8 hours ago, Optimist Prime said:

Regardless of which jet won the tender, it needed to be tendered with competition. A billion dollar maintenance contract per jet sucks, but end of the day the Grippen/Saab bid for some reason was just edged out. I think the two jets are comparable enough that I would have gone with the money savings of the Scandinavian plane over the 35's but c'est la Vie, we got a good jet.

 

only 900 have been shipped out of the US to date anyhow and we were never going to be one of the first destinations anyways, our order is too small to bump other larger militaries from the priority list. I recall reading that had we gone wiht the 2nd place bid we could have got 3 planes for the price of two when you factor in the lifetime maintenance contracts. That is a huge amount of more money for the same planes, more or less. 

 

EDIT: thinking for a moment reminded me that interoperability and the 'digital battlefield' is the top reason the F-35s won out, I had bosses talking about it at NDHQ even all the way back when i was still working.

So again, a tender wasn't necessary because the previous liberal government had already decided that was our plane of the future. The rules were changed so f35 could win because the previous rules which again Trudeau put in place f 35 could not win. They then change the rules again so that they could win after saying he wouldn't buy the plane. So again we would already be flying the jet as countries that have ordered less have already received theirs.

13 hours ago, I.Am.Ironman said:

 

Other posters addressed the rest of your post but one thing that I think gets over looked with this commonly used argument is that NATO is a defensive alliance that outside countries must apply to. NATO doesn't recruit or, as you put it, 'expand'. More countries apply to join the alliance. So the question becomes, why are more countries applying to join the alliance?

 

As for RFK, I'm weary of where he gets his info considering he doesn't have security clearance. I'm sure he has 'friends' but at this point all of what you said is a rumour.

 

As for Minsk Agreement. The agreement was that Ukraine would give up their nuclear weapons after the Soviet Union dissolved. In exchange, they were provided security guarantees from USA, the UK, and RUSSIA. Yet, here we are in a war where the USA and the UK are holding up their end of the bargain after being double crossed by Russia.

 

I honestly have not heard of a valid justification for Putin to invade. As a previous poster said, it all points to conquest and nothing more.

Uh no.

2 minutes ago, Sharpshooter said:

So, Senator Dianne Feinstein died. 
 

That’s…something. 

Is it? I think Trump is the worst human being of all time and all Republicans are Nazis will control this thread. 

@Gurn and even to say a proper tender is a little bit ridiculous and shouldn't give the Trudeau government any recognition because they actually changed all the rules so that the f-35 could win. So again, they should have just bought it. We would already be flying it but instead we'll be flying 50-year-old jets.

11 minutes ago, Gurn said:

If Harper had put those planes up for proper tender, they would not be this late.

I also note that the liberals are spending more gdp on defense that Steven did, back in his day.

So that is why I give a 'decent' label to the libs, while always  wanting more.

 

Also why I'm so surprised they'd do this. 

Governments get wounded often enough as it is; no need for them to hurt themselves here.

Self inflicted injury. 

I do agree with the last part. As far as the proper tender, it didn't need to go to a tender anyways. The previous liberal government before the Harper government had decided that was the jet of the future. That's why we were in the f-35 program. I'm not even saying I'm 100% behind the f-35, but it was already determined that that was our jet. But for political purposes. Trudeau said he wasn't going to buy it only to waste 5 more years to buy it anyways. As far as GDP spending goes, you are accurate on that but it certainly isn't that much more as now. All they did was added veteran, spending and stuff to military spending. So it really isn't a whole lot. Both parties are pretty brutal when it comes to military spending. I think you and I both agree on that. And in the past you and I both called for increased spending. Hell, I don't even want 2%. I want to see it upwards of three to four percent. People need to stop. Assuming that the United States is a happy friend to have next to us, we should be preparing ourselves for an eventual invasion from the United States. Whether it ever comes or not is another story, but we should always be prepared.

16 minutes ago, Slapshot said:

I'll just throw this little tidbit out, one of the steps to separate is to have your own pension plan, ala Quebec. They're fabricating reasons to opt out.

 

It would be near impossible for Alberta to separate under the current conditions of the supreme Court of Canada. Why would any other province support Alberta to do so? Alberta pays the most into equalization without Alberta the GST would likely double. While there certainly could be an argument to be made for the benefits of separation, the biggest issue would come that the other provinces wouldn't agree to it and you need the other provinces to agree to it. Politically and maybe from a personal level many leaders and other citizens seem to like to hate Alberta however, they seem to love Alberta's money.

