Americans Fear Their Election Could End up Like Canada's. I Can Help

In the upcoming election, Barack Obama will not be challenged by the Republicans, who frankly have given up on even pretending to be politicians serving the public, but by the Super PACs.  Political Action Committees financed by wealthy corporations,  who are tired of democracy getting in their way.

Remember that leaked 2006 CitiGroup memo that they have worked so hard to suppress?

The World is dividing into two blocs - the Plutonomy and the rest. The U.S., UK, and Canada are the key Plutonomies - economies powered by the wealthy. Continental Europe (ex-Italy) and Japan are in the egalitarian bloc.

They warned that voters could try to change the idea of governing only for the wealthy.

We can see a number of potential challenges to plutonomy. The first, and probably most potent, is through a labor backlash. Outsourcing, offshoring or insourcing of cheap labor is done to undercut current labor costs .... Low-end developed market labor might not have much economic power, but it does have equal voting power with the rich .... the third threat comes from the potential social backlash.

It's like they predicted the Occupy Movement, that could be successful given that the "low-end", without "much economic power" has "equal voting power with the rich".  (Capitalism, a Love Story)

However, Super PACs are setting out to wrong that right.

And the way they are going to do that is with lots of money and telemarketers.  They can't garner more votes, so will instead try to suppress them.  The Koch Brothers are putting up $200 million for this venture, determined to oust Obama. 
 
I don't know how much Stephen Harper cost them, but they are already reaping rewards.  And if we wonder why the Harper government is so committed to outsourcing Canadian jobs, remember that CitiGroup memo.  It's all about cheap labour.  Which is why during the worst of the economic crisis, when Canadians were losing their jobs at record speed, Jason Kenney accelerated the use of migrant workers.
 
Money, Money, Money

Chris Matthews reminded us last week, of where those millions will be going.  To telemarketers who will work like mad to make sure that Democratic voters don't exercise their democratic rights.
 
The last Canadian federal election could serve as a guide to the Super Pacs, as Canadians were telemarketed to the point of madness.
 
In Kingston, Ontario, there were so many such phone calls, that we were ready to leave the country just to escape them.  And while Do Not Call Lists keep the cheap crap purveyors at bay, the rules do not apply to politics.  One call I received was supposedly on behalf of our Liberal candidate, Ted Hsu (now our MP), asking if we wanted a lawn sign.  The caller was so rude, that had I not been suspicious, I might have fallen for it.
 
Soon after, Hsu's office called asking for support and I informed them of the bogus call that I had received.  Others complained of the same thing.  Looking at the Conservative candidate Alicia Gordon's Elections Canada financial records, I learned that she paid Campaign Research more than $25,000 to annoy the hell out of us.  Remember those guys?  Think Rob Ford (but take a valium first)
 
Ironically when our Speaker of the House, Andrew Scheer was asked to investigate the damage done to Irwin Cotler by Campaign Research, it was learned that he himself had used them to assure his re-election.  He should have declared a conflict of interest.  Instead he gave them a free pass.
 
Another example is Joe Volpe, who was telemarketed out of seat.  Joe Oliver paid Campaign Research $12,159.33
 

An investment banker, he has now joined the Koch team to force feed us their XL-Pipeline, contributing to Canada's reputation as a Jingoistic Petro-State, calling environmentalists "radicals" and "terrorists".

 

If the American people want to preserve their democracy and not end up like Canada, with another stolen election, I have some advice.  If you receive one of these calls, you could just tell the caller that you will be voting so "get a life", or maybe "let me speak to David Koch" or "Am I being punked?". 

 

Although I think the best response might be "Where in the hell do you think you are ?  Canada???!!!"

When is Money Good Money?

Several years ago a story in the Readers Digest's Life's Like That, was a perfect anthem to the American Dream.

The young man who had sent in the story, was attending business school, and in the summer worked at his father's restaurant, a busy local eatery.  With his new found knowledge, he found himself frustrated with the way that his father did his bookkeeping.  Receipts were put on one memo spike and invoices on another.

Finally, in exasperation, he asked his father how he could possibly conduct his business like that.  "How do you know how much your profit is?"

His father's reply was priceless.  He said that he had come to the United States with nothing but the shirt on his back.  He now owned a business, completely paid for; a house and furniture, completely paid for and had put three children through college without having to borrow a dime. 

"I figure that, minus the shirt, is my profit."

That is what the American Dream was all about, but that kind of dream is now illusive to most Americans.

