The Canada Pension Plan got support last Friday from an unlikely source - Conservative Finance Minister, Joe Oliver.... In praising the CPP, Mr. Oliver contradicted two decades of abuse heaped on the plan by Stephen Harper.
Now granted, Mr. Oliver did not INTEND to be supportive. Instead, he was trying to attack the policies of the Liberal Party. But his rant fell flat because the policies he was attacking were NOT Liberal policies. He just made them up, battling figments of his own imagination. So, all that was left were the nice things he said about the CPP.
For example, Mr. Oliver said this:
"The CPP Investment Board has posted impressive returns. Because of its focus on protecting Canadians' retirement savings, the Office of the Chief Actuary projects 75 years of sustainability."
That's quite a compliment. And all that strength and success are a direct result of the essential restructuring of the Canada Pension Plan which took place in the late 1990's under the leadership of then-Finance Minister Paul Martin, in partnership with the Provinces. The vision and courage they mustered to save and bolster the CPP have paid huge dividends.
But what was Stephen Harper saying back then? Here's a sample:
"Take all the federal economic boondoggles that have ever happened and multiply them 100-fold, and you've got the CPP Investment Board."
Mr. Harper was spectacularly wrong, but he never lets the facts stand in the way of prejudice or ideology.
He has been relentless in trying to kill the Canada Pension Plan. In the 1990's, he called for it to be scrapped, in favour of private RRSPs. Failing that, in his infamous "firewalls" letter in 2001, he urged Alberta to withdraw from it.
More recently, when the late Jim Flaherty proposed "a modest, phased-in and fully funded enhancement" of the CPP because there is "strong support for the Canada Pension Plan and the central role it plays in our government-supported retirement income system", Mr. Harper cut him off at the knees.
To Mr. Harper any such "enhancement" is just a payroll tax. He refuses to recognize any value in comprehensively increasing the investment that Canadians make, through the CPP, in their own personal retirement security.
But then, along comes Joe Oliver. Last Friday, he said:
"Remember who that money (in the CPP) belongs to - not government, but pensioners and all those who will rely on the CPP in the years to come."
So it's NOT a payroll tax. It cannot be, because the money does NOT go into government coffers. It's an investment. As Mr. Oliver said, it always "belongs" to the individuals who pay their premiums and who rely on the "impressive returns" of the CPPIB to make sure their defined benefits are secure for their retirement.
Why is Mr. Harper so bent on falsely portraying CPP premiums as "payroll taxes"? Maybe it's to obscure the fact that he himself is the master of escalating payroll taxes.
In 2011, he began a massive hike in Employment Insurance rates. They went up by more than $600-million that year, and then by another $600-million the next year, and then by another $600-million the year after that. And then, in 2014, he froze those rates at that unnecessarily high level until 2017.
That means, not including any labour force or wage growth, Mr. Harper has raked in an incremental $10-billion in higher EI rates since 2011. The Parliamentary Budget Officers says that's at least $5-billion too much. So talk about payroll taxes - Mr. Harper's CPP complaints ring hollow and hypocritical.
Ralph Goodale
For example, Mr. Oliver said this:
"The CPP Investment Board has posted impressive returns. Because of its focus on protecting Canadians' retirement savings, the Office of the Chief Actuary projects 75 years of sustainability."
That's quite a compliment. And all that strength and success are a direct result of the essential restructuring of the Canada Pension Plan which took place in the late 1990's under the leadership of then-Finance Minister Paul Martin, in partnership with the Provinces. The vision and courage they mustered to save and bolster the CPP have paid huge dividends.
But what was Stephen Harper saying back then? Here's a sample:
"Take all the federal economic boondoggles that have ever happened and multiply them 100-fold, and you've got the CPP Investment Board."
Mr. Harper was spectacularly wrong, but he never lets the facts stand in the way of prejudice or ideology.
He has been relentless in trying to kill the Canada Pension Plan. In the 1990's, he called for it to be scrapped, in favour of private RRSPs. Failing that, in his infamous "firewalls" letter in 2001, he urged Alberta to withdraw from it.
More recently, when the late Jim Flaherty proposed "a modest, phased-in and fully funded enhancement" of the CPP because there is "strong support for the Canada Pension Plan and the central role it plays in our government-supported retirement income system", Mr. Harper cut him off at the knees.
To Mr. Harper any such "enhancement" is just a payroll tax. He refuses to recognize any value in comprehensively increasing the investment that Canadians make, through the CPP, in their own personal retirement security.
But then, along comes Joe Oliver. Last Friday, he said:
"Remember who that money (in the CPP) belongs to - not government, but pensioners and all those who will rely on the CPP in the years to come."
So it's NOT a payroll tax. It cannot be, because the money does NOT go into government coffers. It's an investment. As Mr. Oliver said, it always "belongs" to the individuals who pay their premiums and who rely on the "impressive returns" of the CPPIB to make sure their defined benefits are secure for their retirement.
Why is Mr. Harper so bent on falsely portraying CPP premiums as "payroll taxes"? Maybe it's to obscure the fact that he himself is the master of escalating payroll taxes.
In 2011, he began a massive hike in Employment Insurance rates. They went up by more than $600-million that year, and then by another $600-million the next year, and then by another $600-million the year after that. And then, in 2014, he froze those rates at that unnecessarily high level until 2017.
That means, not including any labour force or wage growth, Mr. Harper has raked in an incremental $10-billion in higher EI rates since 2011. The Parliamentary Budget Officers says that's at least $5-billion too much. So talk about payroll taxes - Mr. Harper's CPP complaints ring hollow and hypocritical.
Ralph Goodale
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