exPS

Let me tell you how it is. For starters, anything they do is usually a make-work project. And anyone running many of them have no clue as to what they aere doing. 15 minute breaks always turn into well over 30 minutes. 30 minute lunch breaks always turn into well over an hour. The there are smoke breaks and do you thjink they take them in their two breaks? Nope. In fact if you added the time of all their smoke breaks, it is worth at least 3 weeks out of the year so non-smokers should get that in vacation time added to the already long vacations they get. Then you have the two additional days off, the volunteer day and what is the other one called, personal leave or some BS thing like that. Then they get Remembrance Day that nobody else gets. As I stated, working as a Public Servant who is always overpaid and underworked is like being on a PICNIC all year long. Hell, they don't work when they are at work, so how can you expect them to do more work at home. LOL

I drink LEZAJSK, a lager from Poland. And always in bottles till they unfortunately switched to cans mid-summer of 2023. Not the same taste even if you pour it into a stein. Of course I am in Europe often, so I know good beer. Local beers only if I am desperate.

Considering that 5 of the 7 born in Canada friends have moved to the US and are doing far better than I am, I would say living in the US isn't bad at all. A move is easier to do when you are fresh out of school and already earning US dollars. As a Canadian, moving to Europe (50%) or the US (40%) is expensive because our Canadian dollar has about as much worth as the bills in a Monopoly game. Australia at -8% is a better deal with great health care and friendly people. And if the US is such a bad place, why is the population growing?

The Chow Chow Tax Time thread brought brought up the Vacant Unit Tax (City/Municipal) and Underused Housing Tax (Federal). As I mentioned before, governments love to dream up new ways to tax you, but without asking its citizens aka those that pay their salaries. Of what business is it of theirs? None! Their job is to look after our roads, garbage, police and fire departments, recreational centres and public libraries. Not to look after housing for dead beats and refugees because housing never crossed the mind of our highly intelligent leader. 🙄 And there is a fine if you do not complete the annual VUT questionaire by a due date. Well what if you are a snowbird and not around when that notice arrives but you've paid all bills in advance? And here is another good one, how do they know if someone that is renting, paying their rent and not living in the apartment because they are on a job or vacation elsewhere. Leave it to the government as they usually do not put much thought into anything...why they work there, I guess.

Well most pay far more. Close, but actually $3429 for it to be an extra $30 a month based on 10.5%. Governments; their prime directive is to dream up new ways to tax you.

How all very true! By the way, I noticed the traffic during off times and it is heavy. Those silly servants must be working from the car. LOL

Exactly! That brings up the point of voting a PM in based on his platforms he talks about prior to an election. After that, they can do anything they want without asking their employer aka the citizens of Canada who pay the bills. If I can get onto the CRA and Banking web sites, let the people vote on-line on what the govenment should implement. After all, they are there to implement the needs of the people and nothing else. You know when I was a flight instructor for many years, I would have had a really tough time working from home and our hours were long as in 11 hours a day (08:00 - 19:00, not some public servant's 4 hour day after breaks and lunch time.

They should be going to work 5 days a week like every other real working person. And if they want the 3-day a week program, they can go into work Monday, Wednesday and Friday, but I guess they would want to go to work Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday for a 4-day weeked. What whiners! And since this working from home, that is another joke...the work part that is, saves them money, so at contract time, offer them less of a raise.

And on an annual basis, how often have you met with your MP and what did you discuss? And if he is too far away as for those living in the boonies, they can email their MP. In well over 30 years, I emailed my MP maybe 3 or 4 times and it is always answered by his office staff, so I really do not know if the answer were his thoughts.

Easy...cost to the tax payer. I thought that would be obvious. As for geographical areas and population...well we have already discussed the population and Canada sucks with respect to the number of Federal politicians. Canada: 9.985 million km^2, and the majority do not live in it. USA: 9.833 million km^2, and all of it is populated. Australia: 7.688 million km^2, an most of it is populated. Now if the latter two can run the country quite well (and I have been to both), Canada is run inefficiently. Governments from the Federal level right down to the City level love to build empires. The bigger the empire, the more important they feel and the more money they can demand. Funny thing is, did they ask the tax payer what their annual raise should be? I can't seem to remember them asking. And if they were in private business, they would be bankrupt in 24 hours. You cannot afford to build empires that do not produce. As a friend of mine put it, government politicians and the Public Servants are on a Pic-Nik 24/365, but they constantly whine about something.

Then why do we need passports?

