The Canadian Budget: Jim Flaherty Doesn't Care About Young People

While most young Canadians were happily tweeting jokes about the discontinuation of the penny, they failed to notice the announcement that Canada’s retirement age will reset from 65 to 67 for those relying on Old Age Security (OAS) and Guaranteed Income Supplement (GIS). These are two specific types of programs that provide low to no income retirees with around $1,200/month. I’d much prefer to make jokes about the penny, but raising the retirement age is actually emblematic of a bigger issue: intergenerational inequality.

People live longer now, so it makes sense that the age of retirement should be pushed back a couple years. And, as the boomers retire, the projected worker-to-retiree ratio will move from about 5 to 1 and approach 2 to 1. Something clearly has to be done to remedy the strain they’ll cause, and this is the government’s response: let the boomers have their cake, eat it too, and then make sure that no future generations ever get to enjoy cake again.

There are three problems with this plan. First, old, working poor people will now have to work longer to receive retirement benefits. Which is kind of a shit deal. Second, because these changes don’t take effect until 2023, the savings will be modest at best. Third, and most importantly, the change will not affect the group it’s supposed to support: the boomers. They will all already be retired by 2023. This is like asking your friend to help you move and when they show up, you just sit down with a beer and say, “Well…get to work.”

So what’s the point?

It is political. The government appears to be doing something about the impending boomer bloat by making minor modifications under the guise of savings. But why does it have to be at the expense of only young Canadians? Why should we have to pay for their (now early) retirement on top of the impossibly high education costs, housing prices, and unemployment they’ve left us with? Hell, I’m just crossing my fingers there will even be health care left once the full weight of the boomers is felt. I’ll need it to deal with the arthritis caused from crossing my fingers so much.

So how’s this even fair?

It’s not. Unless you’re one of the lucky few to get a solid job after you graduate into massive debt, it’ll be up to our generation to make real, far-reaching reforms to these programs or just forget about retirement entirely. Which maybe isn’t such a bad idea.

Let’s be honest, life is meaningless, right? Existence is a pointless journey where your every waking moment is a tortuous lurch towards eternal nothingness. All the progress we’ve made curing diseases and extending our life expectancy is great and all, but to what end? An extra 20 years as marginalized citizens too broken to do anything but watch TV or play bingo? Sure, some elderly people live “active lifestyles” going for regular walks or whatever constitutes “active” for someone whose body is literally falling apart, but it’s certainly not something to look forward to. What better way to ruin a perfectly good meaningless life than by working one shitty job for almost 40 years just so you can go on a few dumb cruises when you’re too senile to even enjoy it? So this is my suggestion, fuck retirement. Enjoy your life now. If you have to wait until you’re 67 to have some peace in your life, why not opt for eternal peace?

And I’m sorry to say, it’s either that, or you’re going to have to START VOTING. It’s not surprising that the government is primarily looking out for the people that voted for them. So we have to show the government that our demographic matters. I’m not telling you to vote for any one party, just that you need to vote to be seen at all. You get what you give, as it were. And we’re currently getting nothing.

And here are few more highlights from the budget:

• The National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy was axed in favor of “the Internet” according to Environment Minister Peter Kent. Instead of turning to experts for thoughtful, sober advice on the environment, the government will now rely on the comment sections of YouTube videos to guide Canada’s environment policies.
• Speaking of protecting the environment and but not really, legislation will be introduced to speed up the approval process on major resource projects like the Northern Gateway Pipeline. Because when it comes to projects that could devastate the natural environment, what were we talking about? I’m hungry.
• On the topic of fucking the environment in the tree hole, the government has also announced that it’ll begin to review the charitable status of environmental organizations because they might be receiving donations from Americans. Or something. It’s bizarre.
• As expected, the CBC’s budget will be cut by 10% over three years. Half a decade ago I would have joked ironically “Say goodbye to all those CBC shows you love”. But today, you might actually have a few because people are really watching/listening to a lot of CBC. Or so say their ratings.
• In an effort to encourage Canadians to spend their money anywhere but Canada, the budget announced that you can now bring home more tax and duty-free items from abroad.
• Business research grants and hiring credits for small businesses signalled that the government is relying on business to spur economic growth because THAT’S WHAT BUSINESS SHOULD BE DOING.
• Not much in the budget as far as job creation goes, which is a bummer for the 19,000+ federal public sector workers that’ll lose their jobs over the next three years.
• There were no real changes to tax rates. So that’s cool, I guess.

@cameronreed