Canadian Personal Finance Blog

Now that is my kind of Surplus!

The feds announced today a whopping $14B Canadian. That is a whole lotta money to be running as a surplus, and makes me wonder why we are paying at the tax level that we currently are. Now in defense of the government, they are doing the right thing with this extra money:

The surplus will be used to pay down the federal government’s accumulated debt, which will have dropped to $467.3 billion as of March 31 of this year — its lowest level in 14 years. Since 1996, the debt has been paid down by $95.6 billion.

Good to hear that they are paying down the DEBT and that the DEBT is down almost $100B in 11 years (of course the fact that we still have almost $500B to go is worrying).

Allegedly tax cuts are coming, but to who(m) and how much remains to be seen.

Ontario Election Front

I still haven’t managed to get an NDP sign for my front lawn, but I do have both PC and Liberal signs on my front lawn (reflecting our households complete confusion about who might be the best choice for Ontario).

All parties other than the Liberals seem to be running an “Anybody But Dalton” campaign (or a “we can’t screw up as badly as he did” campaign). Will this work? We’ll see.

No new mention of huge tax breaks, or free money being given to me, so I haven’t decided as of yet. Yes, anybody reading from a Political Party, my vote can be bought (for the RIGHT price).

Canada We are Bigger

No, no, not another complaint about being overweight, Stats Canada has estimates for Canada’s population as of July this year:

Nationally, Canada’s population hit an estimated 32,976,000, a gain of 326,500 people and a growth of 1% between July 1, 2006 and June 30, 2007. The rate of growth was similar to that in 2005/2006.

So that means the surplus is about $430 per person in Canada. You think they will cut us all a cheque?

Articles This Week

• Price Fixing For Cars in Canada
• A Parable about Advice (not just financial)
• Can Only Get Better From Here
• What is Rich in Canada?

In case you have forgotten folks, the tax man cometh, and he isn’t going to just put his hands in your pockets either! Rick Mercer’s finest work, Knee In My Package.

Check out more of Rick Mercer’s work at the CBC.