"We have seniors across Ontario spending more money on their hydro bill than they're receiving in their old-age security..."

Hydro One CEO must go: Lisa MacLeod

Hydro One executives are running with their tails between their legs, Tory energy critic Lisa MacLeod said Saturday.

"Heads do need to roll, but it needs to start at the top with Hydro One CEO Carmine Marcello," MacLeod said. "It is good to see there is a bit of a shake-up at the moment, but I think it's the CEO has to go."

Two of Hydro One's customer service executives left the company in the wake of provincial ombudsman Andre Marin's investigation into their billing practices, the Toronto Star reported.

Marin announced earlier this month he will conduct "a systemic investigation" of Hydro One's "egregious errors and baffling bills" that focuses on whether the utility company's customer billing practices are transparent and whether its process for responding to customer bill concerns is timely and effective.

"We have seniors across Ontario spending more money on their hydro bill than they're receiving in their old-age security," MacLeod said. "Had the ombudsman not announced he was investigating them, no corrective action would have been taken, and that signals to me they are more worried about what is in the headlines than worried about what's on people's hydro bills."

To read the full story, go to: http://www.sunnewsnetwork.ca/sunnews/politics/archives/2014/02/20140223-082336.html.

Here is the rip off that Flaherty refuses to rein in or even deal with...

Rip Off Alert! How the Credit Card Gravy Train is Running Over You, By Ellen Brown/AlterNet

You pay off your credit card balance every month, thinking you are taking advantage of the “interest-free grace period” and getting free credit. You may even use your credit card when you could have used cash, just to get the free frequent flier or cash-back rewards. But those popular features are misleading. Even when the balance is paid on time every month, credit card use imposes a huge hidden cost on users—hidden because the cost is deducted from what the merchant receives, then passed on to you in the form of higher prices.

Visa and MasterCard charge the merchants about 2% of the value of every credit card transaction, and American Express charges even more. That may not sound like much. But consider that for balances that are paid off monthly (meaning most of them), the banks make 2% or more on a loan averaging only about 25 days (depending on when in the month the charge was made and when in the grace period it was paid). Two percent interest for 25 days works out to a 33.5% return annually (1.02^(365/25) – 1), and that figure may be conservative.

Merchant fees were originally designed as a way to avoid usury and Truth-in-Lending laws. Visa and MasterCard are independent entities, but they were set up by big Wall Street banks, and the card-issuing banks get about 80% of the fees. The annual returns not only fall in the usurious category, but they are returns on other people’s money – usually the borrower’s own money!  Here is how it works . . . .

A must read:

To read the full article, go to the AlterNet source - http://www.alternet.org/economy/rip-alert-how-credit-card-gravy-train-running-over-you

David Parkins (Globe and Mail) has captured the point exactly...

What Flaherty's budget DIDN'T do for me...

There has been much written and hyped about the 2014 budget, so here is one person's assessment of it. In a few words "smoke and mirrors"

Carless students: The hype is that “updated rules announced in yesterday’s budget remove that restriction, meaning you can have your loan even if you carry a bus pass. Finally: vehicular equality.”

Me: I’m not a student, nor (because of a handicap) can I access public transit. Moreover, the last time I renewed my automobile registration it cost be over $800 because of Ontario’s so-called ‘clean air’ cash grab.

Autism assistance: The budget includes $11.4 million to be spent on vocational training for those with autism spectrum disorders.

Me: Doesn’t apply, except as a charge to my income tax.

Cheaper cell bills when we travel: New rules put caps on what carriers can charge for roaming, and force them to be more transparent about what they’re charging, and why.

Me: My cell phone is turned off when I cross the border, and doesn’t go back on until I get home again. However, my regular cell phone charges are higher than most other jurisdictions, but I notice Flaherty didn’t address that issue (except to express his ‘serious concern’).

Price tags closer to what Americans pay: Flaherty is giving the Competition Bureau greater powers to go after American retailers who charge Canadians more than they do Americans for the same goods.

