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Tracy Gray – Jul 22, 2022 / 11:00 am | Story: 376554
Photo: bmg-group.com
Many residents here in Kelowna-Lake Country woke up to the news last week that the Bank of Canada had hiked its benchmark interest rate a full percentage point.
It represents the most significant one-time increase since August 1998.
The governor of the Bank of Canada, Tiff Macklem, made clear the Bank was moved to take this historic step because of the inflation rate, which was announced this week to now be 8.1% – the highest it’s been in 40 years.
Inflation, as everyone has noticed, is taking a hit on our wallets whenever we look to buy groceries, gas or even housing.
Many of you have written to me with alarm about what interest rate hikes will mean to mortgages and personal finances here in the Okanagan.
I wanted to provide some answers and explain what our Parliament should be doing to provide fiscal relief. It is always best to consult with those who work in the field to gain the best advice for your personal situation. Here are a few high levels points.
Those currently on fixed-rate mortgages will not see a change in their payments unless their fixed-rate plan is up for renewal. Those with variable mortgages, however, will be more immediately affected, with larger shares of their payments going to interest and potentially an increase in monthly payments.
Those with loans such as variable rate lines of credit, personal loans, or car loans will also see more of their payments going to interest. This is especially punishing, as increased or lengthier debt payments will compete with inflationary gas and grocery prices and eat into household savings.
Debt payments could also affect local small businesses, despite already being strangled by rising inflation, snagged supply chains, and onerous tax burdens. Let’s all continue to do our part to support local small businesses.
Lastly, the Bank of Canada rate hikes will be particularly crushing for renters who are looking to get into home ownership. With Kelowna’s average rental prices already among the highest in the country, this is punitive.
Many people ask how Canada came to an inflation crisis where the Bank of Canada needed to drastically hike interest rates. The root of our inflation crisis comes from a government too willing to spend public money.
Our last two federal budgets were unfocused, as even the Parliamentary Budget Officer’s report noted much of the touted pandemic spending did not actually go to pandemic relief.
I have repeatedly joined colleagues in calling for the government to break free of its spending habits and to stop printing money. The Liberals attempted to deny that there would be an inflationary effect and then, as inflation increased, said it would be transitory.
Now in Summer 2022, with record high inflation stretching our wallets thinner than ever and with the looming weight of crushing debt, rent and mortgage payments overhead, the government insists on maintaining the course of unfunded spending.
They tout even more spending as the “solution” to our inflation crisis while passing the buck on their responsibility by suggesting Canada’s inflation crisis is solely global.
Halting the practice of political money-printing and controlling discretionary spending will, of course, only be a start. In the short term, I continue to call for much-needed tax relief. Halting all scheduled tax increases and temporarily lifting the GST on gas to lower our prices at the pump will help with transportation costs, which make everything cost more.
These are measures I would have pushed the Prime Minister for in person had he come to the Okanagan this week to hear from residents and elected members. Unfortunately, as we learned, his visit was simply a photo-op, and local media outlets reported they were forbidden from asking questions.
I will continue making the case to Ottawa of leaving more dollars in your pocket and protecting the value of the money you earn.
If you need any assistance with programs or have any thoughts to share, feel free to reach out, at 250-470-5075 or at [email protected].
This article is written by or on behalf of an outsourced columnist and does not necessarily reflect the views of Castanet.
Tracy Gray – Jul 8, 2022 / 11:00 am | Story: 374642
Photo: Contributed
Kelowna-Lake Country MP Tracy Gray
Getting the basics right to serve people is the first step of customer service small businesses deal with every day.
It’s unfortunate it has not been the rule for the current federal government. The basic services Canadians deserve and pay for with their taxes are not being achieved through blatant mismanagement and lack of leadership from our federal government, and it’s a mess.
I have countless constituents reach out to me every day regarding backlogs and non-responsive issues from every federal department, including CRA, Citizenship and Immigration Canada (IRCC), Service Canada (including passports), and veteran’s disability applications.
While many Canadians were hoping to go camping this summer, they were likely not expecting it to take place in the parking lot of a Service Canada office.
We’ve now seen wide-scale reports of unmanageable backlogs, dawn to dusk line-ups and mounting frustrations of people seeking a basic service like a passport application. This isn’t federal employees not working hard, it’s mismanagement from above. Our constituency office deals with heartbreaking situations daily.
The government can say it’s deeply concerned about backlogs, but it cannot say they were not warned about potential issues months ago. (Oh, if the government only had a way of knowing when passports expire. Of course it does).
