CFN – There are calls again to raise the minimum wage. As someone who’s worked for minimum wage in their lifetime I understand the symbolism of that term, but what it’s become is a fulcrum for poverty development that actually hurts the employability of masses of people.
Advocates rightly state that it’s near impossible to live on Minimum Wage and its true. The high cost of housing, resources, and ridiculous taxation of the poor, devastation of the middle class, and utter enrichment of the rich mean trouble for our economy and landscape.
But Minimum Wage should not be a societal widget wall against poverty.
Raising Minimum Wage triggers mass inflation. It pushes other salaries far higher, and of course those on fixed incomes and pensions take it in the teeth causing more suffering and social expense. Can’t afford your medication; you end up in emergency. Eat less healthy options because of cost; end up in emergency. Add in the cost of residual crime and are you really helping society?
The solution? It’s time to really focus on a Guaranteed Minimum Income. Recently Utah decided to combat homelessness by providing homes. Why? It saved money. Bottom line and if you can keep down costs for overall care you’ll have a better economy.
Does it make sense to have people on Welfare or Ontario Works as its called here being given substandard amounts of money that lead to crime and higher health care and societal costs? The overheads of managing Employment Insurance, Disability programs, Pension plans are huge. Likewise if we don’t have a large enough tax base how are we supposed to pay for the salaries of those that administer the plans for the government?
How can small business thrive when the knives are at their throats with labour and tax costs? Small business cannot afford to hire people and those that they do hire have to have skills that few do because they simply never had a chance to learn them.
In my business we have to contract out almost all of our services due to the high overhead costs of supporting salaried labour. We take occasional interns on and frankly you can’t learn much more than theory in school. You can’t replace the ability to learn hands on while in the field. In many trades they have apprentices; but most Small businesses do not have access compared to Trades.
If you had a Guaranteed Minimum Income and removed the Minimum Wage those that wanted to improve their lot wouldn’t be penalized. And business would be able to have more people work thus building their skill base.
You can’t fix a leak in pool simply by running the garden hose, and the ramping up chunk by chunk of Minimum wage is simply a Ponzi scheme that’s fine as long as you’re near the top; but for those of us closer to the bottom the reality is that our dollars don’t stretch as far and for many it means suffering.
We can do better.
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I agree with you Jaime, business cannot afford this higher wage & will have to let more staff go increasing poverty
Holy spaghetti monster $14./hour minimum wage. My daughter started a cashier job nearby at minimum wage and is called in all the time since it is mighty busy and doesn’t need a bus. If she paid for her bus pass like what she used to do she would not be able to afford it here in Ottawa nor to live on her own, etc. I have read today that 45,000 or more people lost their jobs here in Canada in December and believe me that there is a great deal more losses to come. Small businesses cannot afford more than a certain income and people are being impoverished. There will be no more middle class very soon and this is the upmost truth that I can give you. I follow this all the time and there is so much that I would be writing many manuscripts on this. The life that we once knew is gone and gone forever until everything collapses down to bare bone. My daughter was offered a different job where she used to work and a bit higher in wages but refused because it is different shifts and cannot meet the buses. She got in through a former co-worker and is busier than a fox in a hen house doing different shifts.
The Guaranteed Minimum Income would be the way to go, but there’s no way in hell that it will happen under our current government. Here’s an interesting story about a trial run at it in Manitoba several years ago.
http://www.dominionpaper.ca/articles/4100#
Just a crazy thought. the WORLD should have a reset button press it. Start all over again……..a well i just woke up, where was I… JUST DREAMINGGGG
@ fern. Agreed. The world has gone crazy. According to an Oxfam report released a few days ago, the wealthiest 85 people on the planet have as much wealth as half the world’s population!
Read more: http://www.ctvnews.ca/world/world-s-85-richest-people-have-as-much-wealth-as-half-the-population-oxfam-1.1646911#ixzz2r4Upfe51
Fern your thought that you thought to be crazy isn’t really crazy. It is something that I have been reading for some time but instead of individual countries having their own government, their own currency, etc. “we the sheeple” will be saddled down with humoungous debt governed under a world bank, having a world currency, a world police force, etc. all under global control. There will be no middle class, only the super rich billionaires and the poor.
