Oct. 13 and 20, 2016 letters “The left’s big lie…,” “Only right and wrong” and “Minimum wage increase won’t help anyone” continually produce financial misinformation and reduce political process to shoes.
Re: socialism and left-wing politician statements, analysis shows Conservative and Liberal policies surreptitiously and purposefully are eliminating the middle class. Advertently or inadvertently, the future class system will consist mainly of the poor, upper-middle class and wealthy while favouring married or coupled family units with multiple “marital manna benefits.” Square root equivalence scale (if value of ‘1’ is used for a single person, then a value of ‘1.4’ is applied for two adults since it costs them less to live) and financial fairness for singles are ignored.
During federal Conservative and Liberal reigns, even while reducing social programs for vulnerable aboriginal and veteran populations, introduced pension splitting and OAS clawback examples particularly benefit the wealthy and married or coupled family units. In OAS clawback, about five percent of seniors receive reduced OAS pensions, only two percent lose entire amount. Very programs introduced to provide ‘very modest pension to low and middle-income seniors’ have been redesigned to benefit the upper-middle class.
During the provincial Conservative party’s 40-year reign and oil boom, just 1,048 new affordable housing units in Calgary were built over the past 14 years. Two-thirds of shelter beds in Canada are filled by people who make relatively infrequent use of shelters and are more likely forced into shelters by economic conditions.
Federal Liberals redesigned and continued the Conservative Canada Child Benefit in perpetuity, which is based on income and number of children, but not net worth and assets, so families may receive large tax free child benefits and continue increasing wealth even while already having huge assets.
Middle class elimination is also evident in Liberals’ proposed Canada Pension plan enhancements. Premise remains the same: Highest YMPE individuals receive most CCP; lower income individuals receive lowest CPP benefits. Highest $82,700 YMPE persons (massive jump from 2016 $54,900) with 40 year contributions will receive 33 per cent CPP benefit or about $2,300 per month; $15 minimum wage, $30,000 annual income persons with 40 year contributions will receive about $800 per month. Schizophrenic political systems exist where CPP pension enhancements are controlled federally, but provinces control minimum wages. Continued unwillingness of government and business to change minimum wage to indexed living wage means poverty will increase even with pension systems that are supposed to improve senior financial quality of life.
We all bear responsibility for not fighting financial greed of plutocracy, big government and corporations, outrageous salaries and prices in the entertainment, sports industries, housing and gentrification of cities. This has resulted in small businesses not flourishing and poverty increasing to unprecedented levels. Failure to increase minimum wages instead of dealing with real underlying problems equals fighting the wrong fight.
More champions for the vulnerable like Rachel Notley and Bernie Sanders are needed. Bring it on!
Lin Gackle
