Ontario, Canada’s Public sector employees who made $100,000 in 2018 – March 27, 2019,
There are assumptions that humans make about a government that go something like this:
- The government does things that are in my best interests,
- The government workers get paid lots of money to protect me from exploitation,
- The money government workers make don’t come from the tax collection they take from the private sector,
- Working for the government makes you smarter than everyone else,
- Politicians and government people only lie when it’s for the greater good
- People who work for the government aren’t influenced by special interest groups,
- People who work for the government can’t be corrupted
- People who work for the government make the economy fair
- If it wasn’t for the government consumers would be exploited by the private sector
- If it wasn’t for the government the world would be polluted
Yes, I know if you’re reading the above in your head you’d easily be able to contribute more on what the average Ontarian thinks about the government. It’s not until a person goes into a Government office that they realize how inefficient things are, its when you step foot in a government office, that you eventually start to realize how incompetent government workers are.
It’s then that you realize that if government employees really solved problems they might be out of a job. The private sector is built on options and being economically efficient, whereas the government is built on control, dominance, economic and social monopolies, and constraints. If you read the list of Government employees making over $100,000 per year, you’ll notice that many of them are in the education space.
If you’ve ever wondered why financial education is often ignored in public schools, I think you’d find your answer by looking at the Public sector salary disclosure. If kids have an understanding of how many works from early ages, they’d ask too many questions, they and their parents would be more involved in how public servants were paid, the real public sector disaster of learning about how money works are the entrepreneurs it creates. Once you figure out that it’s the COSTS of doing business that causes poverty, you start to notice that higher costs revolve around Government regulation and legislation. Higher costs from public servants come from them lobbying the government for higher pay, more protections, more control over how students are educated as I said control, dominance, economic and social monopolies, and constraints.
When you understand the Public Sector and how it gets its money, then you’ll eventually start looking at things like Public Sector Unions.
Why aren’t employees of Crown Corporations consider Public Sector Workers?
What is a Crown Corporaton?
Canadian Crown corporations (French: Sociétés d’État du Canada) are state-owned enterprises owned by the Sovereign of Canada (i.e. the Crown). They are established by an Act of Parliament or Act of a provincial legislature and report to that body via a minister of the Crown in the relevant cabinet, though they are “shielded from constant government intervention and legislative oversight” and thus “generally enjoy greater freedom from direct political control than government departments.”
Crown Corporations are economic monopolies, if you own a private company, it’s in your best interests not to compete with them, because a simple legislative act and your private business could easily become yesterday’s news.
Once you understand Public Sector unions you’ll want to consider learning about Crown Corporations, which aren’t included in the Sunshine List but should be. Because in my opinion if you’re going to expose Public sector workers, let’s start talking about Crown Corporations, like the LCBO would be a good start, now I can make the argument that New York State should be called the socialist republic of New York State, because that State is really, really, socialist Liberal, but guess what, if it weren’t for tariffs, Ontarians would probably do most of their shopping in New York State? Why is that you ask, well look no further than your neighborhood friendly Crown Corporation.
To give you an idea of how inflated prices are in Canada, because I want you the reader to understand that the Canadian currency is artificially devalued, Americans are actually in more debt than we are, the difference with America, however, is that their Public Sectors, like their Post Office, for example, is an independent agency of the executive branch of the United States federal government. Whereas Canada’s equivalent is a Federal Crown Corporation known as Canada Post.
In America, when USPS is broke, which is basically every single year, at the very least the America people can see based on competition why USPS is insolvent, in Canada, Crown Corporations don’t exactly work that way, you see in Canada being a Crown Corporation gives you a monopoly on an entire industry, so nobody dare challenge Canada Post, whereas in the United States there’s actual competition like UPS which is how the U.S government is able to judge USPS’s shortfall, you can’t judge where Canada Post falls sort, because there’s nothing to judge it against, no competition exists to compete against it, so it’s prices aren’t reflective of any market fundamentals, which actually throws everything out of whack.
Now imagine multiplying the Canada Post problem into other areas of the economy, like supply management and let’s imagine there was something called I dunno the Canadian Dairy Commission (CDC) which monopolized food, now imagine a large portion of the Canadian population were employed by these Crown Corporations, but because they weren’t considered Public Sectors persons, they weren’t open to same level of scrutiny as Public Servants?
Final thoughts
I think it’s damaging to the Canadian economy that Crown Corporations aren’t labeled in the public sector, I’d like to see this changed because what I don’t think Canadians are realizing is that our public sector is a lot larger than what’s being reported. If you think it’s not a big deal I disagree, market fundamentals are very important to understand once a recession hits the country. Prices are inflated in Canada to facilitate a lower Loonie, I think people forget that the Canadian Loonie is artificially low, it’s Low to facilitate the justification of certain industries. Now, clearly I’m against this, but we’re in a democracy, so if this is the game Canadians want to play, it’s important that we know how to get ourselves out of it when the inevitable economic crash hits this country.
Interesting times ahead