Election 2015

[GAP]

As far as Mb goes, the NDP won because the Cons totally blew it....what a sad performance.

It would seem Ont. was in the same situation from what I read.............

 

[RangerRay]

BC is a dogs breakfast at the moment.  The free enterprise coalition that was the BC Liberals has pretty much imploded, and the NDP grown beyond their traditional ~40%.  If Christy Clark can't stop the bleeding and rebuild the coalition (which I doubt she could) we are looking at an NDP government.  It's tough to say whether it would be a majority, or a minority with the BC Conservatives (which hasn't elected an MLA since the 1970's) holding the balance of power.

 

[a_majoor]

The PCPO most certainly lost the last election, partly because they could not seem to comprehend the opposition was not the Liberals but the Public Service Unions through the "Working Families" front organization.

While I am sure to get the usual deamonization for pointing this out, Civil Service unions get a much better deal overall than the taxpayer in terms of virtually every metric, from wages to pay increases to benefits and pensions. Dalton McGuinty has been paying the Danegeld ever since he achieved office, and you know the people who benefit from this will be fighting to the last taxpayer to keep their perques.

We have seen the test shots being fired WRT the trimming and reorganization of the government in the Government Re-org and trimming thread, expect more of the same and a powerful push by "Working Families" type groups as we get closer to the election.

 

[RangerRay]

Correction to my last...

...and the NDP has not grown beyond their traditional ~40%...

 

[Edward Campbell]

The implications of this report, reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions of the Copyright Act from the Globe and Mail, go far beyond the 2015 Election:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/stephen-harpers-census/article2326375

Stephen Harper's census

JOE FRIESEN

From Saturday's Globe and Mail
Published Saturday, Feb. 04, 2012

Stephen Harper owes his success in no small part to his mastery of demographics, having tailored his election platform to winning enough seats in key pockets of Ontario and elsewhere to achieve a majority.

Now, the renowned tactician has turned his attention to a grand vision, a once-in-a-generation kind of reform that would change how we save for retirement, whom we admit to the country and how we orient our economic policy.

Speaking in Davos, Switzerland, last week, Mr. Harper said Canada's aging population threatens our cherished social programs. He thrust obscure stats such as the old-age-dependency ratio to centre stage, promised to overhaul our immigration system and strongly hinted at raising the age of eligibility for old-age security.

These are transformative changes, the kind that can't be executed without a good deal of persuasion. The Prime Minister will get some ammunition on Wednesday. That's when the first results of the 2011 census are released. Every census is used for political purposes, but this one will be the most significant in a generation. It will be the evidence Mr. Harper relies on to advance an austerity agenda.

Mr. Harper has indicated that he wants to cut now to prepare for the coming bulge of baby boomers, the first of whom are now turning 65, and whose number and influence will be reflected in upcoming census releases. He will argue that they pose a threat to Canada's financial security, and their appetite for the pensions and health care they have been promised certainly will prove expensive.

The census will also help Mr. Harper as he seeks to push closer links with Asia. In his Davos speech, he promised to explore other markets for oil after the Keystone pipeline setback, as well as free trade with India. He visits China next week. The westward momentum of the population and its growing human ties to Asia through immigration will create further impetus for Canada's Pacific reorientation.

The question is whether Mr. Harper can address these national challenges while holding together the hard-won coalition he built into a majority government. After finally persuading enough of Atlantic Canada and Ontario to join his western-based Conservative Party, he could alienate voters in those provinces by turning a deaf ear to local concerns. Atlantic Canada is aging and Ontario's share of immigration is tumbling. A failure to deal with either of those could have major economic consequences.

At the same time, the aging of the population is tearing at the national compact. The Constitution promises “reasonably comparable levels of public services at reasonably comparable levels of taxation.”

It's hard to imagine that will be the case in provinces whose horizons differ as much as Alberta and Nova Scotia.

The first volley in this battle was launched last month over health care. The most forceful objection to the Prime Minister's new deal on health transfer payments – a straight 6-per-cent increase based on population – came from British Columbia. Premier Christy Clark argued that B.C. and Atlantic Canada would suffer if the funding formula did not compensate provinces, like B.C., that have a higher proportion of old people. Meanwhile, Alberta, which has Canada's youngest population, would be nearly $1-billion a year richer under the new formula.

The straightforward per-capita grant fits with Mr. Harper's view of a decentralized Canada, where the federal government doles out money and the provinces decide how to use it. The Prime Minister is a bit of a puzzle in this: The same man who told an audience in Switzerland that demographics threaten our social programs was apparently unable to see the sense in a more detailed demographic argument from Victoria.

Gone west

The census will show that population growth in Canada is shifting westward to the resource-rich economies, as it usually does when oil prices are high. Increasingly, that trend seems permanent. In 2010, nearly every city in the West grew at a rate above the national average, while only nine of the 25 cities from Ontario east could claim the same. And while every province worries about the costs of an aging population, some provinces are older than others. To compound their problems, the oldest provinces also tend to be the worst off.

The cleavage runs more or less along the Ontario-Manitoba boundary. In the West, Alberta is a behemoth. It has the highest proportion of people of working age and the lowest proportion of seniors. With a little more than 10 per cent of Canada's population, it contributes more than 16 per cent to the national gross domestic product. Its median age is the lowest in the country. Once mocked for its parochialism, it now attracts one in 10 immigrants to the country.

Manitoba and Saskatchewan are home to some of the country's fastest-growing communities. Winnipeg's share of immigrants soared by 88 per cent from 2006 to 2011, compared with the 2001-06 period. Saskatoon and Regina exploded with immigration growth of 180 per cent and 162 per cent, respectively, in that time. The delivery rooms of local hospitals are also proportionally busier than in the rest of Canada, since the highest birth rates are on the Prairies. Saskatchewan, long a net loser of population, will probably trail only Alberta in population growth this time.

Atlantic Canada, conversely, is by far Canada's oldest region. Despite some recent immigration gains, the median age is three to four years older than the rest of the country. That bodes ill. All four provinces have median ages well into the 40s, above the national average, with Newfoundland the highest at 43.8.

The future

Consider for a moment what the federation might look like in 20 years when the baby boomers have all turned 65. Somewhere between a quarter and a third of Atlantic Canada will be over 65. The preponderance of white hair on the street will be slightly surreal. There will be about two people of working age to support each retiree. Health-care costs will devour provincial budgets. Nursing homes will be the new fishery. That also has consequences for the younger generation – older voters are less likely to demand investments in education and innovation. Their horizons tend to be shorter.

Meanwhile, Ontario, for so long the linchpin of economic growth in Confederation, is showing signs of decline. It has lost more than 300,000 manufacturing jobs since 2000 and watched its share of the national immigration pie drop to nearly 40 per cent from 60 per cent in just five years. About two-thirds of Canadian population growth is due to immigration, the other third to births (the reverse is true for the U.S.), which is why Ontario has for years been one of the fastest-growing provinces. Those immigrants, typically younger and better educated than the rest of the Canadian population, contributed to the province's growth and were a sign of its prosperity. Now, Ontario might actually see its rate of population growth drop below the national average, a symbolic threshold.

Quebec has also suffered economically and for years welcomed less than its proportional share of newcomers. As it continues to grow more slowly than other parts of Canada, its relative influence in Confederation dwindles, fuelling its existential angst. The sovereigntist movement might be quiet for now, but will it be in 10 years?

Keeping these regional interests from boiling over will be Mr. Harper's challenge. His first test came from the premiers on health care. In that case, his vision demanded that every province be treated the same. The danger of that philosophy is it could make them more different than ever.

Joe Friesen is The Globe and Mail's demographics reporter.

THE big challenge for Prime Minister Harper, indeed for Canada, is to "fix" Ontario ~ it constitutes more than 1/3 of the country's population (actually 38%) but only 37% of Canada's GDP, down from 39% in 2005. Given that "old Canada," Canada East of the Ottawa River is unlikely to ever be a net contributor to the national commonwealth it is essential that "new Canada," (BC, AB, SK, MB and ON) are, in aggregate, always producing more than their 'fair share' to help support the weaker sisters.

THE big challenge for Ontario is to recover from the huge losses in the manufacturing sector over the past 20 years. During my lifetime we saw the manufacturing sector grow from a low skill/low wage proposition into a low skill/high wage thing and then start to collapse. It is unlikely that:

1. Ontario can, ever again, be a low skill/high wage manufacturing hub - but it can have some low skill/low wage manufacturing and more high skill/high wage manufacturing; or

2. Ontario can, nearly alone, "carry" the national economy, as it did for 50 years from 1950 to 2000.

The entire country needs to shed its "culture of entitlement," a holdover from the socio-economic idiocy of the Trudeau era, and regain its frugal, self reliant spirit - which was nearly wrung out of us by the pain of Great Depression combined with the drought of the "dirty thirties" and the giddy growth after World War II. We translated the best elements of a "cooperative" culture into an unsustainable "culture of entitlement" and, simultaneously, we denigrated the virtues of hard work, thrift and self reliance. These are social and attitudinal matters more than they are policy or political issues.

 

[Kirkhill]

When I came over to Canada (Peterborough) in 1966 I can remember our Grade 6 teacher making comment on the Autopact recently signed by Pearson and Johnson (1965).  Since then I have laboured under the apprehension that Ontario's "prosperity" was the result of a political construct rather than any "natural" advantage.  Coincidentally that change seems to have occurred concurrently with the closing of all the lumber mills and hard rock mines in Northern Ontario (ie from Peterborough to Kenora).

In 1965 the US could afford to be generous with jobs. Ontario got a hand up from the Yanks (for which she has been eternally grateful  :sarcasm.  Now the Yanks want and need those jobs back (and we need them to have them back so they can afford once again to buy "stuff" from us). Ontario is going to have to find something else to sell to them. What does Ontario have that they can't provide themselves?

 

[a_majoor]

Thereality is Ontario is badly damaged, and only a pretty drastic policy turnaround can change the reality of these numbers. Whoever takes over will be in a far worse position than when Mike Harris picked up the pieces from Bob Rae:

http://www.nationalpost.com/opinion/McGuinty+syndrome/6101585/story.html

The McGuinty syndrome

National Post · Feb. 4, 2012 | Last Updated: Feb. 4, 2012 5:15 AM ET

Ontario voters and taxpayers can be forgiven if they've awakened to the sense that they've been badly duped.

During October's provincial election campaign, they were repeatedly told that the province faces five years of deficits, but that Liberal Finance Minister Dwight Duncan has a plan to eliminate it, and that Premier Dalton McGuinty was determined to make the "tough decisions" to make that plan a success.

On Thursday they learned that the situation was far worse than the government let on. A new report from the Conference Board of Canada suggests the chances of Ontario balancing its books by 2016-17 as promised are slim to none. Only by projecting unrealistic levels of growth could Messrs. Duncan and McGuinty make that claim, the Conference Board says. The reality is that growth is likely to be much slower, and for an extended period of time, due to the aging population, a slowing manufacturing sector and a shaky U.S. economy.

As reported in the National Post on Friday, the Conference Board says it's unlikely the budget will be balanced before 2021-22 - i.e. a full decade from now - even if we make the questionable assumption that the Ontario government will stick to an aggressive campaign of spending-reduction. To balance the books by 2017, program spending growth would have to be limited to 0.7% a year, this from a government that has increased spending by more than 6% a year every year since it came to power. Even if growth in health and education spending is limited to increases caused by inflation, demographic changes and population increases, Ontario won't achieve a balanced budget by 2031. The alternative is regular tax increases (perhaps even a doubling of the provincial share of the HST) and cuts to health care.

Anyone familiar with the McGuinty government knows it is not likely to admit to any of this. Since it first came to power eight years ago, its modus operandi has been to ignore its promises, backtrack on pledges, cancel ill-advised initiatives and hide the evidence of programs gone wrong. When it's warned that there's trouble ahead, it forges on anyway until disaster itself forces a halt. When proof of its bumbling emerges despite its best efforts, Mr. McGuinty shrugs, offers a few sunny platitudes and vows that he's determined to put it right, because it's never too late to make the right decision.

It's a pattern Mr. McGuinty has stuck to through thick and thin. Unable to meet a vow to hold the line on public sector contracts, the government engaged in voodoo accounting to keep the truth from public view. Warned that an ill-advised foray into private enterprise at its air ambulance service was heading for trouble, the province plowed ahead nonetheless until newspaper revelations forced a sharp retreat and an embarrassing rash of firings.

Even Mr. McGuinty's approach to solving his deficit dilemma reflects his extreme reluctance to face up to problems. With the shortfalls piling up, the Premier appointed economist Don Drummond to assess the situation and propose solutions. Mr. Drummond's findings are due soon, but regular leaks and interviews with the author have made clear that proposals will include sweeping changes to the way the province operates, including a wholesale revamping of health care. The Premier, who has seen the report, is now using it as a foil to protect himself from a backlash when the full details are released.

Observers have noted that the shield represented by the Drummond report is good news for Ontarians, because it might give the Premier the courage to take the steps it contains (which Mr. Drummond has acknowledged will be unpopular). While true, that in itself is a sad statement on the future Ontarians face and the nature of Mr. McGuinty's leadership. Only when he's driven the economy to the point of ruin can the Premier bring himself to acknowledge the situation and take some steps to remedy it, and only because a third-party report compiled by a former federal civil servant spells out in unflinching detail just how awful Liberal rule has been for the province's finances.

Don't expect a show of regret from Mr. McGuinty, though. Even after eight years, and with four more ahead of him, the Premier is not one to accept responsibility for anything negative that's happened in that period. This is a government that inherited a deficit of $5-billion, has tripled it in eight years and insists it's all the fault of other people and other countries. We'll get the firm brow, the look of determination and another display of the McGuinty command of platitudes. Because it's never too late to make the right decision.

 

[The Bread Guy]

Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced today that a by-election will be held on March 12, 2012 in the riding of Toronto-Danforth (Ontario).

PMO Info-machine, 5 Feb 12

 

[Edward Campbell]

This, the topic of this article which is reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions of the Copyright Act from the Globe and Mail, might be a "sleeper" issue that, finally, unites busybody social conservatives with more traditional Tory fiscal conservatives:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/john-ibbitson/does-the-state-have-a-role-in-promoting-married-family-life/article2329065/

Does the state have a role in promoting married family life?

JOHN IBBITSON

Globe and Mail Update
Published Tuesday, Feb. 07, 2012

Statistics Canada will reveal the state of our nation, Wednesday, by releasing the first results from the 2011 census, focusing on population trends. There are those who believe the numbers will prove our country is committing demographic suicide.

The Institute of Marriage and Family Canada – it will not shock you to hear they are socially conservative – released an internationally co-authored report Monday arguing for urgent government action to promote larger families and two-parent households.

Actually, Bradford Wilcox, a University of Virginia sociologist who co-authored the study, expects to see Statscan report a slight uptick in Canada’s birthrate.

But two facts remain: First, our underfunded pension schemes and skyrocketing health-care costs stem in part from the simple fact that, sometime around 1970, Canadians stopped having the necessary 2.1 children per woman needed to sustain the population.

Second, an increasing number of children are raised in single-parent environments, which places them at greater risk of poverty, poor nutrition and inadequate education.

“Although there are always exceptions ... most scientists who study these questions would say that the stable two-parent family is better than the alternative,” Prof. Wilcox observes.

For the authors of The Sustainable Demographic Dividend, government tax policies should encourage couples to have children; child care subsidies should allow women to balance work and parenting in whatever way most suits them; government advertising campaigns should promote the advantages of married family life (the authors cite studies showing married couples are more likely to stay together than those who cohabit), just as previous campaigns warned against cigarette smoking or driving while impaired.

The Harper government hears this message, which is why it prefers direct child care grants to parents rather than subsidies for daycare centres, and is promising income-splitting for families with children once the budget is balanced. (This will allow parents to pool their income for tax purposes.) Many of these policies infuriate those who have fought for women’s equality. But in terms of pure social utility, the family-values crowd has a point.

The decision by couples across the developed world to have fewer children was, for decades, a social blessing. It gave women the freedom to work, it increased family income, and it allowed parents and governments to lavish resources on those children who were around, leading to improved education and productivity.

But we’re paying a price for all those children who weren’t born, because today they’re not working and paying taxes and contributing to pension plans. They’re not buying houses and cars and sofas. They aren’t inventing anything or starting up new businesses or writing songs. They are a generation of potential, lost.

Canada has covered part of the gap through immigration. But we would have to take in many times the 250,000 or so people who come here every year to fully replace the missing children.