Bombardier is laying off over 1700 people and mostly in Montréal. I told all of you for some time that you will start seeing things happen in the 2nd quarter of this year but it has started already but isn’t quite at the point of what I know. Hold on to your shorts for more shocks to come by spring. Don’t spend a dime more than you have to. The price of groceries has gone up and going up some more.
i wish i had perused the column before blurting out what i did. misunderstanding the whole concept of the idea of raiseing minimum wage, instead a minimum annual income would be of greater use to our people, but that would mean more salaried incomes, forceing people to work overtime would become the norm. to avoid this a maximum number of hours in a work week would have to be established to circumvent this from happening.
i suggest we put a ceiling on high wage earners as well. no one person can be worth what a quarterback makes in one season, or a top pitcher receives for a no run game, a top executive receives for a years salary, plus benefits.
where would the drive to be successful go, if there was no reward ?
catch 22, damned if you do damned if you dont.
i’ve said it before, money doesnt buy happiness, but spending some can put a smile on your face
The Guaranteed Minimum Income is just another socialist Ponzi scheme that will fail to reduce poverty but it will succeed in creating more dependent poverty stricken individuals. New minimum Guaranteed Minimum Income levels will be continually raised in the future as the present guaranteed minimum ponzi wage is continually raised by new politicians.
Poverty is the natural state of human affairs. It takes a personal motivation and drive to go seek out the greatest social economic benefits for the least amount of painful effort. People must put out effort to gain food to eat. It cost great effort to cultivate land and grow food. It cost lest effort to raid someone’s garden. The socialist policies of raiding gardens in order to offer a Guaranteed Minimum social economic benefit package always fails to understand why the garden workers stop producing and start asking for a Guaranteed (rising) Minimum Income program. Eventually nobody produces any income and everybody id dependent upon the equal fair share of poverty, misery and despair.
Be careful what you ask for.
Furtz you are absolutely right indeed. The wealthiest 85 people have as much wealth as half or more of the population. The Rothschilds are trillionaires and others are billionaires. The wealthy do not spend at all. You should see an old picture of old John Rockefeller where he is handing out a dime to a child in the street way back at the turn of the century and by the looks on his face it is like he is giving away a prized possession. I wouldn’t doubt that he did this for photo op and took back the dime. LOL LOL.
Here is something for all of you to read that proves Furtz point.
The 1% has 65 times more wealth than the bottom half and the global elite like it that way.
http://investmentwatchblog.com/top-1-has-65-times
Jamie this is vital that everyone sees this video including yourself and they mention Canada, Europe, New Zealand, etc. in this video.
Money is not safe in the big banks (video)
http://xrepublic.tv/node/7121
I knew this for a very long time now from other sources. There are more layoffs yet to come and Texas Instruments is going to lay off thousands in the US, Japan and India. I want people to be aware of what is coming. Bombardier and many others are cutting their staff. Don’t spend a dime more than you have to. Learn to live lower than what you take in. Live way below your means and make gardens during the spring and summer. Hardship is coming and I do not say that lightly.
John there’s no reason to cap anyone’s earnings if they are taxed fairly. The problem is that now the more you earn the less you pay in taxes.
We could create an environment where individuals would have the right of an education to the grade 12 level and offer a climate of opportunity to make what ever you aspire to…but just a second …we already have that ! What we cannot do is empower people/individuals who lack the desire to succeed through their own hard work or effort. Please do not misunderstand my position, clearly we need to give a hand up to those less able but that is a far cry from giving people a meaningless hand out.
We pay taxes base primarily on the services that we demand as a common ground need. Watching years of special needs/interest groups successfully obtain various levels of government funding (not to say that there are not those that deserve funding) leads one to conclude that we are selves are the masters of our financial demise. Two small changes need to be made to ease our burden a little. No. #1 We need to decide which services are not essential to the well being of the majority and find greater efficiencies in the ones that we choose to retain. No. #2 We need to demand transparency and accountability from our elected representatives and hold them responsible for their actions by removing them from office early if the situation is warranted.