After many requests, Mitt Romney finally made his financial statements public.  It was learned that he "earned" $21.6 million in 2010.  To give that some relevancy, the median gross income in the United States is  $33,048.  Romney made that in less than a day.

$7.4 million of his annual income came from earned interest.  Money on money, not on hard work.

When we look at past "millionaires" and now billionaires, most did become rich through hard work and innovation.  We loved the stories of Henry Ford tinkering with motors on the kitchen counter, his wife with her sleeves rolled up as his assistant.  Or Gerber turning a failing food processing plant into a baby food empire and Howard Johnson selling his first flavoured icecream from a small wagon, when he was barely a teenager.

No one resented them because they were the true inspirational success stories.  But Romney didn't make his money with his sleeves rolled up and grease on his shirt.  He made it by swallowing up small businesses, which often meant ruin and unemployment for those not terminally rich.

He uses Staples as a success story for creating jobs, but what's the average salary of a Staples employee?  Are they living the American dream?

In fact, recent statistics have shown that Americans now rank 10th in social mobility. The citizens of nine other countries, now have a better chance of going from rags to riches, than the country that invented the notion.

One in five children live in poverty in the U.S.  One in five Americans is unemployed or underemployed; one in eight mortgages are in default or foreclosure; and one in eight Americans is on food stamps.  Newt Gingrich's solution to that is to reduce the number of food stamps issued, which will only make the statistic, one in eight Americans died from starvation.

Neoconservatism is turning the U.S. into a Third World Country.

But before we pat ourselves on the back, we are not doing any better.  According to the OECD, Canada has fallen from sixth to 24th place in infant mortality, meaning that babies are more apt to die in this country, than in 23 others, most without our wealth.

The numbers were “shocking” — a word used by half a dozen prominent commentators, including the Conference Board of Canada. We had slipped from sixth place in the world to 24, a virtually unprecedented fall for any country. We are now just above Poland and Hungary, with 5.1 deaths per 1,000 live births of infants less than one year of age. The actual tragedy beyond the percentages: 1,181 infant deaths in 2007.

The Conference Board of Canada also cited another statistic: 

Canada gets a “C” and now ties the U.K. for 15th place out of 17 peer countries. Its infant mortality rate is shockingly high for a country at Canada’s level of socio-economic development.

In a larger study, the U.S. ranked 41 out of 45 nations.

Conservatives like to take the moral high ground over the abortion issue, but as Gloria Steinem once said, for them "life begins at conception but ends at birth".  They want to save a fetus but do nothing to save a child.  They tout "family values" but are determined to keep most families living in poverty.

"These proposals included cries for billions of new money for social assistance in the name of “child poverty” and for more business subsidies in the name of “cultural identity”. In both cases I was sought out as a rare public figure to oppose such projects.” (Stephen Harper, The Bulldog, National Citizens Coalition, February 1997)

The Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives just released it's figures on the top 1%.  By January 3, most corporate executives had earned the same amount that the "average Joe" will make working a full year.  Yet the Harper government just lowered the tax rate for the wealthiest corporations, while raising it for the "average Joe" who will now pay about $150.00 per year more in taxes.

The last two decreases in personal taxes took place in 2001 when the tax rate fell from 17% to 16%, and in 2005, when it was reduced again to 15%.  The Harper government raised the personal income tax to 15.25%, the first increase in decades, but then took it back to 2005 levels, under a banner of "Tories lower personal income tax rate".  They didn't, they just took it back to previous levels.

This means that the Harper government has presided over the largest personal tax rate increases in a generation, not to mention Flaherty's HST.  Stephen Harper and Jim Flaherty have made it easier for the rich to get richer, but have done little, if anything, to help the "average Joe" or the "average Jane".

"Universality has been severely reduced: it is virtually dead as a concept in most areas of public policy... These achievements are due in part to the Reform Party..." - Stephen Harper, speech to the Colin Brown Memorial Dinner, National Citizens Coalition, 1994.

In Arianna Huffington's Third World America, she discusses wealth and the way in which wealth is now created.

We’ve gone from an economy where we make things to an economy where we make things up: Default credit swaps, derivatives, CDOs, and the like have turned Wall Street into a casino ... the promise of upward mobility – that if you work hard and play by the rules, you’ll do well and your children will have the chance to do even better – has been broken. Two-thirds of Americans now think their children will be worse off than they are.

