Flacking for the Liberal Party

Vincent J. Curtis

14 Aug 15

My hometown newspaper published an opinion piece by Toronto Star columnist Thomas Walkom.  It should come as no surprise to anyone that the Toronto Star acts an organ of the Liberal party.  This column is of that genre, but this piece went a little too far in scaremongering.

Often, it is hard to tell the difference between a Toronto Star columnist and a flack for the Liberal Party.

Such is the case of Thomas Walkom.  In his columned headlined, “Harper has shown dislike for CPP, too” Walkom makes worrisome noises about the fate of the CPP should Harper be returned as Prime Minister.  One can infer from Walkom that Harper would shut down the CPP, perhaps leaving current and soon-to-be recipients of the CPP in the lurch.  Needlessly frightening the elderly is bad enough, but Walkom is flat wrong on all counts.

Too lazy to call the Conservative campaign or look things up on the Internet, he would have discovered a few things that would have spoiled his column had he bothered.  The fact is that Harper moved to ensure the solvency of the CPP.

Had Walkom done some research he would have found that on 26 May 2015 the Conservative government announced that the CPP would be adjusted to accept voluntary expansion of the CPP.  A person wishing receive a greater CPP payment in retirement can voluntarily pay more into the plan during their working career.  This is not the move of a government intent on eliminating the CPP.

The voluntary expansion of CPP idea meets Liberal Premier Kathleen Wynne’s call for a provincial pension plan.  Unless you believe that Ontarians are children who need more government coercion in order to save for retirement.

The difference between Harper and Wynne is that Harper believes and expects adults to act like adults, whereas Wynne believes most adults are too irresponsible to look after themselves.

Walkom evidently buys into Wynne’s elitist assumption that government knows best.

Flacking for a political party, Walkom is not one to let facts get in the way of a story line during an election.
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P.S.  A couple of points.  The tactic of frightening pensioners was employed by the Democratic party against Republican Newt Gingrich in the late 1990's.  Gingrich proposed a voluntary alternative to Social Security that would be so good to the younger generation that Social Security would wither away.  The wither away comment was taken out of context, and employed in a fear-mongering campaign that ended Gingrich's proposal.  So the tactic of scaring old people unnecessarily is well-known and effective.

P.P.S.  The proposed voluntary additional contributions to CPP points out the folly of relying too heavily on pension plans for retirement.  The pension dies with the pensioner, and if a person died at aged 66, then all those additional contributions stay in the plan for someone else instead of staying in the estate of the pensioner, as would happen had he contributed to an RRSP instead.  A diversified retirement portfolio would not rely too heavily on government pensions.