Harper in two days has managed to ignore the advice of his own specially commissioned advisers on the OAS/pooled investment scheme and stated that the real situation was the exact opposite to what they all agreed on.
How will spending in Canada grow as the baby boomers age? By 2031 — at the peak of the baby-boom retirement wave — the share of GDP spent on Old Age Security will rise to 3.14 per cent, for an increase of 0.73 percentage points over today’s level. Now, an increase of 0.73 per cent of GDP cannot be ignored, but neither is it disastrous.
And he has also forced out one of the few people who could crunch the numbers at Statistics Canada with respect to the economy and its future.
Dismay over handling of the changes to the long-form census is another key reason, he said. Mr. Cross is concerned that the free exchange of ideas at the agency is diminishing, and that internal dissent is no longer being tolerated by senior managers – particularly when it comes to discussions about the 2011 census and new national household survey.
This combined with the departure of Munir Sheik will ensure that nobody will question Harper’s dubious prognostications using those pesky facts that he has ensured will be tougher to unearth.
He really is the little boy who won’t be told as he already knows everything. There is a huge difference between being confident and right and just being confident.