The more you earn the more taxes you pay ADMIN. People forget that those that have more also spend more. Think, the HST that some pay is nothing (rebate system for the poor) while the HST that a more affluent individual represents a sizable contribution to the tax system. Wealthier individuals/families pay far more in HST than a lot of individuals pay in combined federal and provincial taxes. Reality.
Jules, you are unfortunately right.,
Most of the jobs lost in Canada last quarter were in one province, surprise, Ontario. Keep thinking E-health, Orange, Green Energy and gas plants and voting liberal and you to can be looking for work !
Raising the minimum wage…
Where will the raise come from?
It’s not likely to come from retail, because they are mostly foreign owned… that means that the money leaves the country right at the checkout counter — about 80% of every dollar when you shop WalMart. And it’s not going to come from manufacturing, because Canadian manufacturers can’t absorb the cost and still keep products competitive.
And where will the raise go?
The money goes to all those foreign owned retail stores, and foreign owned manufacturers that pay low wages — and of course to the banks to finance the credit cards used to live beyond one’s means. Not helpful really.
The solution is to live within your means. Or as a kook once said… “simplify, simplify, simplify”. After all, it was borrowing to buy a second cheap TV (from Asia) instead of living with just one that’s a little more expensive (made in Canada) that summarizes how we got here.
There’s no shortage of wealth. We pay hockey players and CEOs multi millions per year. We blow billions on circuses like the Olympic and Pan-Am games… billions on asinine military conquests and equipment…and on and on. The trick is to keep the money flowing up to the wealthiest (ruling class) people and out of the hands of the poor. And that’s exactly how our system is set up to work. Reward the wealthy and punish the poor. It’s the Conservative way.
You are right David Oldham, Ontario is driving people away.
It takes about 3 seconds to see how the government hands out our money, just through special funding groups and layers of administration. That doesn’t even take into account give away’s to foreign governments.
If we gave away less, would our tax rate not be more manageable per family?
http://www.canadagovernmentgrants.org/ http://www.hrsdc.gc.ca/eng/funding/ http://www.cmf-fmc.ca/about-cmf/overview/cmf-history/
http://monassemblee.ca/
http://www.otf.ca/en/
http://ottawa.ca/en/city-hall/funding
@Simon
Yeah, foreign owned retail giants like our most Canadian of institutions The Beer Store.
I like your idea of an income for everyone under the poverty line.
But would it not create more taxation?
The current system “Ontario Works” has restrictions to limit people that would prefer to use the system as a permanent income. How would we stop that? Unfortunately Cornwall is known in many places as having one of the laziest and self-serving (self-entitlement) populations.
I would think if we actually challenged government to justify costs and tariffs on incoming goods we would stand a better chance of balancing an economy. Why do we pay a environmental fee at purchase then taxed for recycling and garbage pick up municipally?
Ask real estate agents why homes in Cornwall and area cost as much as they do, when industry maintains the attitude that “you can’t earn that much in Cornwall”.
Taxation is the main reason we see minimum wages increase. It places some people into a higher tax bracket just enough to pay more taxes yet not really bring home more earnings and it also simply creates a higher taxable income in general. They win again
Justify pensions and wages. I would be willing to bet there are some individuals currently receiving service from Ontario Works that can do a much better job than current leadership and management.
I bet if you began a petition and rally to justify costs such as your tank rally, you would have more support then you could handle.
My only suggestion is to leave out the petty stuff so often associated with getting things done. Nobody cares who started it anymore they just want it fixed. Salutations will come in the end
Eric I tend to agree that if we first looked after business at home we might well be in a better position to help more in the future. This not rocket science. If people live within their means life is less stressful and the future is brighter. Part of living within your means involves retaining some of your pay check, which is hard to do when more than 50% of your income goes to pay federal, provincial and municipal taxes, HST, license fees, eco fees, health care surcharge, etc. etc.
