Trudeau uses credit card (again) to Christmas gift unions
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It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas, everywhere he goes.
Take a look at the union clan, glistening once again.
With candy canes, and silver gains a-glow.
Yes, as Christmas approaches, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau whipped out his credit card Saturday to once again show how big it is, and gifted the federal government’s largest union a 5.5% raise, with a $650 signing bonus as a stocking stuffer.
The bonus alone will cost taxpayers $44.2 million.
But what the hell? Canada’s federal debt is only $635 billion, and is growing at the rate of $3 million an hour.
And then there is Trudeau’s electoral promise of $10-billion annual deficits that, with his fine financing skills, has already ballooned to $30 billion, with no apparent end in sight.
No probs, right? It’s only money.
Trudeau’s credit card has no spending limit, of course, at least not in his mind. To him, it’s an endless supply of liberality.
If a large voting block like the 68,000 card-carrying members of the Public Service Alliance of Canada want more money, and insist on keeping a sick-leave bank that represents a $4-billion liability to taxpayers, then who is Trudeau to refuse them?
Remember, they love each other. Just flash back to their display of gushing public-service joy upon Trudeau’s election when they dropped their non-partisan facades at the federal Global Affairs office and wildly cheered as he entered the foyer.
Gone were those dreaded Harperites who, like a collective Grinch, wanted to replace the existing sick-leave bank with a short-term disability plan that would have insisted public servants be actually sick when they booked off.
That went down like salmonella eggnog.
Oh, for the good old days when public servants exchanged less pay than their private-sector equivalents for a long and secure career and a more than comfortable pension.
As the Fraser Institute recently reported, based on data from Statistics Canada, employees in the public sector now make almost 11% more than their counterparts in the real world.
In covering this story, the CBC made a point of noting that the wage gap narrowed when comparisons were made between public-sector unions and those in the private sector.
Here’s the line that should drive taxpayers mad.
“Public sector unions only make 7.2% more, on average, than their unionized private-sector counterparts,” said the publicly-funded broadcaster.
The offending words? “Only make 7.2% more.”
Such wording should have been seen as scandalous.
While public servants pay taxes too, they are also eight times less likely to be turfed. In fact, in 2015, only 0.5% of public-sector employees were shown the door.
Better put, 99.5% of public servants weren’t shown that door, and now the country’s largest union will be getting a 5.5% raise, and a $650 signing bonus.
Sing along now …
Yes, it’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas, (and) soon the bells will start.
And the thing that will make them ring is the song that Trudeau sings.
When he breaks more taxpayers’ hearts.