Just now, 4petesake said:

 

Worth pointing out the  organization that produced the document and came up with (invented?) the 53% number is not a public body or a pension administration but rather a for profit company looking for new revenue streams.

 

https://reddit.com/r/alberta/s/peFcOdfSJ5

 

Selling Fiction as Fact

Alberta Pension Plan report built on invented numbers and a false premise

 SEP 22, 2023

 RICARDO ACUÑA

 

 

 

In the press release announcing the government’s report on an Alberta Pension Plan (APP), Jim Dinning, who’s been tasked with engaging Albertans on the question of an APP, is quoted as saying “The job of the Panel is straightforward. We ask Albertans to look at the facts, participate in the discussions and then tell us what they think about an Alberta Pension Plan and the different options we must consider.”

That’s a lovely sentiment by the former provincial finance minister, who was once vehemently and vocally opposed to the very concept of leaving the Canada Pension Plan (CPP) and creating a provincial alternative. The problem, however, is that the report, and the government’s entire case for leaving the CPP, are premised not on “the facts”, but rather on a flawed frame and a fabricated number.

In her opening comments at the government press conference, Premier Smith suggested repeatedly that Alberta and Albertans get a raw deal on the CPP because we pay “much more into the CPP than Alberta seniors get back in pension benefits.” That statement is the dominant frame behind the government’s rationale for an Alberta Pension Plan. It is also a complete misrepresentation of the way the CPP works.

Every Alberta worker pays into the CPP on the exact same basis as everyone else in Canada, and will receive pension benefits on the exact same basis as everyone else in the country. Albertans are not “subsidizing” the plan or paying more than their fair share. Albertans are simply paying into a plan that they will eventually benefit from, regardless of where in Canada they choose to live.

That’s the beauty of the CPP — your contributions are calculated the same way regardless of where in the country you work, and your benefits are calculated the same way regardless of where in the country you retire. Premier Smith’s calculations and justifications fully exclude the significant number of people who have worked in Alberta at some point in their lives and retired elsewhere. She’s only counting the benefits received by Alberta seniors, and that seriously skews the numbers and gives a warped image of the plan itself. For the premier to premise this whole venture on a flawed frame in the hopes of riling up some anti-Canada pro-Alberta knee-jerkism is seriously problematic.

Just as problematic, however, is the serious misrepresentation of numbers in the report itself. Premier Smith and Finance Minister Nate Horner boasted that leaving the CPP and creating an APP would “save Albertans $5 billion in the first year alone.” That would mean Albertans would save up to $1,425 per year in reduced premiums, and businesses would save as much per worker per year in their matching premiums.

 

Wishful thinking

Lower premiums, better benefits, and greater security. If it all sounds too good to be true, it’s because it is. All of those numbers and benefits stem from one base assumption — that upon leaving the CPP, Alberta would be able to bring home $334 billion of the CPP’s current asset base to start its own pension plan.  A figure, by the way, that represents 53% of all the funds currently held by the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board.

And how do we turn a single Canadian province into the owner of more than half of the entire country’s contributions to the CPP? It turns out, with a lot of wishful thinking and a seriously flawed made-up formula. The $334 billion claimed by the report as our own is derived by using a formula that was essentially invented by the folks at LifeWorks, the company engaged by the provincial government to draft the report. It has no basis in legislation or law.

The Canada Pension Plan Act does include a formula (CPP Act, s. 113(2)) for calculating the amount to which a province leaving the plan would be entitled, but that formula has remained largely unchanged since 1966, despite the changes in how the plan operates. Using that formula would yield a result of $637 billion as the amount of base asset transfer that Alberta would be entitled to by 2021 numbers — approximately 117% of the CPPIB’s assets. To put that number into context, if all the provinces were to choose to leave the plan, their collective base asset transfer entitlement would equal about 900% of the CPP’s assets. That number is clearly unreasonable, and the formula in the act needs to be amended.

During the government press conference, both Danielle Smith and Nate Horner tried to assert that the formula is totally valid, because it had been revised in 1997 and 2019.  But the truth is that the mechanics of the formula itself were not reviewed nor revised on either of those occasions.