For many people, it’s worth delaying retirement and paying more for health care in exchange for the social revolution that a declining birth rate made possible.

Yes, growing up in a stable household with a mother and father committed to each other is the best world for a child. But being able to have and raise a child outside marriage, or on your own completely, or in a gay relationship, without being branded by an intolerant community is just as important. Security matters, but so does diversity.

But balance matters, too. Why should government policies favour working parents over those where one chooses to stay home to focus on the children? Why shouldn’t parents have the flexibility and freedom to choose the child care they prefer?

Though the idea of a government advertising campaign promoting married families still feels deeply weird.

First, a principle: religion is a wholly private matter in which the state has no interest; it is a matter between you and your god(s); it is enough that you ring your bells, blow your horns and call the faithful tpo prayer in public - we, the people, have no interest in your views and neither you nor your popes, priests and other assorted shamans nor your gods have any political right to impose your views on us; but

Second, a bit of pragmatism: this sentence from Ibbitson's article is demonstrably true - "an increasing number of children are raised in single-parent environments, which places them at greater risk of poverty, poor nutrition and inadequate education."

As a matter of good public policy we should be outraged by the "single parent" problem. But, let us be clear: we are not talking about marriage; the issue is that young men and women who make babies have a responsibility to raise their children in such as way as to maximize the children's opportunities for social and economic success in our modern world. Those involved in the welfare business can comment on this better than I, but the data (Canadian and American) is clear and persuasive, if not, sometimes, shocking. We must, as a matter of public policy, stop creating and sustaining an underclass.

The first way to make fewer single families is to make abortion more easily available and to counsel children on how to get one.

The second way to make fewer single families is to require fathers (and maybe grandparents)    to assume responsibility for their children - much, much easier said than done, I am sure.

A potential third way is to cut off welfare payments - to force young women and their babies out on to the streets, to sink/starve or swim without public support. Maybe young women will learn that the best birth control pill is an aspirin clutched firmly between the knees.

A fourth way is to remove children from underperforming families and raise them in kibbutz like communal centres.

 

[The Bread Guy]

.... The second way to make fewer single families is to require fathers (and maybe grandparents)    to assume responsibility for their children - much, much easier said than done, I am sure.

A potential third way is to cut off welfare payments - to force young women and their babies out on to the streets, to sink/starve or swim without public support. Maybe young women will learn that the best birth control pill is an aspirin clutched firmly between the knees ....

So, if you can't get the fathers to do their duty, we throw the moms & kids to the wolves?

 

[Edward Campbell]

So, if you can't get the fathers to do their duty, we throw the moms & kids to the wolves?

It's a bit cold, I admit, but I have heard of "welfare families" where three single mothers (that means four generations!) live together and the oldest, the new great grandmother, is not yet 60! If that's true then whatever we are doing now isn't working.

 

[ballz]

I've stated my arguments for it before, but since the problems it would help *solve* are being brought up, I'll state what I think the solution is, and that's national childcare.

You can cut an awful lot of that social assistance going to a single mother if her kids are being looked after for her during the work day. You wouldn't be throwing the child to the wolves, since you could socialize it, educate it, even feed it one good meal during the day. You wouldn't even be throwing the mother to the wolves, you'd be forcing her to choose between the wolves and a full-time job.

This would also prevent having to "remove children from underperforming families and raise them in kibbutz like communal centres," which usually doesn't do a whole lot of good for the child's quality of life.

 

[dapaterson]

The problem is that "available national childcare" quickly becomes "mandatory national childcare".  And that is a massive intrusion into people's private lives, with great potential for misuse and abuse - on the physical and moral planes.

Photo of North Korean children, from the World Health Organization

 

[The Bread Guy]

It's a bit cold, I admit, but I have heard of "welfare families" where three single mothers (that means four generations!) live together and the oldest, the new great grandmother, is not yet 60! If that's true then whatever we are doing now isn't working.

Perhaps, but it's a bit of an unbalanced incentive scheme there.  Young dads do nothing to support their kids?  Nothing happens to them.  Young moms can't get dads to do anything?  Out you go.  Someone more left-of-centre than I could suggest that this makes it look like it's the young mom's fault, given she faces the harsher punishment than the other half.