The government even allowed many senior officials to get bonuses, even though many of their departments were failing.
Another fact is the amount of passport applications is less than at pre-pandemic levels. Andrew Griffith, a former director-general with IRCC, and a former top official at Service Canada, said IRCC’s own 2022-23 department plan told the government there would almost certainly be a surge in passport applications as COVID restrictions were lifted.
Common sense would dictate that as borders opened abroad, Canadians would seek the opportunity to travel. Common sense would also dictate a response should have been ensuring appropriate processes and staffing at airports and for passports.
Yet again, the government waited until we were deep in dysfunction before moving to hire more workers, of whom only a fraction will be able to issue new passports due to a lack of full training, according to Kevin King, president of the Union of National Employees, which represents Service Canada workers.
That was despite the government’s claims of trying its best to handle “unprecedented” volumes.
The truth is, the government’s 2022 stats show, on average, 54,200 passport applications per week, with spikes up to 75,000 per week. That falls well below the 90,000 to 98,000 per week Service Canada issued before the pandemic, discrediting the government’s claims of “unprecedented volumes.”
This dysfunction has also imperilled the ability of my office to serve constituents in Kelowna-Lake Country and help with IRCC applications. The case backlog has now surpassed more than two million applications across all categories. As a result, it limits the number of cases an MP office can reach out to help with to only five at a time.
Immigration cases at our office range from temporary foreign worker visas to refugee status. Upon questioning this at the Industry Committee I sit on, IRCC officials said it would take until the end of this year to even meet the regular service standard processing times.
Writing off a year’s work of immigration will have wide-ranging and adverse effects on the Okanagan economy, including our agricultural sector and for others who are suffering labour shortages. Limiting my office’s ability to serve local families and small businesses isn’t acceptable.
We now hear Canada topped the global list of flight delays last weekend.
The government’s response to all this? A ministerial task force to better “listen to concerns,” according to its co-chair. Canadians have made their case very clear as where (the feel) the problems lie, and it’s time for the government to do its job to ensure the basic services your tax dollars pay for are accessible in a manner that doesn’t involve sleeping bags in parking lots.
If you need any assistance with programs or have any thoughts to share, feel free to reach out, at 250-470-5075 or at [email protected].
This article is written by or on behalf of an outsourced columnist and does not necessarily reflect the views of Castanet.
Tracy Gray – Jun 24, 2022 / 11:00 am | Story: 372765
Photo: Contributed
Kelowna-Lake Country MP Tracy Gray
One of the most publicly contested pieces of federal legislation in 2021 was Bill C-10, where the government looked to update the Broadcasting Act to provide regulatory oversight of digital platforms and digital content creation to the Canada Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC).
That bill ultimately did not go forward when the prime minister triggered last year’s snap election. It was revived as Bill C-11, the Online Streaming Act.
While the bill’s name has changed, all the past legislation’s flaws returned.
Bill C-11’s proposed purpose is to support Canada’s digital artists and content creators within Canada over that of their international competitors by updating the Broadcasting Act to create new enforcement of Canadian content regulations in digital media. Basically, the yet-to-be-defined provisions would dictate where and how content appears on digital platforms.
By using the CRTC as the policy creator and enforcer of changes to the Broadcasting Act, the government is giving the agency, which currently regulates television broadcasts and radio waves, extraordinary power over what you can see, share and post to online digital platforms. The government is essentially regulating free speech on the Internet.
The government tried to sidestep that by saying the regulations will not apply to Canadians’ YouTube videos or Facebook posts. However, the current chair of the CRTC, Ian Scott, confirmed to the House of Commons Heritage Committee the bill will provide the CRTC with the “provision” to regulate individual users creating content.
Requesting the CRTC to approve the “Canadian-ness” of every generated video posted online is well beyond the ability of the entire Canadian government, let alone the 500 employees of the CRTC. Such inability will only invite broad, blunt, and forced approaches that will potentially leave Canadians with less free viewing of the Internet than seen today.
But even if applying decades-old Canadian content regulations to how we interact with digital platforms daily were possible, it would still be a solution in search of a government-invented problem.
The government said it will not release its policy directive to the CRTC until after the legislation passes, leaving many unanswered questions.
It is also concerning there is no clear definition of discoverability which would artificially promote some digital creators over others.
Right now, some Canadian content creators are succeeding on digital platforms with the support of fellow Canadians, making their full-time living creating digital content, while receiving billions of views.
We know Canadians are succeeding in these spaces because if they weren’t, why would the federal government have spent $600,000 last year to pay personal “influencers” to sing the government’s messages through digital platforms.