Me: The key phrase here is “is giving” (future tense), and the devil is often in the details. However, the cross border difference that Flaherty didn’t address is the exorbitant bank charges for things like ‘currency conversion’ (on top of the exchange rate) which can amount to $6 per $100, and ATM charges that add another $3.50.

More consumer protection: Many companies now charge consumers more to continue receiving paper-based bills or use in-branch bank tellers or related traditional banking services. Stronger consumer protection rules will ban these practices and ensure less tech-savvy consumers aren’t charged more in the process.

Me: I’m already an e-bill subscriber, but on the other hand my municipal government doesn’t subscribe to e-billing. So what one level of government gives, the other takes away.

Better Internet access in rural areas: The government is pumping more money - $305 million over the next five years – to expand high-speed Internet access to up to 280,000 more homes. If you live far away from the bright lights of the big city, you’ll be just as connected as you are downtown.

Me: This provision doesn’t apply to me except as another charge on my income tax. However, my complaint is the rates imposed by one of the monopolists that control the Canadian internet industry. For example, my connection rates have gone up from $48 per month to $65 in just the past couple of years. In fact, it went from $58 to $65 in the last month. However, Flaherty did nothing to address this practice.

More help for young job-seekers: The feds set an April 1st deadline to implement the $300 million Canada Job Grant Program. Senior workers in high-unemployment regions will also get $25 million to help them land a job. On the flip side, it may be harder to find jobs with Canadian small businesses after a hiring credit was eliminated.

Me: This program doesn’t apply to me except as a charge on my income tax. However, does this grant go directly to employer or to so-called ‘temp agencies’ that siphon off a large percentage of the employee’s salary?

Help for adoption-seeking families: Families trying to adopt a child will get a tax break. The tax credit will go up from $11,774 to $15,000 and will apply to all adoptions that are finalized from January 1st, 2014 forward.

Me: This give-a-way doesn’t apply to me except as a change on my income tax; but did you know there are already a dozen-or-more child benefit grants or tax credits at the federal level alone, that amount to well over $10,000 per child per year per year. There’s money in them thar kids.

Snowmobilers will go further: $10 million with be given to build new snowmobile trails and improve existing ones.

Me: Oh, joy! When people are being laid off, losing their homes, etc., what we really need is more snowmobile trails. 

'Fumbling Flaherty's' budget a cop out...

So much for all the brave talk about reining in cell phone rates, outrageous bank and credit card charges, and ATM fees to get at your own money. Come the morning after, and nothing has changed--not that I every serious thought it would.

The bottom line is there is nothing in this budget that makes my life any easier, and much to my detriment--like getting less in services for more money.

Oh, he was brave enough when it came to adding a tax on cigarettes (what else is new?!), and going after public sector benefits (...Oh, great, let's solve our problems on the backs of workers) but beyond that it's all smoke and mirrors.

He will (someday) bar companies from charging more for goods on the Canadian side of the border, but most companies have brought their prices into line to stay competitive, anyway.

As a snowbird, the cross border shopping prices that affect me are the so-called 'currency conversion' and other bank charges that can amount to a 6% increase on the ticket price whether I pay with a credit card or cash. This, combined with a 10% exchange rate and an ATM fee brings the total surcharge to about 20%.

All of these fall within Flaherty's jurisdiction, but all I got from him was his "serious concern." Yah, right!

And as for cell phone and internet rates. My Bell Canada internet bill mysterious went from $58 to $65 this month, even though I'm not home to use it. Oh, he will make sure the IT companies comply with the Wireless Code of Conduct (whatever that is) such as offering more contract clarity and reducing or eliminating some roaming and cancellation fees. 

That's all very nice, but if I am being gouged now, I'm still going to be gouged when Flaherty gets around to legislating all of this.

This is my response for now, but my final response will come at the polls in 2015.

An open letter to James Flaherty, Minister of Finance for Canada:

[I have long urged everyone to take the time to let your government representative know how you feel, especially if you have a grievance, and even when (rarely I find)  you want to praise them. Here is my example]

Mr. Minister

Although I don't expect this communication to do the least amount of good, apart from generating a letter of 'brush off' intent, as a vacationing, handicapped senior, I am disgusted that the loonie has been allowed to drop to the level it has; i.e. $0.89-cents. This, along with bank charges, which you don't seem to care about either, is enough to make me a prisoner of winter, unable to leave the house with my walker.

