Will Canada replace the Maple Leaf with the Red Ensign?

So what's next?  Will Canada replace the Maple Leaf with the Red Ensign?  Forward to the past.  That appears to be the focus of this government.

They seem to like the old days when Canada was a colony to the Mother Country.  Must be because they are turning our armed forces into a colonial entity again.

Case in point... The Canadian Forces has become the RCAF again, the RN again and the Canadian Army.  I guess they forgot about the army when they did that retro-change.  But don't be afeared my gun-toting friends.   What used to be a private in the army will go back to being called a trooper, bombardier, rifleman, fusilier or a guardsman depending on which unit you are in.  What happened to the Sappers and the Miners, or the Gunners and the Wheelers, my honourable friends.  Did you overlook them?

Even the flags on our ships are being repositioned to mimic the British Royal Navy.

Now the familiar maple leaf rank designations for officers is about to be changed to British pips... you know, those diamond shapes that are more recognizable than the Maple Leaf.

I wonder when the Minister of Finance will be renamed to the Chancellor of the Exchequer?

Perils in the North

It has been almost two years since the Russians last threatened to invade Canada.

You remember the period, don't you?  It was July 30, 2010 when a Russian TU-95 long-range bomber flew within 56 km of Canadian air space and were intercepted by Canadian F-18 jets.  The F-18s shadowed the Russians until they, the Russians, gave up and went home.

About a month later, F-18s again intercepted, this time, two TU-95s.  "At no time did the Russian military aircraft enter Canadian or United States sovereign airspace," said NORAD spokesman Lt. Desmond James, a Canadian naval officer. He went on to say... "Both Russia and NORAD routinely exercise their capability to operate in the North. These exercises are important to both NORAD and Russia and are not cause for alarm."

It is possible that the Russians and NATO talk about these "exercises" before hand but DND will not confirm that.

I think it is great that we hold these exercises even if they are focused on practicing for an invasion.  But I can't help thinking back to the 1950s when Canada was developing a Mach 2 high altitude Interceptor designated the CF-105, the AVRO ARROW, the role of which would be to intercept Russian bombers.  The military geniuses at the time were fast coming to the conclusion, based on what facts... we don't know, that future warfare would include intercontinental missiles and not piloted bombers.  Therefore our collected wise-guys talked PM Diefenbaker into cancelling the 105 program in favour of Bomarc missiles, and nuclear-tipped ones at that.

So here we are in 2012.  The Bomarcs were decommissioned years ago and never replaced as a defensive asset and Russian piloted bombers are still testing our defenses.

It is enough to make you cry.

Taxes and the deep blue sea

Remember back a few weeks when I wrote about corporations and taxes?  I read an interesting article in the SUN the other day.

According to a pay study in the US, 25 of the top 100 CEOs in the US were paid more by their companies than their companies paid in taxes.   And many of  those same companies paid more in lobbying fees than in taxes.

Stated another way... What?!!!

Book available at mysteriesofcanada.com

Two-thirds of the firms studied kept their taxes low by utilizing offshore subsidiaries in tax havens such as Bermuda, Singapore and Luxembourg. The remaining companies benefited from accelerated depreciation.

The LOOPHOLES are so big you could drive a Boeing aircraft with GE engines right through them.

Boeing paid CEO Jim McNerney $13.8 million, sent in $13 million in federal income taxes, and spent $20.8 million on lobbying and campaign spending while General Electric CEO Jeff Immelt earned $15.2 million in 2010, while the company got a $3.3 billion federal tax refund and invested $41.8 million in lobbying and political campaigns.

I wonder what a similar study in Canada would reveal?

The Current Economic Morass - Could it be avoided? - Part 4

OK.  This is the last entry on this subject.  There is a lot more to say but we shall change the channel following this - Part 4.

Let's talk about the amount of government that we suffer under in Canada.  Back in 2002 I wrote a thesis examining the roles of our three main levels of government - federal, provincial and municipal.  As I developed the thesis it became more and more clear to me that Canadians were over-governed.  My analysis led to the conclusion that we had one level of government too many.  I then turned the thesis into a book entitled,"The Provinces Must Go!"

