CPCFTW

The bank also paid $4B in taxes, plus employs over 250,000 people who also presumably pay taxes. Thank god for those profits! Here are Canada's penalties for non-compliance with AML regulations: Maximum penalty is $2M or 5 years imprisonment in Canada, and you think $1.9B is a slap on the wrist. Like you said, what a joke! Your knowledge that is. "Solitary with lifetime sentences"...

The title of the article is also laughable. Get out of jail "free" card.. After paying $1.9B that is. It's also funny that the author called $1.9B a slap on the wrist. I'm sure kimmy and the author would be happy if HSBC was shut down and millions of investors lost their investments, millions of customers had to find a new bank, millions of taxpayers had to pay for a legal battle against one of the biggest banks in the world, and thousands of employees at HSBC lost their jobs. That would show the evil entity known as HSBC!

Hsbc didn't "launder money". They processed transactions and ignored red flags that those transactions may have been for money laundering. To say HSBC laundered money is just plain ignorant. HSBC isn't a drug cartel, they have no proceeds of crime to launder. If I rob someone for $100 and then ask you to give me five $20s change for it, did you launder money? No. You facilitated me laundering money. HSBC did the same but they have a regulatory duty to detect and prevent money laundering. They didn't "launder money". What an ignorant comment.

"Gave" the land? You poor ignorant SOB..

No it isn't. The FN pay no taxes so it is not the taxpayer's responsibility to ensure they get the same level of services as other taxpayers. The agreement with FN is to allow the FN to operate autonomously from the govt on their reserves. If the FN want to opt out of the Canadian society, they should have no claim to Canadian social services (for which they don't pay). Now if FN want to cede their land to Canada and start paying taxes, then I would say spend whatever it takes to get them 1st world standard living conditions and to create jobs in their communities. Unfortunately the FN want to live off the land and play victim because hunting moose won't pay the heating/electricity bills and neither will the government.

I worked for inac and environment canada. I wont tell you where my mother works since she is an exec, but it is another large fed department. There are plenty of lower level jobs, but I think you are being dishonest to argue that a majority of fed jobs earn under 50k. Unless you are thinking FPTP majority #s

We have seen that. See Hostess. No one asked for facts, Argus asked for an opinion. Re-read the question: That is asking for an opinion, not facts. You can't just make things up you know?

It's funny how lefties all swear by Page when he's criticizing spending on F35s, but when he is critiquing spending on the public service he must be fudging the numbers. Typical lefty hypocrisy.

Yes, as we have seen, private unions are untenable in some industries, so unions are not always feasible in the private sector. In the public sector, unions exist because it is always easier to raise taxes or borrow more from China than to put up with strikes and voter backlash over cuts to services. Fortunately it looks like voters have finally realized that the gravy train is coming to an end because of what's going on in Europe and the US.

That's a pretty sad source. I've worked for the fed as well and the majority certainly were not clerks and were making much more than 50k. My mother also works for the feds as an executive level and has said the same. That is not true. New hires are subject to the same cba and their entry-level wage is set along the matrix by year. So a new hire in 2012 will be paid xx% more than a new hire in 2000 was. If you're trying to suggest that new hires are replacing tenured employees at a lower cost, then that is just dishonest. In fact it is the opposite, the average fed worker is getting older and more expensive and it's pretty hard to get in as a young person. And to add: most "clerks" have a college diploma at best, and are virtually unemployable in the private sector (outside of minimum wage jobs). Anyway, if you're really curious how he got 5%, you should probably just read the report. But it's basically summarized here:

Common sense? Math? Take your pick.

Source? Entry level positions are 40-50k from what I've seen. 5% is probably because most federal employees also have a salary matrix which they move along... so they get a guaranteed raise, plus an all-but-guaranteed move across the pay matrix for seniority.

"Real unemployment" in the US is 15% to 23% depending on which way you want to count (and that doesn't even include 15 y/o's as we do in Canada). http://www.forbes.com/sites/peterferrara/2012/10/11/obamas-real-unemployment-rate-is-14-7-and-a-recessions-on-the-way/ Yes when you include discouraged workers and part-time workers who want to work full-time, the number will be higher. Thanks for the insight from the unbiased "Canadian Labour Congress"

What? The trend is that unemployment is dropping. It was higher in January 2011 because it has dropped since then. It was also higher in 2010 and late 2009. This month was a particularly good month. If you don't like it, take a hike to the other 50 threads complaining about Harper. I'm not going to apologize for posting something positive on these forums for once. Get a life.

Here you go: http://www.statcan.g...207b001-eng.htm Hourly wages have risen by 7.2% since 3Q 2010.

Yes I read the reports issued by statscan.. that's about all the "analysis" I can do. As much as you lefties would love our economy to fail, it keeps chugging along. Unemployment rate excluding "youth" (15-24) is about 6% (men 6.4%, women 5.6%). This is a strong economy in a world where most countries are struggling.

Your article speculates that they are low paying service industry jobs because there were 28,000 jobs created in restaurants and hotels. That is not a fact. There were also 23,000 jobs created in professional, scientific, and technical fields. Your article forgot to mention that. Fact.

Actually the jobs were mostly full-time private sector jobs. Those contribute far more to the economy than public sector jobs (which are actually a drain on the economy). Why not just read the release from statscan rather than some editorial from the chronicle? http://www.statcan.g...121207a-eng.htm And are you really surprised that they were service-industry jobs in our economy?

Unemployment fell to 7.2% as well (without the labour force participation rate falling as in Obama's "recovery"). I think the CPC deserves a round of applause. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/economy/jobs/canadas-job-gains-surprisingly-strong-unemployment-rate-dips/article6078223/

Because he creates too many jobs? http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/economy/jobs/canadas-job-gains-surprisingly-strong-unemployment-rate-dips/article6078223/ I don't think the haters even know anymore... before it was the "hidden agenda"... now it's just because.

MiddleClassCentrist: "1984 is now."

Yes we're not spending enough.. that's the problem..

I don't see how it's any less hypocritical but, fwiw, I don't advocate either of those things... However, the abortion thing is pretty easy to argue.. The freedom of an unborn fetus from being killed supercedes the freedom of a woman from being pregnant.

Could you get any more dependent than living in someone's womb?

They learn responsibility and hopefully bounce back.