Nortel Pensioners

Saving money for one’s golden years, when working is no longer possible or desirable, is a goal rightfully pursued by many Canadians. One does not expect to be working their entire lives just to survive. Nobody wishes to become an imposed burden on their family or friends during their later years. Yet, a flawed system seems to point at this possibility. An eight hour work day, with one or two hours commuting time, and the recommended eight hours of sleep, plus an hour to cook and eat, leaves only five hours of downtime during a work week (excluding weekends). Continuing such a pattern until death does not reflect an ideal image for a first world country. Those preparing for the rewards of retirement, set aside funds in the hopes of realizing this dream but recent events have forced the reality of such hopes into question.

Many expect this will be accomplished through the use of pension plans in addition to the usual government savings programs, which are described to be insufficient independently, when calculating the cost of retirement. In principle, pension plans are a great way of insuring a comfortable future, however, when a plan is self insured by the company offering the plan, the invested funds are protected primarily by a promise rather than any guarantee of receiving the expected funds should the company go bankrupt. The recent discussions on Oct 26, 2009, available on CPAC, regarding National Pensions and Retirement Income Security, demonstrated the difficult situation many Nortel employees are finding themselves in where large portions of their investments were lost. The fact of the matter is that during bankruptcy, the banks receive preferred creditor status over employees contributing portions of their salaries and years of service to a company.
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When two people in a relationship are the same, one is unnecessary

The reason Mr. Harper maintains a significant lead over Mr. Ignatieff’s Liberals is because there is no significant difference between the two.

- Both of them would have put Canadian soldiers in Iraq, and both of them are saying “Oops” now.
- Both of them think the tar sands should go full speed ahead.
- Neither one of them has a real plan to deal with climate change.
- Both of them seem to have mixed feelings about being Canadian.

If Harper and Ignatieff would both take largely the same direction when in office, then one of them is unnecessary – the one not currently in office.

Canadians might as well go with the devil they know.

On the Iraq war then:

Stephen Harper: In an interview with [Fox News], Harper said he endorsed the war and said he was speaking “for the silent majority” of Canadians. Only in Quebec, with its “pacifist tradition,” are most people opposed to the war, Harper said.

Michael Ignatieff: A year ago, I was a reluctant yet convinced supporter of the war in Iraq.
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Clearly, one of the main reasons the Liberals recruited Michael Ignatieff was for nostalgic and pragmatic purposes. They wanted another Pierre Trudeau. With polls suggesting the Liberals under Ignatieff are hemorrhaging support and the Conservatives are gaining support, this bold initiative seems to have withered into a false start.

Those bright, bookish types sometimes have it hard. When they are rising in the polls, their articulate communication and serious demeanor are used for favourable comparisons with charismatic leaders like Obama, Trudeau, and John F.Kennedy. When they sink in the polls, those same traits are used for disparaging comparisons to diffident, “egghead” leaders like Adlai Stevenson and Stephane Dion.

It does appear to be true that intellectuals generally do not do well in politics. According to psychologist Martin Seligman, their tendency to ruminate and their lack of optimism turns the electorate off. Canadian Political Scientist Stephen Clarkson agrees and cites Trudeau as an exception to the rule. But is he really an exception? I believe that Trudeau deserved his intellectual reputation, but he often did not behave like most intellectuals. A lot of his writing for example was polemical and argumentative in style, which does not mean he was a lightweight, but is a very different approach from most academics. Furthermore, during election campaigns, his gunslinger pose and his visionary and optimistic speeches were not anything like the staid, quiet lectures of an Oxford don. On those occasions when he did appear professorial (most notably his Philosopher King campaign of 1972), the results were near disastrous.
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Lately the Liberal party of Canada has displayed a funny little characteristic that is eerily similar to the Republicans south of the border: neither of them can stand the idea of not being in power. Obviously all political parties want to be in power, but in the case of the Liberals and Republicans, there seems to be a lack of long-term strategic thinking that might one day lead them to a solid majority representation. Instead, they seem to be fighting tooth and nail for immediate leadership, and are using dirty tactics to do so. The Republicans wrote the book on dirty modern political tactics, but the Liberals have seemed eerily sneaky as well.

The Liberals, after the sponsorship scandal which helped sweep Harper into power, should have seen that period as an opportunity to reorganize and develop a long-term game plan that would one day deliver them a majority government once again. Instead, the last few years have seen them consistently lose elections, swap leaders, sign a coalition agreement under Stephen Dion, elect Michael Ignatieff when Dion was sliding in the polls, and now they have tabled a non-confidence motion that is likely to fail this week. This doesn’t seem like a party focused on its future; rather, it seems like a party intent on gaining immediate control while gambling away future prospects. They seem unwilling to wear the ‘Opposition’ title and are trying desperately to climb back into that more familiar ‘Government’ role.
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So Denis Coderre is the latest casualty in the internecine wars between the Chretien and Martin camps. Apparently the Martinites have come out ahead again despite the party faithful’s best efforts to circumvent both camps by electing Stephane Dion at the last real leadership convention. Alas, Stephane just couldn’t get it together and is rumoured to be contemplating a quiet withdrawal from the ongoing Liberal knife fight – now that his campaign debts are likely paid off.

What oh what are generations of loyal grass roots Liberals to do?

