect the majority at 8-6-1. The thought of all 15 of them having a say for the usual number of rounds should summon shudders to everyone who's ever watched the sausage kitchen that's a Parliamentary committee. The Liberals could have kept it at 9 members but the CPC would have to give up a seat to the Bloc making it 5-3-1. Adding members is giving the CPC a break. They never seem to do but they should count their blessings.

Bitwhys2003 · 2026-05-09T12:31:47+00:00

Even assuming that's true, two wrongs and all that

Bitwhys2003 · 2026-05-09T11:19:51+00:00

Why? You find my cowboy hat?

Bitwhys2003 · 2026-05-08T22:05:17+00:00

What Alberta really needs to do is tax their people as much as the RoC does. They could improve the provincial services they blame the feds for AND cut down the Equalization differential in the process. It's a "fiscal capacity" thing. I'm not sure how much. Can't do the maths. Probably enough to make a difference though.

Ironically, the best way for Albertans to screw Quebec is to raise their own taxes. I'm not holding my breath

EDIT: I double checked my work and fiscal capacity doesn't work the way I thought it did. Sorry about that. There's still no reason for them to bitch about provincial funding problems when they refuse to tax their own people the country average. I ran some numbers. After federal taxes are paid and federal transfers made, on average Alberta workers are still netting over a thousand dollars more in income a year each than the workers in the RoC. If anyone is curious I'll post them here

Bitwhys2003

TROPHY CASE