Thursday, August 6, 2009

Canada promotes double dipping when most governments are eliminating it!



As the slogan for Red Rose tea says... Only in Canada Eh!

Jonathan Chevreau of the Wealthy Boomer and the National Post recently created a video that described how the Canadian government promoted double-dipping to Canadian public sector employees. Phased retirement video

This is a scheme that was hatched in the federal budget in 2007. There was not much discussion about the deal at the time. With the new environment in pensions it has highlighted the huge gap between public sector pensions and the average Canadian retiree. The idea was originally designed to help companies deal with labor shortages. Of course the bureaucrats who wrote it made sure that there was something in it for themselves. Phased retirement article

It was an issue that I had written about before in a previous article Double-Dipping. Imagine getting your gold-plated pension at age 50 and then government telling you they want to have you back at your old job... at full pay. With the elimination of mandatory retirement we will see public sector employees eligible for 2 gold-plated pensions.

I have been advocating for pensions disclosure similar to the Sunshine List in Ontario and B.C. There is one in California that lists those pensioners earning over $100,000 per year. We need one in Canada to list those who have excessive pensions in Canada. They were after all negotiated between them and the taxpayer. the only problem was that during the negotiations the taxpayers had no-one to represent them.

Most government in North America are looking for ways to eliminate double-dipping and Canada wants to promote it.
In Arkansas - State legislator puts spotlight on ‘double dipping’ county officials
Ohio needs to rein in double-dipping by public officials
Double Dipping in Florida
Upset in Delaware about double-dipping

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