Furtz we all have the same shot at life (speaking of Canada). Some are inspired and driven to succeed and the majority unfortunately are just along for the ride. Some feel entitled to have the car (without contributing to its cost). You reap what you sow.
Yes David. We can blame the poor for exporting most of the decent paying jobs overseas to maximize corporate profits. I never thought of that. It’s all their fault, so they should freeze and starve. As long as the rich get richer, all is good.
True David
Living with in your means is most important. So many people are taken by self entitlement brought on by commercialization they can’t tell the difference between need and greed.
Furtz
How much money do you think a corporation needs to operate? It is easy to be cynical , but cynicism is best served as dessert following a meal of experience.
Operating costs have ran rampant here due to unions and wages for the most part and people holding the same belief as you. It is that ever present pendulum effect. Now once again it sweeps toward industry.
Take a look at a company attempting to place storage tanks in the Cornwall harbor, how much additional costs do you think are incurred there? If hey halt for any reason you still need t pay on the contract
You also need to accept the fact, if the rich don’t get richer the poor get dead or ill.
If you really have an issue with this why not start shopping at local markets and buy goods manufactured in the proprietors homes, maybe even use only local farms for food. Until you stop shopping at Wal-Mart and learn a better way sharing that way with everyone….
Are you serious Hailey Brown? “If the rich don’t get richer the poor get dead or ill.” That’s totally nuts!
I was fortunate enough to be born in the forties and spent my working years before most of the decent jobs were shipped off shore. Those days are done now thanks to the people that you think should be getting even richer. And what makes you think I shop at Walmart? I don’t. Also, I raise my own meat and grow most of my own veggies. Can’t get much more local than that.
Nobody has mentioned the ever increasing need for companies to increase profit to satisfy stockholders. It’s easy to blame unions for wanting to improve the salaries of their members for all of our financial woes but if salaries decrease this year, next year the various boards of directors will want even more wage concessions. It’s an endless drive for more and more profit and the easiest way to meet that goal is to reduce labour costs and/or increase prices. Raising minimum salaries is not going to change anything except to force companies to reduce labour costs even more by reducing staff……or move offshore.
I like a lot of the points here. Ultimately my beliefs are as follows:
Abolish the minimum wage altogether. I wrote a paper about mininum wage and the main things I found was that every 10% increase in minimum wage lead to a 2 – 4% increase in poverty. This is because (as stated earlier) small businesses can only afford so much, or in otherwords where they used to be able to hire two people, they can now only afford one. We could charge any big box stores whatever we wanted, but they would just adjust the prices accordingly.
My main worries are places that have smaller populations but are primarely employed by one corporate giant. The best example I can give for this is, Heinz in Leamington, and Campbells in Listowel. With a high minimum wage, replacing these businesses can be tricky. Ontario, literally gave tax money to Erie Meats (based out of Mississauga) to relocate its business when Campbells just decided to bail on Listowel. To be honest with you I can’t necessarily blame the province for doing so because Listowel is too far to commute anywhere else for work so what your left with is 500 working people who payed taxes for years into Tax Collectors simply because there would have been no work.
But what will Leamington do? Should we rely on the province to use more tax money it doesn’t have to pay other manufacturers to fill the void? The cloesest city to Leamington is Windsor and most of us know there is very little work available there. What good will $14/hr do if there is no employer to pay the wage?
I know it’s incredibly radical to think that a low or non-regulated hourly wage will fix the poverty issue, but the idea is to create jobs and less face it, when factories that employ large numbers of people, nobody ever stays at the base wage. When I wrote the paper one of the facts that stuck out to me was that in 1992, studies showed that after working with an employer for a year most people would typically receive a 20% wage increase. In those days, minimum wage was $6.40/hr. so that 20% would bring you up to $7.68/hr. Here’s the kicker, when people stuck with the same company for two years, studies revealed that people would receive an 80% increase in wage again, bringing them up from $7.68/hr to $13.82/hr. Think about how far that wage would stretch in ’92, what was gas… 47c to the litre? How many people do you think see $13.82/hr after working with a company with for two years and compare that to todays gas prices?
