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Government workers get higher pay, with a 26% jump in the elusive $100,000 club.

By LINDA LEATHERDALE

It's April Fool's Day and the joke is on Ontario taxpayers

And and what a cruel joke it can be.

While tens of thousands lost jobs last year, with families suffering layoffs now facing even higher taxes thanks to a bonehead move by Premier Dalton McGuinty to harmonize the hated GST with Ontario's 8% PST - the ranks of government workers joining the elusive $100,000 a year club climbed by 26% last year.

In total, a whopping 53,500 public servants earned more than $100,000 in 2008 - 11,000 more than 2007, while the new Socialist Republic of Ontario went from the strongest economic engine in Confederation to a pathetic have-not province, with deficits to hit a record $85 billion by 2013 - making Bob Rae's big-spending NDP look fiscally sound.

Ontario's Sunshine List also exposes the piggies at the tax trough in crown agencies, hospitals, energy companies, colleges and universities, etc. And if you're not hot under the collar yet, this surely will fry the hair on the back of your neck.

While our obscene electricity bills will jump even higher when the 13% harmonized tax hits in July 2010 - the head of the Ontario Power Generation is laughing all the way to the bank.  OPG CEO Jim Hankinson was the highest paid civil servant in 2008 raking in a cool $2.5 million.  But filings with the Ontario Securities Commission shows he actually earned more than what the Sunshine List reports. While families struggle to pay skyrocketing hydro bills, Hankinson enjoyed total compensation of $3.5 million in 2008.

Other hydro brass were also rolling in the dough.  OPG v-p Pierre Charlebois got a cool $1.4 million, while Hydro One CEO Laura Formusa took home $926,000.  And to think, you and I are still paying billions in a debt retirement tax, plus GST, for the old stranded debt of Ontario Hydro, before the idiots busted it up into pieces to end up paying fat-cat salaries to new layers of hydro brass.  It stinks.

The second highest pay goes to Michael Nobrega, CEO of the Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System (OMERS) who took home a cool $1.9 million. Even though the giant pension fund lost $8 billion last year, five other OMERS executive were paid anywhere from $705,000 to $839,000.

And if that isn't enough, while we face skyrocketing property tax bills, almost 50 employees at the Municipal Property Assessment Corporation (MPAC) which is responsible for administering the ill-fated and unfair MVA (Market Value Assessment) system, also made it onto the Sunshine List.

Meanwhile, over-taxed Ontarians face even higher taxes as McGuinty digs his way into the biggest hole in history, with record deficit spending of $56.8 billion over the next seven years - while he tries to spend his way out of recession (or should I say depression), a move that backfired on Bob Rae.

But what stinks worse is how McGuinty's Liberals, who already their broke promise of no more taxes, continue to fleece taxpayers' pockets - even while governments around the globe desperately try to keep consumers afloat, knowing the people who spend money on Main Street account for two-thirds of economic activity.

After McGuinty hit Ontarians with the biggest tax grab ever, with his $11-billion health tax levy - he's now caved to a powerful lobby to harmonize that hated GST with the PST.

Let's go back.  It was the late 1980s, when I led a massive crusade with more than 800,000 Sun Media readers saying "no" to a new valued added tax (VAT), later coined good and services tax (GST).  Bottom line was we were opening the floodgates to free trade with our largest trading partner, the U.S., who to this day has said no to a VAT.  With the GST, we made Canadians the only people in the world forced to collect, adminster and remit two sales tax regimes - each with their own weird rules and regulations. The only exception was Alberta, the oil-rich province where there is no provincial sales tax.

Critics argue harmonization of two sale tax regimes would ease the adminstrative and costly burden on business, and that's true.  Experts say Ontario businesses will save some $1.6 billion a year with harmonization, plus businesses will be able to save another $3 billion, by being able to claim tax credits and deduct PST from the cost of materials and other products they buy.

But meanwhile, consumers get hit big time - paying $905 million, if not more, in additional sales taxes per year.  That's because harmonization spreads the tax burden to both goods and services (right now PST is goods, GST is goods and services), so effective we'll be paying more for a lot of necessities, like the price for gasoline and heating fuels.  Electricity will no longer be exempt from PST, nor will be tobacco, personal services like club and gym memberships, newspapers and magazines, taxi fares and the professional services of accountants, lawyers, architects, etc.

Even real estate commissions will be taxed — while the Ontario Real Estate Association warns merging the taxes will add more than $2,000 to the cost of a real estate transaction, to hurt a market already suffering.  This is on top of the blow struck by Toronto Mayor David Miller, who hit Toronto homes with the first-ever municipal land transfer tax (on top of Queen's Park land transfer tax) to lift thousands more from home buyers pockets, when they can least afford it.

