Feds must consider cuts, taxes as population ages

Tariffs. Put Tariffs on all this crap we import from China etc. Turn Canada back into a manufacturing nation.

Whats the point of having environmental and labour laws if we simply stop employing Canadians and import the stuff from countries that have no such laws?

Figure out a way to increase the fertility rate in Canada.

Well, in order to create population growth in Canada without importing Third World fifth columnists we have to borrow a page from them. Stop educating women and don't allow them to enter the labour force, just like they do. Somehow I don't think this part will work.

We could also borrow a page from the Inuit and start letting the old folk go on long walks during inclement winter weather. 'No grandpa, you're not going to Arizona this winter, we're sending you to beautiful Pangnirtung!'

I would certainly go so far as to stop all heroic measures for the very old, the very young (preemies) and the very ill.

Maybe raise the retirement age, as Germany just did.

But at the moment I don't see us having too few people at all. I've been hearing about this coming worker shortage for decades. Haven't seen it yet. We don't train the people we do have to do the jobs that need doing, we'd rather have 3rd world countries pay to train their people and then we import them. Doesn't do the 3rd world countries any good, and doesn't help Canadians who get left behind either. We should focus on what's good for Canadians first. I hope Jeff Rubin is right with his peak oil scenario, where things have to be done on a local level again. It means a drop in our material standard of living, but that seems like a good trade to make a civil society again. And it will certainly put paid to importing masses of people every year, whether we need them or not.

There is no quick solution and what you recommended isn't a solution at all, lest not in Canada. I think it would have to be many little things in Canada that would need to change to increase our birthrate, none of them simple few things I believe would help though (wont go into to much details right now)

1) Change the way tax benefits are applied to couples who have children. This should be aimed at medium to high income households (the more wealth people have the less children they have, but are more able to afford them). For those that know Canada's federal tax bracket are 15% 22% 26% and 29%. The more money to make the more you get taxed on it. If you have two children we make your max tax bracket 22%. Reason: Children are seen as an object in the way to financial success, show they are not.

2) Some sort of national daycare system. This is very open to debate as to how to go about it and there is no simple answer. Do we create a national daycare system like the NDP and Liberals want. Which I do not see us having the resources for cause the daycare workers will unionize and drive the costs threw the roof. Do we create a pay up front refund later policy, you pay up front the cost of daycare and then send in the invoice to be refunded (50% 75% 100%?) Reason: two working parents who takes care of the child before they go home from work?

3) Major overhaul of our education system, right now our K-12 system is a joke, its more about what clothes the child wears than getting an education (with big fault on parents). Bring in school uniforms, bring back school lunch programs, and stop with the PC bullshit that runs schools. Reason: Current k-12 system is a joke.

4) Change the way student loans are to be repaid. After graduation as long as you are working in Canada or working for a Canadian company (still playing income tax to Canada basically) Canada will slowly pay off your loan for you. If you work and have children Canada forgives the loans. Reason: Removes the dept that many Canadians have after finishing post secondary education putting them in a better position to start a family. Also removes the stress of having to save up for childrens education.

4) Change the way CPP pays out pensions to people who raised children in Canada. People who raised children in Canada get a higher pension. Those children are now the ones paying for their parents pension. Reason: Everyone wants that extra financial security for retirement.

5) Education/Media/Propaganda (depending on you personal point of view). Change the way people view having children. Right now many see it as a burden, change that view. Don't say personal opinions cant be changed people are sheep, you know it, I know it.

Those are a few ideas off the top of my head I can list off. There are many flaws with them I know, like I said no simply solutions. I know all the individualist are going to come on about "why should people who chose to have get breaks while people who decided not to have children don't?" My answer because those people choose to not have children and once they stop working their value (harsh word I know)to Canada has dropped considerably. Where as those who had children provided someone to take on their tax burden, to carry on the torch/flag so to speak.

Please note that all the above suggestions I believe should also apply to people who adopt children.

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Extreme solution: Send in JTF2 to impregnate everyone women. They could do it, sneak in drug the girl and get it on then leave without her ever being the wiser. JTF2 is just that good, wither kick ass or tapping ass.

At some point Canada will have to have a really hard look at the retirement age again. When the retirement age was set not many people were expected to live that long past it.

Tariffs create a deadweight loss on Canadians. We've spent the past 20 years trying to build a service-technology economy. Why would we ever want to go back to a 20th century manufacturing economy? I agree, we should demand better quality products, as an importer, but tariffs aren't the way to achieve that.

FIXED.....and it looks pretty scary.

No, I would rather see us implementing something that makes it easier for parents to raise the children themselves. Daycare is not the healthiest way to raise a child. Especially the really young kids, they just stick them in a crib and leave them there.

Rather see something like extending maternity leave etc.


That's an intersting idea.

One of the reasons we are wealthy is because we operate with relatively high economic efficiency. The down-side of that means that, although we're wealthier than we were a generation ago, we have to work that much harder to hold on to that wealth. Both parents have to work to maintain a median lifetsyle now. A lot of them don't have time for kids.

That's the economic reality, and as we all know, it's hard for a government to impose its will on an economic reality in the free market. What we really need to be doing is mulching up old people and firing them into the atmosphere to stop global warming.

wouldn't you say that it's the growing tax burden that is partially responsible for both spouses having to work to afford the standard of life we've come to expect? That and the fact that parents feel they have to buy their kids all these expensive toys to make up for the time they don't spend with them as a family? Those toys all need to be paid for.....then there are the PDAs and iphones we all have to have too.

FIXED.....and it looks pretty scary.



You're now altering my words and presenting them as a quote. Does it get any lower on this forum?

I couldn't tell you, but I'd be interested in finding out what the tax burden is now versus then. In systems design you learn that the more complicated a system is, the higher the percentage of resources of the system must be spent maintaining itself. Example: When the government wanted to build a road during WWII, it built the road. Nowadays there would be environmental assessmetns , First Nations consultations, consulting with local residents, OSH inspections, yadd yadda yadda. So I could see the tax burden being partially responsilbe.

If you opt out of the expensive gizmos, you can go to the one wrokgin parent approach. That's what we've done. We don't have much money, and we don't have much in the way of fancy gizmos. But I have no regrets at all on that front.

Taxes and the mortgage. Both a lot higher than they were when single income families were the norm.

PDAs and iphones? I don't know how you afford them, we don't. Our luxuries include high speed internet and basic cable.

Nobody seems to be mentioning stagnating wages for the middle class since the 1980's.