Iggy is floundering like a professor out of college. The Quebec wing is in theatric disarray and there isn’t a safe Liberal seat west of Barrie.
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Kudos to Michael Ignatieff for recognizing that the key to success in Canada is to appeal to book lovers with “True Patriot Love.” It doesn’t matter if the book is good, bad or indifferent. The fact remains that if you are an author you will receive glowing admiration from Canadians. It gets even better if you are a Harvard scholar and a quick learner of current Canadian culture and its’ gracious, government-subsidized underpinnings. I’m just curious to know whether or not his book/media/political tour is ultimately being funded by the Canada Council for the Arts via his publisher?

But he’s no Prime Minister for the times in my view.
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It appears that Michael Ignatieff is doing what Liberals do best. Threatening to bring down the government if they don’t get their way. Usually, this bravado is backed up with all the power and force of a yelping chihuahua. Rather annoying and not meaning much. This isn’t too harsh a description. Two years of Stephane Dion’s less than stellar turn at the Liberal leadership left many Canadians with that impression.

No. No. Mister Harper. Back our initiatives or we will bring down this government
(re: green shift – carbon tax). Then, nothing.

No. No. Mister Harper. We cannot support this government. (re: extension of Canadian troops in Afghanistan past February 2009) Then, nothing.

And again. No. No. Mister Harper… that just won’t do. (re: Conservative budget – Feb 2008) And again… nothing.
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With the Conservatives already planning their attack ads against Michael Ignatieff in preparation for the next election, one has to wonder just how swayed they can expect the public to be against their second straight Liberal opponent in under a year. Ignatieff has laughed off the threat, sarcastically quipping that he’s “shaking” at the thought. Defiant words, considering the negative impact the relentless bombardment of attack ads directed at Stéphane Dion had. Now it’s the same party with a different personality at the helm, but perhaps that projection of confidence, the cocky/defiant confidence which the more appeasing Dion lacked, is exactly what might bolster the new leader with voters and put the Grits back into office. It’s possible, for what makes a party worthy of governance, and what makes their leader resonate with voters doesn’t seem to be the same thing necessarily, and the Grits numbers have improved since Ignatieff became leader of the party. But is it enough? Will his personality triumph over the inevitable onslaught of smears? Or does anyone really care? Ignatieff, while seemingly more popular than Dion, still doesn’t inspire the same kind of political zeal in Canada that Barack Obama has in the US (or in Canada for that matter). In fact, just about the only safe bet in Canadian poltics these days would be if Barack Obama ran for, well… anything. You see, Canadians are Obama crazy. In fact, some polls during Obama’s presidential campaign run suggested a staggering 80% of Canadians would have voted for Obama given the chance. 80% in any democracy is beyond a landslide. It’s actually getting into ‘was that rigged?’ territory. When Obama visited Ottawa for a few hours a couple weeks ago, Canadians scrambled from all over to get to Ottawa, just to get a chance not to see him. So it’s fair to say that Canadians have Obama mania. It’s all somewhat understandable; by all accounts he is a bright, principled man, but what’s more than that, he’s clearly an exceptional orator, inspiring the basic fibers of inspiration wherever and whenever he speaks, so much so that he unfortunately seems to trigger a reflexive Canadian self-loathing anxiety. For as much as Canadians love Obama, they can’t seem to talk about him without lamenting about the state of their own politics; carrying on about how they ‘wish we could have an Obama’, ‘our politics are boring,’ etc. It’s envy as much as it is mania, and it’s an attitude that’s replete in Canada. Where and how Canadians get this attitude is somewhat of a mystery, because Canadian politics, like the politics of any country, can be very interesting, and there are plenty of good politicians in the fold. So why the self hate?
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Unless you have been buried beneath 40 feet of Newfoundland snow, you have probably been barraged by all the “Obama’s Coming To Canada” onslaught by the Canadian media.

First off, the man is coming to our capital for a grand total of five hours (working lunch included). The CBC has come closest to a round-the-clock CNN coverage that I have ever seen. The CTV network not to be outdone came short of trying to speculate which toilet Obama would be using or if he could hold it for the full five hours that he is there.
I watched CBC anchor Peter Mansbridge’s interview Obama yesterday and today it was run once again and over-analyzed by Peter and a panel of experts.
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Democracy is about choice. It’s about the right to look at differing visions of the country and make a choice about which you think is best. Some people say the more political parties there are, the more varied the choice and, thus, the stronger the democracy. Is this true? When different political parties take similar stances, is that still a choice?

It has become painfully obvious that the Conservative Party and the Liberal Party no longer represent distinctive options to the Canadian electorate. Stephen Harper has proven time and again that he is willing to compromise his beliefs in search of his majority government (to see how far Harper has come, look up some old Reform Party platforms; the Conservatives are pushing for none of it). The Conservative Party is now far more centrist than it was intended to be, the most glaring proof being the acceptance of deficit economics. Meanwhile, Michael Ignatieff and the Liberals are suffering an identity crisis. Harper’s strategic move to the centre has taken a large piece of the electorate away from the Liberals. Stephane Dion’s response was to propose a radical environmental policy that was intended to win over all progressive voters. The left-of-centre vote never unified behind Dion (remaining split between the Liberals, NDP and the Greens) and drove more traditional Liberal supporters into the arms of the Conservatives. With that strategy deemed a failure, Ignatieff has been forced to subtly acknowledge that his version of the Liberal Party wouldn’t do things very differently than the Conservatives (see Ignatieff’s support of the budget). The Liberals are being squeezed out of the political picture, and since they can no longer offer anything distinctive in terms of policy, they are left hoping Canadians will think Ignatieff is the more capable leader.
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