 

[ballz]

The problem is that "available national childcare" quickly becomes "mandatory national childcare".  And that is a massive intrusion into people's private lives, with great potential for misuse and abuse - on the physical and moral planes.

Kind of like public schools from Kindergarden to Grade 12?

It would never become "mandatory," it would just make better financial sense for almost everybody to use it, and posting a picture of kids in North Korea is not going to scare me into thinking that it would be anything like that in Canada :

 

[Edward Campbell]

Perhaps, but it's a bit of an unbalanced incentive scheme there.  Young dads do nothing to support their kids?  Nothing happens to them.  Young moms can't get dads to do anything?  Out you go.  Someone more left-of-centre than I could suggest that this makes it look like the young mom's fault, given she faces the harsher punishment than the other half.

 

[The Bread Guy]

No question, hence the need for dual sticks (no pun intended), not just unilateral ones.

 

[Edward Campbell]

Perhaps, but it's a bit of an unbalanced incentive scheme there.  Young dads do nothing to support their kids?  Nothing happens to them.  Young moms can't get dads to do anything?  Out you go.  Someone more left-of-centre than I could suggest that this makes it look like the young mom's fault, given she faces the harsher punishment than the other half.

Seriously, that's one of the reasons I called it a "potential" way ... but we know, from the data and the anecdotal evidence of those in the welfare 'business' that we have a problem: kids in single parent families do migrate towards a growing underclass that we do not need and cannot afford. Given that a "f__king licence" seems neither practical nor popular we need to find some way to reverse the (growing?) trend towards single parent families. MAybe the consequences, for both parents, need to be "worse" to convince them to change their habits of unprotected sex and then bringing the results to term.

 

[CountDC]

lol extreme measures!

Childcare for the welfare - seen it done with a friend of my wife.  She got childcare for her son, no cut in welfare payments and she had to do.....nothing.  If they want to go with the national program then they certainly have to make sure something is in place to prevent abuse. 

Some othe suggestions I have seen by politicians and others are:

Forced fixing.  1 child, want welfare?  Then you will have the surgery. Not personally fond of this.  Maybe the woman actually gets her life on track, meets someone and wants to have a family with them.

I believe this was a politician in BC - 1 child we will support as everyone makes a mistake, any more and you are on your own as it is no longer a mistake but plain stupidity.  No more money.  I like this - seen too many welfare cases where they would have numerous kids to get the extra money.  The money of course was not used for the kids but cigarettes, drugs and alcohol.
Not sure if it was the same case or a seperate one but it was also suggested that the 1 child was supported for 5 years and then you were expected to actively seek employment.  Kids in school no reason you can't work.

Some other steps that are worth looking at - make all rent payments directly to the landlords.  Seen cases where the rent was spent, eventually they get evicted or just move to a new place and continue to draw welfare. Some landlords go after the money while others have stated it is just not worth the time and hassle.  That is one reason some places no longer rent to welfare.

More random surprise spot checks - it is totally stupid to have to contact someone 2 days prior to let them know you will be over to do a spot check.  Get real-it is no longer random or surprise.  Here is the case I heard about (can't remember where I heard it from):

Social Services gets a call that this woman on welfare has no food in the house.  They call and let her know they will be out in 2 days for a surprise check.  She goes to her mothers house and stocks up from her fridge and pantry.  Social worker arrives, her firdge and pantry is full, they check it off as good and she returns her mothers stuff.  3 times! 

Never been a fan of the make the grandparents responsible but if you are making them responsible then you have to give them rights too. Many grandparents will happily pay up if it means they have garunteed visitation rights.

Fathers are already meant to assume responsibility - the problem is in enforcing it.  Many dead beat dads with child support bills outstanding and nothing is really done. I know one case of $50 a month for almost 18 years and not a payment made.  The problem (unless it has been changed) is that the mother was told if she found out the father had an income and where he was living that she could report it and they would try to get the money.

 

[ballz]

lol extreme measures!

Childcare for the welfare - seen it done with a friend of my wife.  She got childcare for her son, no cut in welfare payments and she had to do.....nothing.  If they want to go with the national program then they certainly have to make sure something is in place to prevent abuse. 

Hence why I said to cut the welfare payments. That is the measure that will prevent abuse.