Nova Scotia | Self-described political pragmatist | Views are my own and I don’t respond to anonymous trolls.
Joined December 2021
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Andrew 🇨🇦 retweeted
Cooper is either too stunned to understand what Carney was saying or he’s dishonest.
Andrew 🇨🇦 retweeted
And I want Ukranian kids to stop getting killed or kidnapped.
As a father he should know better.
"We just want to play": Alex Ovechkin speaks out on Russian participation at IIHF events. toronto.citynews.ca/2026/11/…
Andrew 🇨🇦 retweeted
Don’t take Federal dollars with attached strings if you have no desire to fulfill those obligations
Andrew 🇨🇦 retweeted
Wild to see the CPC base radicalised against… modernising the backend of financial and payment architecture?
Andrew 🇨🇦 retweeted
Canada's tax system gives seniors an additional tax credit simply for being over 65, regardless of their net worth.
Consider two Albertans.
Sarah is 35. She works full-time, earns $55,000 a year, and is raising two children. She pays $7,765 in income taxes.
Richard is 70. He owns a $3 million home, has a seven-figure investment portfolio, and reports $55,000 in taxable income. He pays $6,452 in income taxes.
Despite reporting the same taxable income, Richard pays $1,313 less than Sarah because he qualifies for the Age Amount Tax Credit.
The Age Amount Tax Credit is income-tested, but it isn't wealth-tested. Richard's $3 million home and investment portfolio don't affect his eligibility unless they generate taxable income.
Richard is likely also receiving $9,150 in Old Age Security payments.
The result is a tax system in which a wealthy retiree can pay less income tax than a working parent earning the same taxable income.
Andrew 🇨🇦 retweeted
Canada’s Real-Time Rail (RTR) is a new national payment infrastructure owned and operated by Payments Canada. It allows participating financial institutions, credit unions, and payment service providers to send and receive account-to-account payments that clear and settle in seconds, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.
It launched on November 9, 2026.
How it differs from Interac e-Transfer
Many people confuse the two, but they are not the same:
•Interac e-Transfer is a consumer-facing service. You send money using someone’s email address or phone number. It feels fast for users, but historically the funds did not fully clear and settle between banks in true real time.
•Real-Time Rail is the underlying national “rail” (infrastructure). It handles the actual exchange, clearing, and settlement of the money in real time between financial institutions.
e-Transfer is expected to begin migrating its clearing and settlement onto the RTR in 2027. The familiar e-Transfer experience will largely remain, but it will eventually ride on the new infrastructure.
Key features
•True real-time settlement: Funds are available to the recipient almost immediately, and payments are generally final and irrevocable once settled.
•Always on: Works evenings, weekends, and holidays with no cut-off times.
•Data-rich payments: Uses the ISO 20022 messaging standard, so more structured information (like invoice numbers) can travel with the payment.
•Built-in fraud tools: Includes centralized fraud services (such as confirmation of payee and real-time risk scoring) from day one. Canada is the first G7 country to launch a real-time system with mandatory centralized fraud controls.
•Higher limits: System limit starts at $100,000 (financial institutions can set lower customer limits).
Current status and rollout
The system is live, but access is phased. Some smaller institutions and fintechs are already connected; the major banks are coming online later. The goal is for over 90% of Canadian bank accounts to have access by the third quarter of 2027.
In short, the Real-Time Rail is the modern backbone that makes instant, final, data-rich payments possible across Canada. It is not a new app or a replacement for e-Transfer—it is the national infrastructure underneath (and eventually supporting) faster money movement.
Andrew 🇨🇦 retweeted
Crazy how many politicians on the Canadian right retweeted these accounts.
Exclusive: A covert Russian network sought to exploit last month's riots in France by using social media to blame the unrest on uncontrolled immigration and portray the government as having lost control, according to an internal EU assessment seen by Reuters reut.rs/3UMHXCW
Andrew 🇨🇦 retweeted
Clearly, most people have zero understanding of what Real Time Rail is and how it’s not the same thing as e-transfer.
If you can not distinguish the two clearly, you really have no business commenting on economic or financial matters.
Andrew 🇨🇦 retweeted
100 million Canadians by 2100 would mean slowing down Canada’s growth.
⬇️
2100 = three generations from now.
To get to 100 mil from 42 mil in 74 years entails population growth of a little less than 1.2 per cent per year. Actual population growth over the last 74 years: 1.44 per cent per year.
So the scary, scary proposition that this professional fear-monger would like you to lose your mind over is ... to slow down population growth by about a fifth.
No doubt if you had told people in 1952, when the population was less than 15 million, that Canada's population in 2026 would be nearly 42 million, they would have panicked, too. How will we ever feed all those people? How will we ever employ them? etc In fact, employment grew faster than population (4x vs 2.9x). Per capita GDP has more than quadrupled. etc etc.
Or rather no, probably they wouldn't have panicked. Because our politics had not yet been overrrun by such chronic bed-wetters.
Andrew 🇨🇦 retweeted
We can't stress enough: intergenerational fairness & OAS reform is quickly becoming a crux problem in 🇨🇦
Someone needs to have the political courage to take it on in the next five years or it will spiral out of control.
Sure, raising OAS age to 67 would save ~$11B a year by making every senior wait two more years for OAS, including the poorest and most at risk.
But there's a better trade proposed by @GenSqueeze and @jeffcanadamson: test OAS on household income like we already do with the Canada Child Benefit.
→ Clawback starts at $100K income for couples, $65K for singles
→ Wind down the outdated $7B/year age and pension income credits
→ Spend $2B on a $5,000 GIS top-up for seniors in poverty
We could, and should, take this one step further and additionally consider net assets in the calculation.
~$15B a year in gross savings from this plan and we have a more direct address to the real problem – seniors' poverty.
Reminder that Canada under the Harper government *did* raise the OAS eligibility age.
Had Trudeau not reversed this courageous reform, we would be spending $11 billion less on OAS by 2029, according to the PBO.
When OAS was created in 1952, the benefit began at age 70. Life expectancy was 68, and the ratio of workers to retirees was 8 to 1.
Eligibility is now at 65, with life expectancy at 81, and the ratio of workers to retirees down to 3 to 1.
The current system represents a massive, unjust intergenerational transfer of wealth which is obviously unsustainable.
Andrew 🇨🇦 retweeted
100M by 2100 is 1.19% annual population growth.
We averaged 1.44% over the last 74 years.
Andrew 🇨🇦 retweeted
Public spending in Canada by age.
When Ottawa looks for savings, it reviews the public service and operations. Most of that isn't on this chart.
The elephant in the room is the bulge after 65: health care (red) and OAS/GIS (blue).
Reminder that Canada under the Harper government *did* raise the OAS eligibility age.
Had Trudeau not reversed this courageous reform, we would be spending $11 billion less on OAS by 2029, according to the PBO.
When OAS was created in 1952, the benefit began at age 70. Life expectancy was 68, and the ratio of workers to retirees was 8 to 1.
Eligibility is now at 65, with life expectancy at 81, and the ratio of workers to retirees down to 3 to 1.
The current system represents a massive, unjust intergenerational transfer of wealth which is obviously unsustainable.
Andrew 🇨🇦 retweeted
For any serious OAS reform to pass through parliament, consensus would have to be reached by at least the LPC and CPC. This sort of thing should be spearheaded by both government and opposition MPs. At a minimum, we ought to be looking at the clawback thresholds.
@PattyHajdu @HarbGill @GarnettGenuis @LailaGoodridge @lesliechurch