In fact, even the LifeWorks report contradicts the premier’s statements about the validity of the formula when it states that “[a]pplying this literal reading of the CPP Act would result in an unrealistically large Base asset transfer figure.” While writing the report, Lifeworks could have acknowledged that the legislation would need to be changed so that the formula better reflects current reality and explained that this would put a number of different possibilities and outcomes on the table. Instead, they opted to simply invent a brand-new formula, which they refer to as an “alternate and reasonable interpretation.”

Legislation, however, does not work that way. You don’t get to unilaterally devise alternative interpretations that suit your needs and then arbitrarily decide they are reasonable. Especially when what you call “reasonable” is so absurd that the numbers just won’t add up. Consider this: using this formula, if Ontario (with its larger contributor and contribution base) were to decide to leave the CPP before Alberta, there would not be enough money left for Alberta to take their identified asset transfer. Or put another way, as CBC reported from their conversation with Michael Leduc of the CPP Investment Board, “If other provinces used the ‘alternate formula’ and demanded their shares be paid out too, he explained, there would be a negative balance by the time Ontario, British Columbia and Alberta left.” Calling this fabricated formula a reasonable alternative, therefore, is a bit of a stretch for anybody who understands what the word “reasonable” means.

That’s the biggest flaw in the LifeWorks report: the $334 billion yielded by this creative and fantastical formula is the premise that rules its entire narrative. Every claim made in the report and touted by the premier is entirely dependent on this number. Without it, the purported savings, increased benefits, and entire value proposition vanish without a trace.

 

Different numbers

According to a newly published paper by U of C economist Trevor Tombe, a more realistic number for the reduction in the contribution rate to an APP compared to the CPP would be in the neighbourhood of 1.3%. He adds that demographic risk — for example, net migration rates approaching the national average — would further reduce that gap between APP contributions and CPP contributions. Tombe also points to an increased political risk. With the CPP, no one government is in a position to dictate a change to the investment mandate. With an APP, the Alberta government would have full power to alter the investment mandate of the plan.

The only one whose interests are actually served by this entire campaign for an APP is Danielle Smith. She’s been a lifelong fan of the infamous Alberta Firewall Letter (where the idea of an Alberta pension plan was first floated), its core Alberta sovereigntist ideology, and all of its authors. Moving forward on the APP would also allow her to retain the support of the UCP’s far right, whose money and votes helped eke out a victory in the UCP leadership race.

And of course, history has shown that the surest way for Alberta conservative premiers to shore up their popularity is to launch a war with Ottawa and other provinces, and threaten to tear down national institutions. Whether it’s public healthcare, environmental regulations, or the RCMP, these battles have always been more about ideology and political posturing than they have about the long-term interests of Albertans. The drive for an APP is no different. The added benefit for Danielle Smith, as she has articulated on a few occasions, is that it would give her the power to determine how and where those pension funds are invested — a clear recipe for disaster by anybody’s assessment.

Ultimately, Albertans are being asked to engage in a “fact-based discussion” that is lacking in “facts” from the get-go, since the parameters for reasoning are limited by a flawed premise and a fabricated set of numbers. What’s more, the initial engagement tool launched by Dinning’s Engagement Panel at the press conference is no more than an online survey. Worse still, the survey itself at no point asks whether Albertans want an APP or if they’d rather stay with the CPP. Instead, it starts from the assumption that we will create an APP and all of the questions are about how to structure the plan, how to manage investments, and what to do with the supposed savings and extra money the plan will have. Jim Dinning says he wants Albertans to participate in the discussion and then “tell us what they think about an Alberta Pension Plan.” In practice, he means “tell us why you agree with us that an APP is a good idea.”

Clearly, if Albertans want to engage with facts and truly discuss the issue, they will have to do so despite the government’s best efforts to muddy reality and suppress debate. We’ll need to ignore the invented numbers and flawed framing, and look hard for the facts and the truth. Here’s hoping we’re all up for that task — our retirement security is riding on it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I don't know if you are aware or not but I live in Alberta. I was actually on these forums from like 2006 to 2020 and most anybody that knows me knows. I live in Alberta so I'm all aware of who the group was. I was just pointing out it wasn't the premier herself who made the comment and I think maybe you missed that part or maybe you thought you were educating me. But nevertheless I'm well aware of who did it.

27 minutes ago, Alflives said:

That would be “great”!  This stuff is supposed to be fun and entertaining. And at times a learning experience. Bring back all the crazies! Then Alf won’t feel do alone. 

What if some of us weren't actually crazies? I feel like some of us just weren't far left enough for a BC forum discussion..