For example, 100 USD dolllars taken from an A.T.M. in Florida costs $120.00--$111.00 with currency exchange; an additional $6.00 for 'currency conversion' and bank charges; and $3.00 A.T.M. fee. This utterly outrageous.

And before you lecture me on the benefits to the export industries, i.e. oil industry [$12 billion in profits for Q4, 2013], the gas industry [$4 billion]and General Motors (which is subsidized by the Canadian taxpayers), I will remind you that you are the 'people's representative too, and the trickle-down theory never seems to get down to my level.

As I have said above, I doubt whether this correspondence will do any good whatsoever, but be aware that I am not a happy camper.

Gerry A. Burnie. 

Falling loonie means just more milking of Canadian consumers: Neil Macdonald (senior Washington correspondent for CBC News)

[I just took $100 U.S. out of an ATM in Florida. Care to guess what it cost me, CAD$? Would you believe $117.00. Meanwhile we have some dork in federal Trade and Commerce saying an 89-cent loonie is good for business. Well it might be for manufacturing corporations (like General Motors, which is subsidized to the tune of hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars) but the other side of the coin is that the consumer will be paying the higher cost of imports anyway. GAB]

Having lived for so long in the savagely competitive American marketplace, I'm always amazed when I return to Canada at how some of my more bovine fellow citizens are willing to rationalize being milked.

Whenever the discussion drifts to how just about everything in Canada costs more than it does across the nearby American border, some trusting soul pipes up with something like: "Well, that's just the price we pay for our health-care system."

Or: "If that's what it costs to have a more caring society, then I'm willing to pay it."

Even a few years ago, when the loonie was powerful and rising, you'd hear nonsense like that.

For some reason, Canadians tend to conflate the higher taxes we pay, which do go toward financing social programs like health care, and the higher prices we pay, which simply go into some greedy company's bank account.

If you had the gall, as I did after the loonie shot well past the U.S. dollar in 2007, to call one of those companies — say, a clothing retailer, or a big car company like Honda — and ask why Canadian prices were so slow to drop, you'd run into a trained shill who'd rattle off practiced talking points.

Such as: "We still have a lot of inventory in the system that we paid for when the Canadian dollar was weaker."

Or: "We discounted for many years when the Canadian dollar was weaker, so it's only fair that we'd want to recoup some of those losses now."

Well, now that the loonie is down and dropping fast, this "price stickiness" is vanishing. Suddenly, the market is a picture of flow-through efficiency.

Canada's travel industry is now deploying the wonderfully self-referential euphemism "currency surcharge" to cover itself from the falling dollar.

Air Canada, always brilliant at using its market position to maximize profits, is tacking the "surcharge" onto its vacation packages for those trying to escape winter. Other tour operators are doing the same.

***

Read the full article at: CBC News - http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/falling-loonie-means-just-more-milking-of-canadian-consumers-neil-macdonald-1.2513237. 

Norway cut a proper deal with oil corporations. Canadians got screwed.

If Every Norwegian's a Millionaire, Why's Alberta in Hock?

By Mitchell Anderson, 15 Jan 2014, TheTyee.ca

 

Bottom of Form

Feeling poor? A recent news itemshowed that Norway's massive pot of petroleum money, now totaling CA$909.364 billion, has made every citizen a millionaire in Norwegian kroner. That works out to about $178,000 for every man, woman and child in the country. By contrast, every Canadian lumbers under an individual debt of $17,000 as Ottawa is in hock to the tune of $600 billion.

Not only is Norway ahead of Canada by $1.5 trillion, it has fully funded social programs that Canadians can only dream of.* Norwegians enjoy universal day care, free university tuition, per capita spending on health care 30 per cent higher than Canada and 25 days of paid vacation every year. By owning 70 per cent of their own oil production and taxing oil revenues at close to 80 per cent, Norway is now saving about $1 billion per week.