My proposed solution? Abolish both unions and temp agencies.
Unions: There are some good ones, but from my expieriences they’re just there to protect workers who don’t do a good job. I mean really, what company lays off their best workers? Think about that, you might union worker, but you’re paying union dues to protect a co-worker you don’t like because you think they do a bad job!
Temp Agencies: Stop good workers from getting full-time jobs and syphon wages. I know some able bodied people who are O/W but don’t need to be. Taxpayers pay for laziness! Wouldn’t it be better if we banned temporary placement agencies and turned Welfare offices into placement agencies? Can you imagine if every O/W collector HAD TO BE EMPLOYED VIA THE GOV’T BEFORE BEING ELIGIBLE TO COLLECT O/W? Sorry, it just screams sense at me. How many people would save from being on welfare if we were to implement this. Welfare offices already operate so it’s not like we would be opening a new creating a new segment for the public sector so I can’t see how it cost any more in taxes. Plus the gov’t wouldn’t syphon wages because the more you make, the more they tax.
I can go on and on, but what do you think?
I wanted to add something else here which I feel is important to get across. In Europe the vast majority are more educated than what we are and the reason is that university (public universities) are free but not free as we think. Europeans pay tremendous taxes and the universities are free to students where their parents and other people in the countries pay humoungous taxes that support their education instead of going for student loans like what we do here in Canada and the US. Those who wish to go to technical colleges that too is paid through the taxes. Nothing in this world is free and there is always a price tag attached to it somewhere.
Not everyone has the opportunity of really making it. There are too many businesses that sell the same things or too many people going into the same studies and going for the same jobs. There are not enough people who become “entrepreneurs” which we need badly. These big box stores sell junk. Snetsingers Hardware was the kind of store I like to shop in and not the big box stores. When I told my husband that I heard it was closed he was disappointed. That was one of Cornwall’s landmarks. The same thing with the movie theatres and the drive ins – we had businesses thriving in past years and Cornwall had work. We spoke about that just this morning. Cornwall is run in the ground because of a certain clique and that is the truth folks. Welfare is also something handed down from generation to generation. It is a depressing life to live on such a system and the healthiest is to get out and work for a living. If you are sedate you get sick fast. A lot of us remember the good days of Cornwall and even the good days of Ottawa and all is gone because of the rich people who have destroyed the good life. How I wish those days were back.
YOU PEOPLES SAY LIVE WITHING YOUR MEANS I AGREE BUT ITS NOT GOING TO HAPPEN. NO ONE WILL GIVE UP THERE CABLE OR DISH. IT DOES NOT COST NOTHING FOR PROGRAMS IF YOU HAVE AN ANTENNA.20 SOME FREE CHANNELS EVEN HDTV
THATS A START
@ fern. Better yet, just blow up the TV. Be it cable, dish, or rabbit ears, it’s just a a box that people stare at for hours every day that kills brain cells as efficiently as alcohol, crack or religion.
Fern…Our home was one of many that flooded Sept. 30th 2010. Our cable box got backed away, never to be hooked up again. We now get 6 or 7 channels without an antenna and we are fine with that. Cost “0”.
I tried a digital antenna here in Cornwall, but no luck.
Hey Hailey Brown ! I really enjoyed your last post, great thought and flow. You are the first individual in a long time that has mentioned the “pendulum effect” which reveals to me that you either have keen interest in the topic or are studied in this area. I share your opinion on its swing the question which concerns me though now is whether we are leaving the industrial period behind for a new period. Which leads to yet another question concerning how unions manage their future and how they will reinvent themselves to go forward into a new period.
Regarding the wealthy, Hailey, well said and today on CFRA (Ottawa AM) some facts…there are some 21,000,0000 working/filing taxes in Canada of which about 8,000,000 pay no tax at all. Less than 1% (0.8) or the top 200,000 tax payers contribute 20% of the total tax (fed. & prov.) paid by Canadians. If the wealthy here are chased off by a wealth tax all you have to do is look at France today to understand reality. Where might we be if the top 10% left ! ?