The Canadian banks, who received almost $70 billion in not so much a bailout as a handout, have lowered the interest rates on borrowing, but that also means lower interest rates on savings.  We just renewed an RRSP at 1.3%.   When we bought it we were earning almost 11%.  How can people save for retirement unless they are willing to gamble on the stock market?

And a lower borrowing rate only encourages more debt, and Canada now has one of the highest debt to income ratios in the world. 
 
Mitt Romney's financial statements should come as no surprise, because they are not unlike most millionaire's or billionaire's today.  The only way to make any real money is to become a vulture, capitalizing on the misfortune of others.
 
We all know what happens in Third World countries when that attitude prevails.

American Magazine Calls Canada a Jingoistic Petro-State

Blogger Scott Tribe shared a link yesterday to an article that appeared in Slate magazine, which is owned by the Washington Post.

Saudi Arabia. Nigeria. Venezuela. Canada? Is our neighbor to the north becoming a jingoistic petro-state?

We think that Stephen Harper is only our problem, but like it or not, the rest of the world is paying attention and what they see us turning into is not something they admire.

It’s well known that America’s dependence on foreign oil forces us to partner with some pretty unsavory regimes. Take, for instance, the country that provides by far the largest share of our petroleum imports. Its regime, in thrall to big oil interests, has grown increasingly bellicose, labeling environmental activists “radicals” and “terrorists” and is considering a crackdown on nonprofits that oppose its policies. It blames political dissent on the influence of “foreigners,” while steamrolling domestic opposition to oil projects bankrolled entirely by overseas investors. Meanwhile, its skyrocketing oil exports have sent the value of its currency soaring, enriching energy industry barons but crippling other sectors of its economy.  Yes, Canada is becoming a jingoistic petro-state.

And Will Oremus, the author of the Slate piece is right.  It's pretty hypocritical that Harper is blaming "foreignors" for the opposition to the pipelines, when the damn pipelines and most of the Tar Sands are now owned by "foreignors".  

The U.S., French, British, Chinese, Thai, Korean and Norwegian interests have all bought stakes in oil-sands projects. According to the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (CAPP), international companies have invested nearly $20 billion in the last three years through mergers, partnerships and outright purchases of projects.

While we were sleeping, the Harper government was selling us off.  The Northern Gateway pipeline is being built for China, Norway, Thailand and Korea.  The XL pipeline is being built for the Koch Brothers.

Again ... Ethical Oil?

The Ethical Oil Institute, is a phony grassroots organization, created by Ezra Levant and run by Stephen Harper’s current Director of Planning, Alykhan Velshi.  Velshi, as we know has close ties to Dick Cheney and George Bush.
 
Director of the Ethical Oil Institute is Kathryn Marshall, a blogger and sometimes columnist.  Marshall appeared on Power and Politics recently, where Evan Solomon repeatedly asked her if she was employed by Enbridge, but she refused to answer.
 
Kathyrn Marshall is married to Hamish Marshall, Harper's former strategic planning manager.  Terry Glavin writes for the Ottawa Citizen:  The real foreign interests in the oilsands:

While it's all good fun to play Spot the Freemason, something very serious is going on here. Last summer, John Bruk, the Asia Pacific Foundation's founding president, warned that Ottawa was ignoring the rapid emergence of Chinese government interests "in sheep's clothing" taking over Canada's natural resource industries. Bruk told B.C. Business magazine: "Are we jeopardizing prosperity for our children and grandchildren while putting at risk our economic independence? In my view, this is exactly what is happening."  As things have turned out, Bruk was more right than he knew.

When your currency is quickly becoming backed by a single commodity (not gold), the risks are enormous.  And when China and other foreign interests, have a large stake in that commodity, the risks become even greater.  Do they care if Canada's economy fails?  There is no vested interest, other than in profit.

Canadians’ increasing reliance on crude natural resources has economists on the lookout for symptoms of “Dutch Disease”—a phenomenon in which a natural resources boom strengthens a country’s currency, making its other exports more expensive and less competitive on the world market.

Oremus closes by saying:

President Obama’s rejection of Keystone XL is only as secure as his re-election. GOP front-runner Mitt Romney has called the decision “shocking,” and Newt Gingrich called it “stunningly stupid.” By 2013, the two North American countries could be on the same team again when it comes to oil. If so, it’ll be us against the world.

Newt Gingrich is now the front-runner, so it would be Newt and Harper against the world.  Imagine that.   Dumb and Dumber II.

