Civil Servants Have it Good.

Last week CTV ran a lead story on their National Newscast about how members of the civil service retire sooner, and with better pensions that the rest of us.

56% of early retirees are the unionized beneficiaries of the heavily burdened Canadian taxpayer- public sector workers. They retire on average at age 59, compared to 33% of early retirees being from the private sector, retiring on average at age 62. The smallest segment of Early retirees is from my sector, the self employed, trailing in at 11%.

The basis of any nation's economy is the act of adding value to a commodity, or providing a service that people are willing to pay for. Any nation that maximizes it's citizen's ability to create wealth prospers. Nations that burden their economies with high taxes and a large tax-payer supported bureaucracy do not do as well.


It's a sign that our public sector is entirely too well paid, when our civil servants make up over half of all early-retirees. Hell, until they retire, they don't even pay income taxes!

I'm serious.

A civil servant receives only his take-home pay. The government, which is paying them, appears to deduct payroll taxes. But since the Wage-payor is also the IncomeTax-recipient, it's a transaction that never really takes place. The net result is that much of the public sector, especially at the federal level, doesn't pay income taxes like the rest of us.

Not until they retire and receive their pensions, do they actually pay any income tax.

Liberal Party Priorities - frickin loons

Why the heck did this surprise me?

In their 2004 budget, the former Liberal Government finally admitted The Canadian military needed new Transport aircraft to replace their aging air-fleet, most of which are far older than their current pilots, (the Liberal's parsimonious attitude towards all things military is legendary).
Today the Globe and Mail reported that the DND had narrowed the hunt for a new Search and Rescue aircraft down to only one bid, the Italian-built C-27J.

The reason given? There were several, but I thought the best was that it was the only bid that met the military's requirements...

...and According to Liberal Defense Critic Ujjal Dosanjh, that's a bad thing.
The quote is: "...sacrificing “civilian oversight” by moving on the purchases that are being largely influenced by the tight requirements of the Canadian Forces."

I'll bet that translates into, "Don't buy unless We can Build the Planes with Bombarier In Quebec." In other words, he's upset that 3 billion dollars are being spent without the appropriate consideration of the Liberal Party's Political concerns, and that making a decision to buy military aircraft primarily based on the military's needs is bad.

What kind of dumb shit is this guy, anyway? Thank God he's not the Minister of Defense.