Admin I am north of Tollgate and receive 2,3,4,5,6,19 and 22. TVO an American station a CTV affiliate a multicultural another CTV affiliate a reality channel and Slice TV. Go figure, no antenna either.
I was told that Cornwall can’t pull in digital channels. Something about a block at the border. I’m between 3rd and 4th. Bought a dig antenna and only pulled in one snowy channel if I held the antenna up and wiggled it a bit.
Check with Furtz I could be hallucinating !
“The rich get rich and the poor get children”
Furtz
First f all please answers my question, “How much money do you think a corporation needs to operate?”
The jobs are shifting and the reason for it is simple to understand. It must be done to balance the economy for industry.
Consider we have really nothing new being built that is a necessity and everyone pretty much only buys out of greed, necessity is affordable to pretty much everyone. There is no market or a limited market in North America. In order to continue in business they now must create and tap into a new market of needy people.
If you worked through the 40’s you worked during the transition, the latter part, of manufacturing coming from England and other European countries creating an economic imbalance in Europe and making Canadians more profitable. This created a new economy for industry to seel their wares The very same rich people became richer when they came to Canada in the same manner they are moving to Asia and India. Did you complain about it when you were taking food and lodging from people in the UK, I highly doubt it
This is not new and merely a repetition of history. What we did in North America to seal the fate was believe industry actually owes us something. We followed in the same footsteps as the UK and France with large Unions creating a false economy based on the belief industry owes me more money because they earn more. From this Economist attempt to predict what will happen, if spending doesn’t meet with expectations then it is considered a loss. There was actually never any tangible exchange it was all based on theory.
Let me ask you an additional question, if I came to do work in your company would you like me an employee to dictate how you run your company?
Thank You David
My experience only comes from listening, reading, watching, experiencing and the ability to formulate a hypothesis based on that information….
Simply put the unions will follow industry. Unions themselves are an industry and will do what is necessary to survive. With the global media and so much information access the other countries will soon be unionized and or expecting their share of industries revenue. There was a person who stated a while back how the Mexico mecca is pretty much at its apex. That is the result of access to global information. It shows people how the rest of the world is getting along and they have demanded the same. But government being as it is in Mexico leaves it simple for industry to pack up and move with little or consequence.
That being said they also learn what not to do and how far to push, which could leave us in pretty bad shape. Our own sense of entitlement could be our demise.
When unions began in North America we were not very well educated, farmers, sole proprietors, mill workers. This is not meaning people were bad but we had no global experience, nobody really knew what was going on in other countries like we do now. So when unions came into the mix promising more and better conditions everyone jumped on the wagon with reckless disregard for the consequences and the future.
Am I anti-union, for the most part yes, but I do see the need having worked in Cornwall. It was not good by any means. Cornwall businesses, for the most part, maintains an pitiful lack of professional ethics that will have unions will linger on in Cornwall for some time.
Too many uneducated inexperienced mill workers and unsuccessful business individuals or foxes running the hen house.
Jules
Snetsinger’s closing was only one in a long line of lost business in Cornwall. The reason is the people owning those businesses wanted better for their children, the wanted Dr’s, Lawyers, Business consultants. This is the end result no small business lineage.
Let me see we use to have many family run businesses with the Chan’s, Lee’s so much good food, Assaly one of the best for shoes, Rossi from Chalet glass again an amazing place to watch how they would blow glass into shapes as well as many other different ethnic types. I can remember hearing about one of the owners of J/G shoes sleeping in the basement of his store when it first opened because it was all he could afford. Millar’s slept in the back of youth center.
The owners today would never do that and those that did you can’t solely blame big stores for the loss of small business; some of it was the business owners themselves.
@ Hailey. You ask “How much money do you think a corporation needs to operate?” How does one answer an asinine question like that? If it’s a large corporation, like the city of Toronto or General Motors, it’s many billions. If it’s a small corporation like Billy’s Small Engine Repair, it’s not so much.