Read the entire commentary at: http://thetyee.ca/Opinion/2014/01/15/If-Every-Norwegians-a-Millionaire-Whys-Alberta-in-Hock/.

Corporate welfare bums...

This item appeared in the Dember 28th, 2013 edition of the Toronto Sun newspaper. 

A crony capitalist Christmas

ANTHONY FUREY | QMI AGENCY

The year began badly for taxpayers all across Canada and it will certainly end that way.

But if you’re a crony capitalist and think government should be doling out the grants to companies both minor and massive, then you had reason to be full with Christmas cheer this year.

On Jan. 4, Stephen Harper committed $250 million to fund research and development by major automakers. This was a re-issue of a 2008 five-year fund. The excuse back then was the economic crisis. What’s the excuse this time around? After all, the fund goes until 2018.

To close off the year, on Dec. 13 Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne delivered a big corporate kiss under the mistletoe to Cisco System’s Canada division. Taxpayers will dole out $220 million to a company that, worldwide, had revenues of $49 billion in fiscal 2013.

“Cisco profit soars 56%” is the headline of an August 2012 CNN story. Huh. I wonder if Ontario taxpayers will see their incomes soar by the same amount.

You’ve also got to love the wording of the government’s press release. The grant will create “up to” 1,700 jobs. Cisco is investing “up to” $2.2 billion in salaries.

_____________________

You can read the rest of it at: http://www.sunnewsnetwork.ca/sunnews/straighttalk/archives/2013/12/20131228-073825.html

December 25, 2013 - It's Christmas, so...

Time to say something positive about Dalton McGuinty:

Hmm ... At least he quit before he could do any more damage.

There, I've done my good deed for the season.

Billions blown by Ontario government but who's counting?

This is the headline from an article that appeared in the Toronto Sun, today. I'll provide the link below, but first I want to make a comment.

Chances are you will read this headline, shake your head, and move on. That's what governments--ALL governments--are counting on. That's why they're so nonchalant about tossing taxpayer dollars against the wall, hoping some of it will stick until they can get elected or re-elected.

The fact is, we should be outraged. We should be so outraged that we should be looking for a rail, boiling the tar, and plucking the chicken.

Have you a billion to squander? I thought not. Neither do I. To put it into perspective, here's what it could buy (just multiply everything by 2).

One of the lines from the above mentioned article that struck me, was the following:

"A billion here, a billion there.
 Lets see there is eHealth, Ornge, the cancelled gas plants, coal plants, the Caledonia mess, the HST, smart metres, the tire tax, the cancelled nuclear program, the Samsung deal."

Any one of these should have sent the populace into a frenzy.

I know you're not going to riot in the streets. Canadians don't do that. We're too polite. But at least write a letter of complaint. All the email addressed of the cabinet ministers are listed (see http://www.ontla.on.ca/web/members/members_current.do?locale=en&list_type=ministers&go=go), so let them know how you feel.

Anyway, if you want to read the full, unhappy story, got to: Billions blown by Ontario government but who's counting? BY JOE WARMINGTON, TORONTO SUN

The extravagance of OPG (Ontario Power Group) goes on and on...

Auditor finds OPG generous salaries, pensions, bonuses push up electricity rates

By Keith Leslie, The Canadian Press | The Canadian Press

TORONTO - Salaries, pensions and bonuses at Ontario Power Generation are "significantly more generous" than for comparable positions in the civil service, and have a financial impact on the cost of electricity, Auditor General Bonnie Lysyk reported Tuesday.

OPG has cut staff by 8.5 per cent, but increased the size of "its highly paid executive and senior management group" by almost 60 per cent since 2005, creating "a top heavy organization," Lysyk said in her annual report.

"Earnings and benefits were significantly more generous at OPG than for comparable positions in the Ontario Public Service, and many of OPG's senior executives earned more than most deputy ministers," she reported.

See the full story Yahoo News.ca

This just in: Bob Chiarelli's response:

"Energy Minister Bob Chiarelli said OPG knows the auditor's conclusions are unacceptable.

"The auditor's findings indicate that Ontario can and should expect better, and OPG takes this report as seriously as we do," he said." [editor's note: Which is not at all.]