Overregulation is the swiftest eliminator of innovation. That’s why so many Canadian artists and content creators came forward to testify to Parliament that they didn’t need this legislation to succeed and were more worried about burdensome regulation harming their ability to grow internationally and at home.
Their words fell on deaf ears as Liberal and NDP MPs moved to curtail debate on C-11, cutting off dozens of expert witnesses who were scheduled to testify. That shortening of debate, however, did not stop the government from forcing through over 100 amendments and dozens of clauses to Bill C-11 without explanation or debate.
It’s no wonder Prof. Michael Geist, the University of Ottawa’s Canada research chair in internet law, claimed the government “badly bungled the entire process.”
Bill C-11 continues to be as concerning as the previous iteration Bill C-10, and as your voice in Ottawa I will continue to fight against the government’s attempts to regulate what you see and post on the internet.
Arbitrary deadlines, pushing aside witnesses and rushing debate to pass legislation as potentially transformative as Bill C-11 is not how Parliament should serve Canadians in making our laws.
If you need any assistance with programs or have any thoughts to share, feel free to reach out, at 250-470-5075 or at [email protected].
(Editors note: The bill was passed by the House of Commons earlier this weekend and now heads to the Senate for consideration before it can become law.)
This article is written by or on behalf of an outsourced columnist and does not necessarily reflect the views of Castanet.
Tracy Gray – Jun 10, 2022 / 11:00 am | Story: 371430
Photo: Contributed
Kelowna-Lake Country MP Tracy Gray
Liquid gold has been a term used for a long time to refer to our world-renowned icewines, but recently it’s been used to describe gasoline.
With the price at the pump now stuck at more than $2 a litre, we’re hearing about a worrying increase in gas theft in Kelowna-Lake Country.
Recently, it was reported about gas thieves at the UBC Okanagan campus drilling holes in gas tanks to steal gasoline. Those thefts have been only a part of a disturbing trend this spring in the region, including a trio of thieves who were foiled filling up whole barrels of gas at a construction site in Kelowna.
Other than a notable dip right when the pandemic was declared, gas prices have been on a steady increase since 2017. However, we have to remember Prime Minister Justin Trudeau previously said he wanted gasoline prices to increase to discourage driving.
But with 6.8% inflation, with food costs increases being even higher, insolvencies in Canada up in March compared to March 2021 by 33.1% and 43 cents of the price of a litre of gas in Kelowna-Lake Country stemming from various taxes, according to the B.C. Utilities Commission, the federal government should look to pull back on their automatic tax increases.
Conservatives have called for a halt on GST on fuel to give people a break. Doing so would provide relief for commuters and businesses, dampen criminal incentives and put more money in everyone’s pockets so households can pay for necessities.
Cost of living issues like the price of gas don’t appear to be going away soon, neither is the high cost of groceries—as evidenced by the record-breaking response to my Kelowna-Lake Country Grocery Survey I sent out to households in April.
I’d like to thank the many hundreds who responded and shared their feedback on the issue and I will bring your comments and suggestions to Ottawa. Many of the personal notes about what people are experiencing were heartbreaking for me to read.
As many as 70% of respondents to my survey said this year they’ve seen a 20% or higher increase in their monthly grocery bill. Meat (90% of respondents) and vegetables (80% of respondents) were cited as the most common items with the biggest price jumps. Higher rates of food poverty were also noted, as 64% of respondents said it was “very likely” or “somewhat likely” either they or someone they know were skipping meals as a result of higher prices.
As for where people place blame for the increases, the top three responses were inflation, higher gas prices and supply chain issues.
Lastly, with Canada Day celebrations just around the corner, I wanted to highlight that my office is once again offering complimentary Canada flag sets to residents of Kelowna-Lake Country. These sets include a 3 x 5 flag, car window flag, and pin.
Our Canadian flag symbolizes hope, prosperity, and peace. Let’s reflect on the symbolism of our national flag to bring us together and to give strength to others.
If you would like to request a complimentary Canada flag set, you can pick one up from me at my booth at Waterfront Park by the Dolphins statue in Kelowna on Canada Day.
Please contact our constituency office via phone or email with your phone number, address, email, and full name in order to reserve one. Flag sets are available on a first-come, first-serve basis.
I hope to see you on Canada Day and if you’re heading out of town, safe travels.
If you need any assistance with programs or have any thoughts to share, feel free to reach out, at 250-470-5075 or at [email protected].
This article is written by or on behalf of an outsourced columnist and does not necessarily reflect the views of Castanet.
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