I didn’t work through the forties, I was born in the forties. I worked from about ’64 until six years ago.
Re your last question…no.
Those were the good days of Cornwall Hayley. Yes JG shoes were excellent along with the Nymans shoes. I remember Esper Shoe repair and I have to tell you something. I went to school at CCVS with the daughters and I knew Patty Assaly as well – all very good people indeed along with the Nyman girls. About Espers they were either Syrian or Lebanese. One day my husband went over to get his shoes repaired and both have the same mentality but Esper was born in Canada but had the same temper. My husband was thinking in the way of his country and wanted the shoes repaired pronto on the spot. Mr. Esper raised up his hand in the air and told my husband “God gave me only two hands”. I go through this everyday and when my husband told me that I laughed and he had to get used to our Canadian way of life.
Yes these people work mighty hard Hayley and they want to have better for their children. Here in Ottawa we know relatives of the owner of this building and they are Lebanese (now deceased) and when they came to Canada they slept in a room that was not heated and the son who was a baby contracted rheumatic fever and was never well as an adult. He got married and had children and they are living in luxury and well educated. These people educate their kids. Our friend Robert could hardly read and write and educated all his children to university and good jobs. That is how they do things. Education is key. The family businesses are the very best and that is one of the key things that I miss about Cornwall and the people of those days. You can’t replace them at all – very good people and good workers.
Hailey Brown…”Our own sense of entitlement could be our demise” That is what I also agree is the root problem.
Yes David. Expecting a living wage for working forty hours a week is way over the top.
There is or was the Thomas C. Assaly Corporation here in Ottawa and they built many apartment buildings and condos. They are the cousins of the Assaly family in Cornwall. They are extremely wealthy but they worked hard to get there and started with hardly anything way back when the original people came to Canada from Lebanon. Hard work has always been instilled in a lot of immigrants of past years. Our friend Robert was born in Lebanon but also lived in Africa because of their father’s job. The younger brother and the father died of heart problems leaving the mother alone and they came to Canada and worked hard and prospered.
There is this very distant relative of my husband’s (we call a friend) who came to Canada to Ottawa and the family was sponsored by a relative and when they came here they scrubbed floors, etc. at a downtown hotel in Ottawa. The father was high up in the Department of Education in Lebanon and it was a downfall for him to do such a job. This family is all well educated and felt bad but they escaped Lebanon during the Civil war in a small boat to Cyprus before arriving to Canada. They saved money, bought a home and the father went to university for a while and learned about being an interpreter and that was his job later and he did very well for himself. Perseverence and hard work will get you somewhere if you have a goal in mind and go for it. Many come over with nothing at all and some only with the clothes on their backs and they make it. We Canadians have had life pretty good but for how long is a good question. We haven’t seen anything yet.
I have one more thing to say here before I shut up. Some years ago a man in Cornwall said to me if everybody had a flat tax of 25% he said that it would be good and fair. I said no it would not be fair because the rich and the poor would pay the same tax and the rich would be very rich and the poor very poor. There seems to be no solution that we can come up with. If you only knew where you taxes are going you would scream.
@Michael Vavala…on welfare….originally a system devised to bring temporary financial relief to those in need it has evolved into nothing more than an alternative life style which robs individuals of the desire to experience the rewards of helping themselves and being able to proudly stand on their own. The truth of the matter is that everyone that receives a welfare handout is not mentally challenged or physically unable to perform work of any kind. For those that are able bodied that find themselves taking a needed handout there should be incentives to become self sufficient. If we provide more than the meager bare necessities of life we are robbing individuals of the opportunity of becoming a contributing member of society rather than a burden. The problem is that like cancer poverty has become an industry that employees thousands of people to administer. Like a cure for cancer would greatly impact our economic health, it is not economically viable to alleviate poverty, simply ,too many individuals are employed in the poverty industry.
