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WHAT UPSETS CANADIANS?
In talking to hundreds of Canadians, we are unhappy or displeased with many things. Would you like to see changes in any of these things?
1. Cost of Governments:
* Many studies reveal that on average public sector workers have compensation packages over 30% better than comparable private sector workers.
* Most Canadians believe that taxes on everyday living and family incomes are excessive and don't represent sufficient value.
* Canadians feel that governments over-pay for services and procurements and government agencies are wasteful of taxpayers' contributions.
* Canadians feel that international drug and medical rsearch companies have used charitable research donations and tax breaks to profit themselves and over-charge for their products and services.
2. Quality of Government Services:
* Canadians feel that many government bureaucracies provide services that could be delivered faster and at less cost by private sector entities.
* Government agencies make too many new rules and regulations and thus increase the costs to do business or the costs to enjoy government administered services.
* Government doesn't control price fixing in many industries and creates complex regulations that force smaller competitors out of business.
* Many government funded organizations are unaccountable to the public they serve (medical practitioners, educators, police forces?) due to powerful self-serving unions or associations.
* Pooling of tax revenues originally earmarked for specific infrastructure needs (gas tax for roadways, property taxes for water/sewers, street cleaning, etc.?) has led to major deficiencies in transportation, communications and municipal services.
3. Poor Education:
* Parents have lost confidence in the education system's ability of to provide strong fundamental learning aptitudes and skills due to diversions away from the 3R's, physical education and manual training.
* It is well known that the majority of top professional university programmes are taken by students who were given external tutoring in key subjects.
* A lack of textbooks and random learning modules has isolated parents. Automated student assessments by teachers has created an environment where parents are unable to assess how well their children are really doing in school.
* The policy of no failure of a grade has created an attitude of entitlement in students that does not lead to a realistic outlook towards their future work-life.
* The Ontario School Board's pension fund is one of the largest capital pools in the world to-day. Taxpayers feel that the teachers' union blackmailed politicians into granting exess pay raises and benefits during the past 40 years at the expense of private sector family incomes and savings.
* Many Canadians feel that foreign students are taking up university and college seats that should be available to students born in Canada.
4. Party Politics:
* Canadians have had no trust and have withdrawn support for the traditional political parties since the 1990's as recently evidenced by the Liberal party appointing rather than electing a new leader (Ignatieff).
* Canadians believe that democracy has been replaced by cronyism and minority interest pressure group policies and practices. The wishes of the majority of Canadians are irrelevant in contemporary politics.
* Canadians recognize that democracy and freedom has been fully eroded and replaced by party politics which are not entirely different from communist and fascist politics. Recent proposed and enacted legislation has severely infringed upon personal liberties and freedoms in the USA and Canada and allows substantial monitoring of private citizens and extensive restrictions upon public protests.
* The Canadian media has an abnormally strong influence over national and local politics. Media organizations have become strongly partisan and rarely provide significant coverage to parties outside the mainstream.
The CFP finds that all these issues contradict our principles and policies and we have designed constructive programmes that will bring about positive change in all these areas.
Please feel free to let us know how you feel.