The logic in the book was simple.  Provinces were created at the time of confederation to do the work of the people while the feds looked after the country.  One read of the BNA confirms this hypothesis.  However, in 1867 people did not live to any great extent in cities.  In 2002 a full 70% of Canada's population were urban dwellers with many of our cities more populous than most of our provinces.  Cities by and large became responsible for the welfare of the people.  But cities, since confederation, have been surfs to the provinces.  The result is we have city infrastructure falling apart, homelessness and many other social problems laid at the feet of cities without the political or economic clout to address them.  Is that the way it should be?

The book showed how easy it would be to eliminate the national and provincial debts, improve both urban and rural situations and a host of other problems without raising a single cent of new tax.  The book is available on Mysteriesofcanada.com.

By the way, the book has caused me a fair amount of grief since being published.  The ultimate insult came at the hands of the geniuses at the headquarters of the Liberal Party of Canada Ontario - LPCO (not to be confused with the Liberal Party of Ontario).  The political experts at LPCO disqualified me from contesting a nomination for the last election based on their belief that my thesis and book were not in keeping with the policies of the party.  When challenged to show me the policy that my ideas were contravening, the conversation just stopped on their part.  I guess that the 2011 federal election kinda showed the folks at LPCO that maybe their policies were not so much the policies of mainstream Canadians or Ontarians.

Political parties stagnate with time.  They get so beefed up with their self-importance that they refuse to grow.  They refuse to challenge themselves to reach higher plateaus and debate new issues.  But do not think that this is a problem only of the Liberals.  It affects them all, including the Grande Orange party of (the late) Jack Layton.

Until our political class loses their snootiness and begins to really listen to Canadians, this country will never be a place for progress.

'Nuff said.

The Current Economic Morass - Could it be avoided? - Part 2

There is an interesting debate going on in North America.  In the US Gadzillionaire, Warren Buffet, says that he pays only 17.5% tax rate on his earnings while the average American Joe pays 30%.  Is that fair and equitable?   No says Buffet and yes says the Tea Party.  Buffet wants millionaires to pay more and Tea Party-ers says no way?

In Canada there was an exchange on the CBC TV that was worth watching.  On the Lang and O'Leary Exchange, featuring Amanda Lang and Kevin O'Leary,  O'Leary claimed he was paying over 50% in income taxes and demanded that he, as a job creator (prove it Kevin), should not be penalized for creating those jobs.  Lang, in one her best cool shots yet, commented that investors, such as O'Leary, had more ways to hide their income from taxes than anyone.  She wanted to talk to his accountants.  Caught by surprise, O'Leary tripped over his own tongue trying to change the channel on the discussion.

Canada's tax code contains over 2 million words.  How many of them are loopholes designed for Kevin O'Leary?  The code was written by tax lawyers and accountants for tax lawyers and accountants.  The average Canadian Joe has less knowledge about the tax code than he does about catalytic convertors.  Is that right?

The economic morass could have been avoided if there was equitable tax laws for all.  If you make $30,000 or $30,000,000 per year you should pay the same tax percentage to the government.   By flattening the tax rate and eliminating loopholes, you can also streamline Canada Revenue Agency, and thus save money.

Up next in Part 3 - Making the money Canadians pay; work for Canadians.

The Current Economic Morass - Could it be avoided? - Part 1

Yes and No is the easy answer.  Let's take the No first.

Taxes, as we know them, were first imposed in the early 20th century to fund the government during the First World War.  They were supposed to be a temporary measure but, as with most thing government touches, temporary become permanent.  Take for example the temporary building erected for National Defense in 1939 near the Parliament Building.  At the time, C.D Howe, stated that, "two years after the War nobody would know the temporary buildings had existed".  Take a walk up by the Supreme Court if you want to see the temporary building today.

Back to taxes.  When government gets money, they spend money.  Some would say it is their job while others say that it is their obsession.  Spending money is like a drug for some, not just government, so I lean towards obsession.  If government wanted to avoid this economic morass, one thing they could have done was spend less.  Do we really need to be dropping million dollar bombs in Libya?  Do we really need to subsidize the Oil Sands to the tune of $2 billion per year?

But there is another side to taxes and that is the collection of them to feed the obsession.  It is estimated that the Canadian tax code, with regulations, contains over 2 million words.  Compare that to the bible with just over 774,000 words.  It takes scholars a lifetime to memorize the bible.  What does that say for us mortal taxpayers?  Get rid of the loopholes and flatten the tax to a single rate, please.

In Part 2 we will explore other issues affecting the Current Economic Morass.