During the seventies there was wide acknowledgement and appetite for a flat across the board 10% tax system. It was recognized that if everyone simply paid 10% of their respective earnings that in addition to the fairness it would actually result in greater revenues for the government. In other words we might all have been receiving a yearly refund. But again consider the numbers deriving an income from the tax “industry”. If the average person looked at the number of changes to the income tax act yearly and understood the complexity of the system than you would know it to be a monster that requires continual feeding for the economy to enjoy some vitality.
All this to say that there are many solutions that would be more fair to the majority, but alas that would require a revolution. History might reveal that destruction/demise occurs first. Sigh.
Furtz, it seems to me that people are told the wage BEFORE accepting employment. They have a choice! I wonder if fewer people were TAKING our social safety net benefits and became a MAKER in the workplace, if taxes could be lowered to provide a better life…..
Small business (99 or fewer employees) account for 70% of the jobs and they also pay in payroll taxes. If you factor in the payroll costs (CPP, EI, WSIB, any benefits, uniform, etc) the cost per employee + min. wage can be very limiting to an owner. Factor in payroll, marketing, administration, space, lights and most will not have enough left to help grow the business I imagine.
http://www.ic.gc.ca/eic/site/061.nsf/eng/02805.html
Jules, we already have a flat tax according to this group’s 1988 paper, no matter the income, ALL tax is between 30 / 35 %. http://worthwhile.typepad.com/worthwhile_canadian_initi/2006/08/canada_already_.html
Of course now that tax has risen, we have tax freedom day in June, closer to a 50% number.
Furtz
Your comments lack definition. “Expecting a living wage for working forty hours work” What does that mean? If you yourself would not be willing to pay someone having your opinions, as you mentioned in reply to my earlier post, then you are just as bad as the industry you think owes people more.
Jules
A flat tax rate is not a bad thing, why should somebody who works hard and long to improve their economical standing have to pay more percentages in taxes. You are punishing them for their fortune. Yet someone not wanting to change rarely receives less. I think less taxes all around is a better solution then more. Even with a flat rate the rich still pay more in taxes. 25% of 30,0000 is significantly lower then 25%of 130,000
Here is another issue which may be a little off topic but it explains how our institutions are setting us up for failure by dumbing people down. What is explained below shows why we have self-entitlement issues
My associate has a family member who writes for an Environmental/Geography type magazine. The last article was written and received front story in the magazine. The editor had changed so much of the content that the author was presented as a person unfamiliar with the English language. The example my associate used was “say the story was written about Lobster Fisherman, the editor changed the name to Lobster Fishers.
You can argue political correctness all you want on this one but the English is still wrong. A fisher is one of two things A) an animal B) a small crack in your bum, neither of which the author was writing about.
Why the editor did this was explained to me by a person whose eldest in in Journalism at this time. The university teaches them to write at grade 4 levels because most people in Canada are incapable of understanding or unable to read English.
Sounds to me like they are keeping us stupid
@ Hailey. You are making absolutely no sense. You asked me a stupid question re the cost to run a corporation, which I answered. You stated that I shop at Walmart. How did you know that? Now you say that I’d pay starvation to my employees. What next? I’m a closet Baptist and kick my dog?
Carry on.
@ Eric. Yes, people choose to live in poverty. Every Conservative knows that.
Furtz, you have a slant that just caters to helping people who do not want to help themselves. Granted, there may be few incentives to get off social assistance with a low paying job, if you want society fending for you.
Where is the self will to provide for yourself and family?
Anyway, (many) people CAN choose to not live in poverty! It might take more than one job for awhile, night school, moving, quitting smoking/ the top of the line cable, but mostly, the will.
I am not going to keep the back and forth with you about this, obviously you are right.
Hayley all you have to do is to watch the TV (boob tube, aka idiot box) and see what is being played on that thing and it is programming for idiots. Most of the young people today go to college or university not prepared and what teachers do is push them along to another grade even though they are not prepared at all. I have listened to many people speak on videos and believe me this is all done by design by the government of both the US and Canada. I don’t know how many times that my husband is criticizing the way the young people speak and are imitating the trashcan Kardashians in their vocabulary. It is just like what you said about magazines geared to people who cannot read beyond grade 4 and yes I sure do believe that indeed.