A report released last Wednesday warns that Canadians are taking on more and more debt. The Bank of Canada governor and the federal finance minister have previously predicted that high levels of debt will have dire consequences for families and the Canadian recovery. Statistics Canada reports that household debt now represents 163 per cent of disposable income.
What greedy little pigs we are. Once again, Canada's rapidly shrinking middle class and exponentially expanding lower classes are to blame for jeopardizing our fragile financial recovery. And I'm sick and tired of hearing about it.
Yes, too much debt is bad. Yes, families can get themselves in a pickle if they put the mortgage on a credit card. Yes, we can do a better job of raising our children to be more financially responsible. But I am fed up with being blamed for all the ills that befall our financial system.
No one asked me whether it was a smart idea to hand out mortgages as if they were free candy at a parade. No one solicited my opinion on spending tax dollars to promote the War of 1812. No one asked me if it was okay to allow the creator of one of the worst Ponzi schemes in Canadian history, a scheme that bankrupted hundreds of Canadians, to walk around free as a bird. No one sent an email asking me if I thought it was financially expedient to expand the paid Canadian Senate.
Why is it there are two sets of rules - one for the poor slobs that work hard and pay their taxes, and another for the idiots that spend those taxes?
Why is it that the Bank of Canada governor slaps our wrists and tells us how naughty we are, but no one stops provincial politicians from voting themselves another eight percent pension increase? I'm tired of those in charge acting as if they have somehow magically produced the tax dollars they so frivolously spend, then whipping the backs of those who actually earn and pay it.
Do you know what a recent poll said is the aspiration for many high school students? To become a politician. And do you know why? Not to serve their country, not to selflessly devote themselves to improving our democracy, not to make things fairer in a nation of inequalities. Young people want to be in politics because it didn't look as if you had to work very hard, you were on television, you rode around in a limo and you travelled the world free. And after only eight years of working, you retired with a pension!
I'm not suggesting that everyone should go out tomorrow and max out their credit cards to show we aren't going to take the abuse any more. That would be, as my grandmother used to say - a penny-pinching Scot if there ever was one - like cutting off our noses to spite our face. I would just like those who are supposed to be in charge - who we have put in charge - to get off our backs. Instead of belittling the "little" people, they should examine their own consciences.
And be a bit more careful in annoying the people who pay their inflated wages.