Both I think. I believe in the 2nd and if Canada pi$$es me off more, I might move to Texas and take my money, my CPP and OAS with me. Yeah I know, don't let the door hit you on the way out. I love all those patriotic dumb comments from delusional Canadians as I was born here.

The fact is, just about ALL crime is commited by non-registered guns. Another fact is take DUI (booze & drugs) and Distracted Driving (texting) fatalities into account, they far exceed gun related fatalities which by the way are caused by illegal guns and low lifes. But politicials won't touch alcohol as there is too much tax money in it for them. I watched Justin in an interview when he said gun ownership is OK for hunters and recreational shooters, but he said they cannot be used for self defence. In that case Justin, why do you have security with guns to protect you. I hate double standards. If gun haters hate guns, well maybe we should ban cell phones. I would know as I spent months on crutches due to a driver on a cell phone.

100% an absolute NO! Obviously the Olympics is a make-work project where they build new facitities each time they have them. Use the old ones that were there before! Especially for the short duration. And those that argue it is self supporting, great, use your own money and not the tax payers money. How many cities have gone into the hole for the Olympics.

I don't know how a 10.5% increase will only amount to $30 a month unless Toronto has extremely low property taxes.

I am at the other end of the age scale and retired. I never voted for the goof; not in 2015, 2019 and 2021. Lets face it. If his last name weren't Trudeau, do you think someone that incapable would be PM? He'd be a useless drama school teacher and a nobody at that. But he is popular in certain areas. Ottawa for sure since 7 of the 8 electoral seats are held by Liberals and for a good reason as Public Servants are afraid of losing their jobs. If the wing fell off on his aircraft, I'd be cruising in my car honking my horn.

I worked in a lab for over two decades and looking up data and maintaing data was part of my job. I kept track of Covid deaths from about March of 2000 for Canada and other countries. Looking at Canada prior to Covid, we had between 7000 to 8500 deaths per year due to the flu and pneumonia. Covid which is a respiratory, took those numbers up to about 15,000 per year and some of those deaths were also not due to Covid but the fact that people could not get in for an operation at the hospital. And most of the deaths were from those over 75 which is the norm for all other flu & pneumonia cases before Covid. Exactly why they pushed flu shots in retirement homes every year. And then jabs for high school kids. Really, less than a few dozen died of Covid over the years. Simply amazing. People can believe what they want. One thing is for sure, the government put the fear of God into people. That is how you control them.

Don't I know it. Canadians (and I was born here) are paranoid about guns, but Justin Trudeau wins the Oscar for that one.

Interesting that the news, at least main stream media news, never mentions if the gun used was legally or illegally bought and owned. Funny about that. 🙄

Googling numbers and they may be off by a percent or two. And we are looking at three land masses that are close in size. Canada: 338 MPs, 105 Senators, 40M people to fund 443 government officials and their offices. Australia: 151 MPs, 76 Senators, 27M people to fund 227 government officials and their offices. USA: 100 Senators, 435 House of Representatives, 335M people to fund 535 government officials and their offices. Yeah Canada is grossly over-staffed on your tax dollar. Compared to Australia, we should be at 299 government officials. The other 144 should be fired. Compared to the USA, we should be at 64 government officials. The other 379 should be fired.

Better yet, well done Canada. The question is, who let them in? I know. Isn't there some rule that states refugees are supposed to stay in the next bordering country. Are these refugees all American born citizens that want to come to Canada ie the neighbouring country. And why is this MY PROBLEM on an issue that I never voted for? I do not tell my PM which charity to donate to, so don't put the refugee problem on me.

I have been to countries that have both a public and private health system and I have used them: Germany and Australia for sure and possibly Austria. I have used hospitals in each of those countries. Their public health care systems works just fine. But like anything run that is "government run", it isn't all that efficient. As a tax payer, I would want my tax dollars spent primarily on two things, our infrastructure and health care. And not on charities to foreign countries that are fully capable of borrowing the money that we send them. Let them go into debt! I do have to chuckle about those patriotic Canadians that think we have the best health care system in the world. They should get out more and travel. We are nowhere near the "top" in health care.

Exactly on everything except subsidies. Incredibly we have governments that like to put the roof on before they pour a foundation. I for one, never voted for him in the last three elections. If you are going to have immigration, you take people in that are useful with experience that we need now and that can be put to work right away in a permanent position, not some government make-work project. Anything outside of that you are putting the costs on the backs of tax payers.