Fiscal Conservative, Huh?

I love this MacKay cartoon, created when Stephen Harper sold us out for a few crumbs in his "Buy American" scheme.  With Obama once again promoting the insourcing of jobs and America first policies, we can no longer count on the United States to get us out of the hole.  Not that we should have in the first place.

The U.S. is on its way to economic recovery, while the Canadian economy is losing ground.  To help with so-called deficit reduction, the Harper government is laying off 10% of the public service, mainly in areas that challenge their ideology; like Statistics Canada, Environment Canada and Heritage.

Looking to cut corners they are paying a consulting firm $90,000 a day to do the job that was once handled by cabinet ministers.  What cabinet ministers are doing now is anyone's guess.

MacLeans has recently published a list of 99 stupid things the government spent your money on, covering right from municipal to federal.

Telling are those "investments" made by our "fiscal conservative" feds.  Without mentioning the $57,000 for a fake lake, $16 billion on 65 stealth fighter jets (without engines), and the $19.8 million spent so far on those consultants, the "stupid things" include:

- $6 million to Quebec snowmobile clubs.

- $9,000 to convert a curling rink into an archery centre

- $5 million toward marketing and celebrating the 2012 Grey Cup in Toronto

- $1.16 million to design a pedestrian bridge over a busy highway, even though no decision has been made on whether the bridge is actually needed.

 - $180,000 to bring Snoop Dog to the East Coast.

- $26 million on advertising the Economic Action Plan in the lead up to the spring election

- $190,000 into Mrs. Dunster’s, a New Brunswick-based doughnut maker notable for making doughnuts out of pure lard  (I thought Harper was a Timmy's man)

- $700,000 was invested in two start-up cheese companies

- $7.3-million to make 486 million new pennies, which means each penny cost 1.5 cents each. This despite the fact that they are talking about getting rid of the penny altogether.

- Revenue Canada spent $750,000 on an ad campaign warning the public about “under the table home renovations.” Another $113,000 was poured into hiring a polling firm to learn that the ads weren’t very effective.

- $249,000 in Newtopia, a company based in Vaughan (Julian Fantino's riding) that offers genetic testing for obesity and online weight-loss counselling. Founder Jeff Ruby was ecstatic: “Banks can give us money, but the government of Canada provides great credibility.”

 - $1.05 million to Calona Wines of B.C. to double the output of its boxed wines, even though 80 per cent of the wine it sells is imported

 - $87,000 to PurGenesis Technologies of Montreal to commercialize its “line of anti-aging products based on certified organically grown baby spinach leaves.” The money followed an earlier government “contribution” of $282,000 in 2009.  Couldn't we just use baby spinach leaves?

- a company called Solarpro was awarded $54,000 to commercialize tanning beds.

 -  a $284-million program to get Ontario tobacco farmers out of the industry in 2008 actually funnelled half the money to people who didn’t farm tobacco in the first place

- $41,300 to find out the value of Canada’s polar bear population. Turns out each one is worth $400,000.  Based on what, and who would actually pay that to own a polar bear?

 -  Ottawa’s National Capital Commission installed seven new ice shacks along the Rideau Canal for skaters.  Each shack cost $750,000. By comparison, the average house price in Ottawa is $360,000

 - $200,000 for two focus-group surveys that both concluded: “Generally speaking, participants were not looking for a quick fix to Canada’s budgetary deficit.”

And that's only a partial list with more to come.  Will it include the $800,000 fiasco to celebrate our victory (?) in Libya?  Or the hundreds of thousands for a re-enactment of the War of 1812?  Carefully staged photo-ops?

When Harper was with the National Citizens Coalition, he hated this kind of government waste.  Now he's like Sarah Palin on crack.

Harper Job Cuts Provide Perfect Opportunity for Revenge

On the front page of yesterday's Toronto Star, Les Whittington and Bruce Campion-Smith reveal the thousands of civil services jobs being cut by the Harper government.  This after an election promise made by John Baird not to make those cuts.

What he really meant to say was vote for us and if we get another minority, those jobs will be safe.  Silly enough to give us a majority, and you're on your own.

Running down the list, it's easy to see why the various departments have been targeted.

Government Services - losing 72 auditors as part of the 687 getting the axe.  Harper hates auditors.

Environment Canada - losing 300 scientists and meteorologists.  Harper hates scientists and has decided that we don't need people sitting around watching meteors all day (she says tongue in cheek).

