Phear Mongering on Old Age Security

DumpPhil has already written about Phil McColeman's reckless support for the Old-Age Security cuts in this post and this post. Now, Phil is spreading fear around Brantford just like Scarecrow spread fear around Gotham City.

Here's an excellent letter in the Brant News analyzing Phil McColeman's fear mongering:

Phil McColeman ‘fear mongering’: Brison

Brant MP Phil McColeman was fear mongering in Parliament on Feb. 2 when he said it “is necessary at this point…to reinforce the sustainability” of your old age pension benefits by cutting them.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

In fact, experts from the OECD, leading universities and the government itself have all said our Old Age Security (OAS) program does not face major challenges and there’s no pressing need for change.

Canada’s parliamentary budget officer says that Old Age Security is sustainable beyond the year 2082. Payments today cost 2.4 per cent of our national GDP. When the boomers max out in 2031, that percentage will climb to 3.1 per cent, but then drop off again.

Conservatives like Phil McColeman are really trying to raid your retirement savings to pay for their extreme ideological agenda.

They say current seniors won’t see their benefits cut, but they aren’t saying anything about tomorrow’s seniors – hard working Canadians who have based their retirement plans around having old age pensions available to them.

The fact is that more than half of old age pensions go to seniors earning less than $25,000 year.

Canadian workers have paid taxes their entire careers expecting that these benefits will be available to them when they turn 65.

Raising the age for OAS will mean that some will have to stay longer in the workforce, whether they’re physically up to it or not.

Seniors’ poverty rates could rise by one-third.  That’s just not right – not in a successful country like Canada.

Scott Brison, MP
Liberal Party of Canada finance critic

#OccupyPhil

Phil McColeman's constituency office was occupied by protesters who were suitably upset over his support for cutting Old-Age Security benefits (OAS). The protesters were worried that their retirement would be jeapordized by the OAS cuts. For more details, see articles in the Brantford Expositor and the Brant News.

Phil McColeman, for his part, "made light of the protest". He apparently doesn't care that the OAS cuts will force many senior citizens into poverty.

Phil Makes the List

Phil made the list of Conservative candidates who chickened out of an all-candidates debate!

Brantfordians should be proud. Not only do we have an MP who takes his job for granted, we also have a Prime Minister who is chicken-scared wholesale of talking to the public and the media.

Gretzky Centre Over Cost Because of Phil!

Phil was super-happy to brag all about the pork-barrel funding of the Gretzky Centre construction (in conjunction with Dave Levac). But the Harper government made an unreasonable deadline for using the money so that they could look good before an election. The deadline was eventually moved back, but the process had already been sped up. The shortened timeframe forced costs higher, and this was coupled with a bottleneck of contractors across Canada working on pork-barrel projects in Conservative-held ridings.

Pretty bad planning from a man who brags about being a contractor. Here's a replay of the Conservatives' moronic move: