Open Letter to Prime Minister Harper

Dear Prime Minister Harper,

Congratulations, on Monday you captured your majority, with the NDP forming historic Opposition. I'll be the first to admit that I thought it would be another minority government, but it turns out the NDP really helped you in Ontario and Quebec, taking away many long held Liberal and Bloc seats.

I want to share some of my post-election thoughts with you:

• First, while you're the majority now, you lost ground in Quebec and barely have any seats there. The Bloc and Liberals got decimated, and they both deserved it, but I worry about Quebec and a renewed sovereignty movement. Don't make the mistake of ignoring or minimizing Quebec's importance to Canada. You have to find a way to make Quebecers feel at ease with you. Right now, they don't trust anyone from established parties which is why they voted NDP.
• Second, and more importantly, don't fall under any illusion that we're heading into some Canadian economic nirvana. There are some serious imbalances in the Canadian economy as the Canada bubble keeps inflating on the back of Canada's mortgage monster. Don't worry, unless something drastic happens in China, I doubt this bubble will burst anytime soon, but when it does, watch out, it's going to get ugly and it's going to last a long time.
• Third, I know you like to govern with absolute control. Stop it. It's sheer nonsense that every press release has to be cleared by the Office of the Prime Minister. Learn to let go, trust your regional offices and give them more, not less, power and resources to do a proper job.
• Fourth, cut the fat across all government departments and Crown corporations. People think I'm a fiscal liberal, but when it comes to the public sector, I think we need to increase the harmonized sales tax (HST) and examine spending at every single government department by evaluating the services they provide and cut all fat out of their budgets. (Hint: Some departments have lots of fat to cut while others are running bare bone operations and are dangerously close to not providing adequate services).
  
• As far as Crown corporations are concerned, the same goes for them. Do we really need all these Crown corporations or can we amalgamate them? For example, can Export Development Canada (EDC) merge with Business Development Bank of Canada (BDC) and cut costs while improving services? Can the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board merge with PSP Investments and cut costs while improving the management of public pensions? Why does each Crown corporation have its own pension plan? I'm not saying drastic changes are needed, but in an era of fiscal austerity, everything should be looked at closely and you have to figure out ways to reduce spending all while improving services.
  
• Sixth, and this is critical, when it comes to retirement security the NDP and Liberal proposals were way ahead of anything the Conservatives were proposing. How do I know? Because they didn't pander to the banks and insurance companies like your party did, but focused on improving the current public defined benefit plans (expanding the CPP).
  
• You might also consider my proposal which is to do away with private sector defined-benefit pensions altogether, replacing them by expanded CPP or expanded defined-benefit plans managed by experienced pension professionals. We can create new public DB plans, cap them at a certain size, and introduce world leading governance standards. Why do this? Very simple, companies should worry about business, not pensions, and the switch into defined-contributions (DC) plans is not in the best interest of workers (only banks and insurance companies).
• On health and education, we need to close the productivity gap with the US and start teaching children all about proper nutrition and the importance of vitamin D. After 14 years of multiple sclerosis (MS), I'm feeling better than ever. I don't know if it has anything to do with my recent CCSVI procedure or my large intake of vitamin D while following a mostly Mediterranean diet, but I'm stronger, walking further and going to the gym more often, all things I wouldn't have attempted to do last year. My neurologist at the Montreal Neurological Institute, Dr. Lapierre, will evaluate me tomorrow afternoon, and I think he'll be very pleasantly surprised (but probably won't admit that the procedure helped me). In any case, I believe in health promotion and disease prevention, which is something we need to focus on more as we educate our youth.
  
• Last but not least, please do more to help Canada's disabled in terms of taxes, social programs, disability retirement funds, and especially employment. Your party really screwed up royally with Nortel's disabled and that's inexcusable. Also, the federal government needs to hire a lot more disabled at all organizations, including Crown corporations, at all levels of the organization. It's high time we stop paying lip service to "equal opportunity employment" and start actually hiring more disabled which is the one minority group that is often ignored. (Read my recent post on turning 40)
  

So congratulations, enjoy the short honeymoon because there is lots of work ahead. If your staff needs help understanding some of my proposals above, they can hire me as a consultant. In the meantime, you can support my blog by donating generously at the top right-hand side. I'm tired because I stayed up late last night watching the most exciting elections this country has ever experienced. Time to hit the sack early. Best of luck governing this great country of ours.

Sincerely,

Leo Kolivakis

Publisher of Pension Pulse blog.