Fisheries and Oceans - losing 150.  Now that he has allowed mining companies to dump toxic waste into our waterways, and multinational corporations to disease our fish, what's the point?  I hear that lice infested three-eyed salmon will become a delicacy.

The National Gallery of Canada - After trying to move many of our treasures to a corporation in Calgary, employees here only get in his way.  Besides he has already created a National art  gallery after plastering the walls with photos of himself.

Human Resources and Skills development will lose almost 4,000, Canadian Heritage, 579, Statistics Canada (who needs statistics?) 725, RCMP 1,106, Veterans Affairs, 53 (at a time when vets returning from Afghanistan need help), Museum of Civilization, the list goes on.

I know that the right-wing is salivating, but hold on there boys.  In the five years that Harper has been in office, the public service grew by 45% as he had a lot of patronage appointments to fill. (Public sector swelled under Tories: Number of public servants far outpaced population growth,  Macleans,  November 30, 2011)  Spending also increased from $209 billion when he took power, to a whopping $274 billion, and the budget for the PMO has risen at a rate of $10 million annually.

Like Ronald Reagan, Harper was never really a small government guy.  A bloated cabinet and the addition of Parliamentary secretaries, are only a fraction of the people this man needs to make him look good.  Image consultants, photographers, videographers (Taxpayers on hook for $1.7-million as PMO rolls out video, By Bruce Cheadle, The Canadian Press, December 08, 2009), the largest communications staff of any prime minister, all work to make him look prime ministerial.

This government also increased the use of private consultants, after it was discovered that they outspent all others on opinion polls.  “The reality is the Conservatives have increased spending on consultants by $3 billion per year since taking office."  These consultants are doing the jobs once performed by cabinet ministers and their staff. 

Under Harper, a cabinet minister has one job and one job only.  To do what he tells them to do.

Flaherty is also promising that many vital public services will be cut so that Harper and his team can continue to live the lavish lifestyle they have grown accustomed to.

Instead of paying $90,000 per day to a private consultant who is supposed to save us money (?), this government should just start doing their job, instead of wasting so much taxpayer money, to provide the image that they are doing their job.
 
This sounds like John Baird and Ontario under Mike Harris.  Baird hired a consulting service to help him save money when he headed Social Service.  It cost Ontarians four to one, what it would have cost had he just left well enough alone.

Will the Flaherty-Harper Ticking Time Bomb be Detonated?

In Jim Flaherty's first budget, he announced that his government was opening up the housing market to  private insurers.  “These changes will result in greater choice and innovation in the market for mortgage insurance, benefiting consumers and promoting home ownership."

Loosely translated, the sub-prime mortgage industry was heading north, and so was AIG.

On May 2, 2006, in his first budget, Mr. Flaherty announced that not only would Ottawa guarantee the business of U.S. insurers, it was doubling the guarantee to $200-billion.

And despite repeated warnings that Canada's financial system was being exposed to far too much risk, Flaherty locked arms with his boss and said "bring it on".

Tick, tick, tick.

If you remember, AIG was one of the early victims of the Wall Street induced economic crisis, and in fact their "innovation" helped to create the collapse, when with the help of Goldman Sachs, they backed too many risky mortgages.

Of course that was the game all along as what are known as "derivatives" became a popular form of investing.  The way it works is that people who wouldn't normally qualify for a mortgage, suddenly became home owners.  This brought more competition into the housing market creating a bubble. 

The investor then took out an insurance policy on the risky mortgages, knowing that they would fail, and when the housing bubble collapsed, they cashed in and AIG cashed out.  Matt Tabbi called it the "swoop and squat".

Yet again, knowing how risky derivatives are to a nation's economy, Jim Flaherty hired a Goldman Sachs employee to help him get the Canadian taxpayer into the game, even investing some of our Canada Pension Plan funds.

Tick, tick, tick.

When the economic crisis hit, Flaherty knew he was in trouble.  The banks after repeated warnings, let him know that they were not going to shoulder the burden of his mismanagement, so he was forced to buy back all the high-risk debt that he had saddled them with.

Unlike the bank bailouts south of the border, where the banks had to pay the government back, this was an outright transfer of rotten paper, in exchange for $125 billion in cold hard cash.  Our cash, now backed by what could very well be worthless junk.  And since we didn't actually have $125 billion sitting around in a safe, we had to borrow the money, adding to our national debt.

Tick, tick, tick.