7 hours ago, Gurn said:

Strange decision- at this point they are supposedly 'looking at' cutting; but even that look seems bizarre.

 

I've argued, on more than a few occasions, the military budget should be increased. 

The Libs had been doing a decent job, on military matters; with new ships, fighters and re fuelers, plus providing training and equipment to Ukraine.

This has the potential to wipe out all their 'good vibes' on this portfolio.

 

 

Add in

 

Liberals seem to have lost their way, more and more weird things happening. Happens in companies/corporations and governments.

Sadly these orgs. can't seem to turn themselves around,  the slide increases in speed and depth.

 

Time for them to find a new leader. This one has now passed his 'best before date'

I find this kind of confusing because actually we would have already had our fighter jets except it was the liberals who said we are not buying the f-35 only to delay it five more years. Just to say okay We are going to buy it without any promise of money back to Canadian companies. As for the ships, they will long be out of power before the first one is even built. Now I'm not blaming the liberals for this because both parties seem to always take forever to get anything done with military upgrades but I'm not sure how anybody yourself included. Could give the liberals credit on ships and fighter jets. Like I said, the fighter jets are way behind schedule and that's on the liberals completely and as for the ships that's behind schedule and that's on the liberals and the conservatives. So I guess my point of view is neither party has done any good with military procurement. And please don't even mention the NDP. If they were in power we wouldn't have a military lol

3 minutes ago, Warhippy said:

Fine, fair.  probably for the best.  I don't think my statement to you was out of line or that I was being disengenuous.  

 

Calling everyone on the right, centre right or even barely left leaning a nazi detracts from a very real and very significant point in time and group in world history that committed some of the most barbaric and atrocious acts of hatred against their fellow men based on a sense of genetic and national superiority.

 

I have significant issues with many on the social right for obvious reasons.  i also have issues with many on the overly left for the same reasons.

 

Maybe the ignore button is for the best, I'll do it to but just understand while I respect your opinion and your passion; I will also respect you enough to say things in a blunt and honest manner.  I would expect absolutely no less in regards to my behaviours as well.

The issue with calling everybody a Nazi. It actually makes it seem as if the atrocities that a true Nazi committed aren't that bad. It's also what he's calling for from others and calling them out for he is doing himself so it it makes it really ridiculous from that point of view.

Just now, Warhippy said:

Smith....is kind of awful dude.  Premiere or not she's made some awful calls and her past is rife with some incredibly off colour statements.

 

My main interest with her right now is her insistence on 50% of the CPP belonging to Alberta and her insistence on forcing CPP to give half of it up so she can have her mitts on it or give it to AIMCo 

 

Seems like an over reach and a very bad idea

I mean, certainly! She's got some baggage in her break from politics. However, I would argue that many leaders do have tons of baggage. Just look at the Prime Minister or even the president of the United States hell if he had it his way. I guess every black person would be in jail for life. As for the awful calls, I'm not even sure what you mean by that? If we're going to look at when she said the unvaccinated for the most targeted people, the media blew that out of proportion she was asked what is the most discriminatory thing she has seen in her life? Maybe she hasn't actually seen racism first hand. But again, I don't know what you're referring to when you say some bad calls. As for the 53% that Alberta wants back that wasn't her that came up with that number. That was the group that they had look into it. I'm certainly not an economist or in that group and would be interested to know how they came to that number. I would suspect it's because we give a bigger portion of tax revenue but I don't know and I haven't looked into it enough. It's relatively new. I see there's lots of ads though.

His numbers are absolutely incredible, however, I think his size at the NHL level could be a question mark and thus far in the preseason he hasn't exactly been lights out pretty much nothing else to do but send him down

9 minutes ago, King Heffy said:

We both have attendance to attract mod attention when we get into it with each other.  Out of respect for the staff here, I'm ending it and hitting ignore.  Let's not go down that path again.

Or why don't you just admit that he's right and you should stop calling everybody Nazis because it actually shows how misinformed you really are. Now back to Premier Smith. Imagine standing up for the middle class and low income Albertans and being called a Nazi for it. If you want to call somebody a racist maybe you should look at the Prime Minister because there's lots of proof there. 

2 hours ago, Warhippy said:

It's a provincial right and written in to the constitution.

 

It's as civilized as it gets.

 

Drop the "everything I disagree with is a nazi" stuff my dude because this doesn't work here 

Omg who hacked hips account.