The New Ontario Pension Plan Really is a Good Idea

The new Ontario Pension Plan really is a good idea.  The Liberal government is intoducing a pension plan system similar to the federal Canada Pension Plan that will give retiring Ontarians more money in their pocket when they retire. What could be wrong with that?

It wasn't all that long ago, perhaps just two generations, that many companies offered pensions to their workers.  These pensions were funded by both the employee and the company, and these deductions were put into pension funds that were managed by the company so that when the employee retired, there was a pension available.  It was not considered a tax, but a benefit provided by the company to entice workers to work for the company.  This money was put into a fund managed by the company and occasionally the fund was mismanaged, embezzeled, or disappeared if the company went bankrupt.  But it was not a tax.

The government even created it's own Canada Pension Plan to help all Canadians with retirement, including those who did not have access to a company pension.  This also is considered a benefit and not a tax.  Retirees, when they apply for CPP do not apply for a CPP tax rebate or refund, but a CPP Benefit.

Many opponents argue that this will hurt business in the province.  In terms of medium to large business, this is simply not true.  Yes it will affect their bottom line, but this is not a new practice for many businesses.  Companies offered pension plans in the past as enticements to employees and it didn't hurt them then.  It is unclear how this will affect small business, but the Provincial government has an obligation not only to seniors but especially to small business to make sure that everybody benefits.

Today it is clear that as more and more seniors retire, there are more of them living on a fixed income at what seems to be a lower level every year.  These seniors have been convinced to tap into their savings and spend, they have been convinced to refinance the houses they actually already owned, and it has become acceptable for the children of seniors to move back in with their parents and tap into their resources, reducing the amount of money seniors will have access to in their retirement.

The Federal government under Stephen Harper claims many programs to help and benefit seniors, but the affect seems to be negligible at best.  More and more seniors are slipping into poverty.  The Provincial government in Ontario is trying to alleviate this problem by introducing an Ontario Pension Plan similar to the Canada Pension Plan, that will put more money in the pockets of seniors when they retire.


Stephen Harper, his government, and the opponents in the provincial legislature all seem to be against this and call it a tax.  Perhaps they have forgotten that business used to do this.  Perhaps they object to the fact that it is being done in a fair and objective manner that will benefit all Ontarians.  Perhaps they object to the fact that it is not business that is controlling the pool of money, but the Ontario Government.  In any case, they cannot see past the fact that it is not a tax, but a benefit, that in the long term will aid Ontarians when they retire.

Marriage Rights vs Religious Rights

There is a county in Kentucky in the US, where the County Clerk is refusing to issue marriage licenses to any couple, gay or straight because she believes that issuing marriage licenses to gay couples is a violation of her first ammendment rights.

However, her religious rights and freedoms are actually not being infringed upon.  What are being infringed upon are the rights of all of those couples from whom she is withholding marrigage licenses.  Her job is not religious in nature, she is not performing any religious rite or ritual, nor is she acting in any capacity as a religious leader.  Her job is to perform the civil duty of issuing marriage licenses, something that the U.S. Supreme Court has now decided can be issued to same sex couples.

Even the Governor of the state agrees and has ordered her to issue the licenses as required by law, but she continues to refuse citing her religious beliefs.  The US political system is designed to keep religion and politics apart, but time and time again, people with a religious agenda bring things to a grinding halt.  Religous groups do not like being interfered with by government, so perhaps they should stop interfering in the good governence of the country.

This county clerk in Kentucky should just do her job, since it has absolutely nothing to do with religion and is a civil position, or she should just quit in protest.  Either way, if she doesn't do her job, she should just go.

The Big Environmental Lie

There is a big environmental lie that is being perpetrated against olderer generations.  This lie supposes that older generations are responsible for the environmental situation that the world finds itself in today, and that our children and our grandchildren are paying for it.  The fact of the matter is, it really is a lie.

The real perpetrators of this environmental disaster that has led to climate change and many other environmental phenomenon are the corporations that have unethically mined and taken resources, dumped waste product, spewed waste materials into our lakes, rivers and our atmosphere, and convinced us that we need to buy cheap disposable procucts on an ever increasing basis.

Here is an exerpt from an online story that might help explain this position to you.

Checking out at the store, the young cashier suggested to the much older lady that she should bring her own grocery bags, because plastic bags are not good for the environment.  The woman apologized to the young girl and explained, "We didn't have this 'green thing' back in my earlier days."

The young clerk responded. "That's our problem today.  Your generation did not care enough to save our environment for future generations."

The older lady said that she was right -- our generation didn't have the "green thing" in her day.  The older lady went on to explain; back them, we returned milk bottles, soda bottles and beer bottles to the store.  The store sent them back to the plant to be washed and sterilized and refilled, so they could use the same bottles over and ovder.  So, they really were recyled.

But, we didn't really have the "green thing" back in our day.

Grocery stored bagged our groceries in brown paper bags that we reused for numerous things.  Most memorable besides household garbage bags, was the use of brown paper bags as book covers for our school books.  This was to ensure that public property (the school books provided for us by the school) were not defaced by our scribblings.  Then we were able to personalize our books on the brown paper bags.

But, we didn't really have the "green thing" back in our day.

We walked up stairs because we didn't have an escalator in every store and office building.  We walked to the grocery store and didn't climb into a 300 horsepower machine every time we had to go to blocks.

But, we didn't really have the "green thing" back in our day.

Back then we washed the baby's diapers because we didn't have the disposable kind.  We dried clothes on a line, not in an enery gobbling maching burning up 220 volts.  Wind and solar power really did dry our clothed back then.  Kids got hand-me-down clothes from their brothers and sisters, not always brand-new clothing.

But, we didn't have the "green thing" back in our day.

Back then, we had one TV or radio in the house, not a TV in every room, and the TV had a small screen (the size of a handkerchief if you remember them), not a screen the size of Montana.  In the kitchen we blended and stirred by hand because we didn't have electric machines to do everything for us.  When we packaged a fragile item to send in the mail, we used wadded up newspapers to cushion it, not Styrofoam or plastic bubble wrap.  Back then, we didn't fire up an engine and burn gasoline just to cut the lawn, we used a push mower that ran on human power.  When we exercised we did not go to a health club and use machines such as treadmills that operate on electricity.

But, we didn't have the "green thing" back in our day.

We drank from a fountain when we were thirsty instead of using a plastic bottle every time we had a drink of water.  We refilled pens with ink instead of buying a new pen, and we replaced the razor blade in a razor instead of throwing away the whole razor just because the blade got dull, and the razors were usually made of metal not plastic.

But, we didn't have the "green thing" back in our day.

Back then, people took the streetcar or a bus and kids rode their bikes to school, or walked instead of turning their moms into a 24-hour taxi service in the family's $45,000 SUV, which cost what a whole house did before the "green thing."  We had one or two electrical outlets in a room, not an entire bank of sockets to power a dozen appliances, and we didn't need a computerized gadget to receive a signal beamed from satellites 23,000 miles out in space in order to find the nearest burger joint.

But, we didn't have the "green thing" back in our day, and weren't we so much better off for it?