The International Monetary Fund is now warning that Canada could be facing the collapse of our housing bubble, something that the government was warned about two years ago.

Canada’s average home price is about 10 per cent higher than models suggest it should be, posing a “vulnerability” to the country’s economic outlook, the International Monetary Fund warns in a new report.  A drop in prices would be a blow to already highly indebted consumers. With household debt at record levels of about 150 per cent of disposable income, the domestic spending boom that helped Canada weather the financial crisis already is at its limits.

When Flaherty bailed out our banks, he said that it was to "free up funds", that could be lent to consumers so that they would spend, and help keep up the illusion of his sound fiscal management.  Now Goldman Sach's Mark Carney, head of the Bank of Canada, is blaming consumers for their personal debt, the result of spending that they no doubt would have curbed, had they known just how shaky our economy really was.

Tick, tick .... TOCK?!

The IMF is now investigating CMHC.  Where were they in 2006?

What Will Harper Try to Give Away This Time in 'Buy America' Fix?

Obama's new job strategy once again includes a "Buy America" clause, specifically stating that unless there are savings of at least 25%, infrastructure projects must use only U.S. materials.

Last time this happened, Harper gave away the farm for a few ears of corn, making him the brunt of jokes. According to Wikileaks, members of the U.S. government involved in the deal would ask "so has he called today? What are we getting now? Ha, ha, ha."

And indeed the joke was on us.

However, after giving them so much last time, what do we have left? I heard that he's offering the Parliament Buildings, the CN Tower and an 8" x 10" autographed picture of himself with Pamela Sue Anderson. (his wall is full) They could just crop out his image.

We have to quit depending on the United States for our economic recovery. They are hurting themselves. We need a Canadian strategy and if this hurts our border security deal (that erases our borders), then maybe there's a God after all.

Will Canada Survive Another Recession?

News on the economic front is that we could be heading toward another financial crisis.

Canada survived the last one, because of measures put in place by previous governments. Measures that would not have been there, if Harper had had his way when Leader of the Opposition, because he pushed Paul Martin to deregulate the banks.

Fortunately, he didn't listen.

We learned through Wikileaks, that Flaherty and Harper really had no plan for the economy, only hoped that their expensive taxpayer funded ad campaign (more than a quarter of a million dollars), dubbed the Canada Action Plan, would lead us to believe that they did.

They had no plan B.

And since then, they have been steadily deregulating, so what will this mean for us?

We're bombing for oil on the credit card and have committed to massive military spending on hardware.

When Harper made a rare public appearance to take a stab at Nycole Turmel, my husband and I both said "My God. Does he ever look awful". He was pale and nervous, without his usual arrogance.

He looked worried.

Now I know why.

More Smoke and Mirrors on the Canadian Economy

Now that the election is over, the Conservatives are reneging on their promise to balance the books a year earlier than their original fairy tale.

The only shock is that they still think we believe anything they say.

Embassy magazine reports several wikileak memos, and one deals with the U.S. view of how Harper handles the economy.

In a cable dated Jan. 4, 2010, American officials at the Embassy in Ottawa summarized the Harper government’s top five policy priorities for 2010, starting with Mr. Harper’s top goal, “remaining in power” and, secondly, the economy.

“The Conservatives will need to demonstrate slow but steady progress on the economy and to claim credit even when it is not necessarily due to them,” reads the document, signed off by US Ambassador David Jacobson.

“The Conservatives do not appear to have any bold measures up their sleeves to improve the economy,” it adds later, “but appear content to wait for more results from their uncharacteristic stimulus packages and for a rising global economy—especially in the US—to lift all boats.”

That pretty much sums it up: "claim credit even when it is not necessarily due to them" and "wait" hoping that other factors save them.

Another campaign promise was the "tax free savings accounts", a gift to the wealthy.

Neil Brooks, a professor of tax law at Osgoode Hall Law School, says the program does little for moderate earners, and is really about eliminating taxes on capital gains and other income from capital – something the financial community has long lobbied for but been unable to achieve.

Brooks argues that the TFSA program has far-reaching implications, moving Canada away from the income tax – which taxes income from both capital and wages – towards a system that taxes only wages. That will shift the tax burden away from investors, and increasingly onto the backs of wage earner ..

If this government put only a fraction of their focus on the average Canadian as they do the wealthy and the corporate sector, they might not have to worry about outside forces saving their bacon.

Neoconservatism scores another victory.