In fact, it's estimate a blended tax will add more than $46,000 tyo the price of a $580,000 home in Toronto.  New homes worth $400,000 or less are exempt.

Meanwhile, McGuinty's Liberals are bribing us with our own money.  To offset the blow, they are offering cash payment of up to $1,000 for families earning less than $160,000 a year.

But CARP (the Canadian Association of Retired Persons, now called A New Vision of Aging for Canada) points out single people, including those aged 65 or more, only get $300 - and it's spread over three payments.

Political critics argue McGuinty's Liberals timed the payouts deliberately - just before the next provincial election.

CARP officials aren't buying it, nor the hype from the Ontario Chamber of Commerce who preaches sales tax harmonization will be a "big stimulus for the Ontario economy."

"How can this help the single person who only gets $300 one time only but is faced withy a permanent 8% increase in their home heat bills?" asks a CARP spokesperson.

Marjorie, a regular reader of lindaleatherdale.com, also wanted to know how this will help the economy.

"I am planning to do as much as I can this year on improving my home," writes Marjorie, who plans on taking advantage of a new program by Ottawa's finance minister Jim Flaherty to get up to $1,350 in tax credits for home improvements from January 2009 to February 2010.

"After July 2010, I plan  on buying as little as possible.  I am sure a lot of people feel this way, so how will that (harmonization) help the economy next year?" she asks.

My comment is rip off the excessive bonuses and pay for leaders who watched the empire crumble on their watch, and give it back to the hard-working, struggling families.  If the dream of a free enterprise world, without the greed of casino capitalism, is to live on, it's time for fairness for all.  Sadly, do we have a long way to go.

i

PRAY GUTSY ENTREPRENEURS WIN FIGHT FOR DEMOCRACY:

IF NOT, WE'RE HEADING TO ONE BIG BANK, ONE BIG GOVERNMENT, ONE BIG ENERGY COMPANY, ONE BIG BUCK, AND THE DEATH OF FREE MARKET CAPITALISM.

By LINDA LEATHERDALE:

March 31, 2009 — The only faith I have left in free markets and survival of democracy is with brave, private enterprise players, who don't cave to greed and corruption in the get-rich-quick casino of capital markets on Wall Street and Bay Street, and who still believe in the American dream.  That rights and freedom and the ability to competitively compete to build and share wealth will free us all.

The people I'm talking about are gutsy entrepreneurs, like the Davis family from Minnesota, who took rich family wealth from an agricultural boom and invested in the manufacturing/technological revolution, to help give birth to Cambria, a company that takes a prized Canadian commodity of quartz and converts it into rock-solid counter tops and flooring.  Now this family enterprise, led by Marty Davis, dares to spread their dream across North America, including Canada, with big-time investments during the worst of times.  A global recession, or should I say Depression.  And they don't want a dime from government to make their dream come true, just a fair shake on Main Street.

In this mid-West state, with its desire to keep the dream alive, one bank CEO even said "no" to bailout money from Washington.  It would rather survive on its own, than be nationalized into the new Socialist Republic of the United States, where big-time capitalist players are now turning into government-run institutions.

Only a few short years ago, the air would go blue with corporate leaders screaming at governments to stay out of their "boardrooms of business."  Now, it's a slap on the face if government refuses to come in, with both GM and Chrysler yesterday being denied more "bailout money" by President Barack Obama until they come up with a better plan to restructure their failing empires.

"We cannot, we must not, and we will not let our auto industry simply vanish. This industry is like no other," said President Obama yesterday as he denied further bailout money for a hard-hit sector of the economy.  He went on: "It (the auto industry - is an emblem of the American spirit; a once and future symbol of America's success."

But Obama warned, "The plan they have put forward is, in its current form, not strong enough" as he rejected further funding until a better plan it put on the table.

Here in Canada, many taxpayers are asking just how much bailout money is enough.  Access to information documents and election promises show that since 2003 alone, the Big Three - GM, Ford and Chrysler - have received or been promised $782 million from Canadian taxpayers.

Now, they're seeking another $1 billion bailout, while research by the Canadian Taxpayers Federation (CTF) shows firms receiving handouts in the form of repayable loans don't pay back the money or are only required to do so in 50 years.

"A clear example of the Ontario government's misguided auto strategy is its decision to give millions of dollars to General Motors to build a gas-guzzling muscle car like the Camaro, at a time when most companies are moving to fuel efficent vehicles," said CTF Ontario director Kevin Gaudet, also acting federal director for the CTF.

He went on, "Ontario taxpayers have provided more than half the money to the Big Three only to see jobs disappear as quickly as the handouts do."

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