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Friday January 8, 2016

January 7, 2016 by Graeme MacKay

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Friday January 8, 2016

Ultra-low-cost carrier planning flights from Hamilton airport

Canada’s latest airline will unveil its plans for flights out of Hamilton airport on Wednesday.

That’s when Dean Dacko, chief commercial officer of NewLeaf Travel, the country’s new ultra-low-cost air carrier, will unveil the company’s plans for making Hamilton one of its hubs.

Details of the announcement remain a closely guarded secret, but in a news release airport officials promise “NewLeaf plans to revolutionize the Canadian travel market.”

NewLeaf’s bare-bones website promises its service will feature “No more extra costs for things you don’t want” and “You pay for your seat and the rest is up to you.”

Wednesday’s announcement will include details on non-stop routes, pricing and booking.

NewLeaf announced its interest in the city in June, saying it would make its headquarters in Winnipeg with bases in Hamilton and Kelowna.

2005

Ultra-low-cost carriers — also called no-frills or budget airlines — offer lower fares, making up for lower ticket prices by charging for extras such as food, priority boarding and baggage. The largest such operator is United States-based Southwest Airlines.

Aircraft and crews for the NewLeaf flights will be supplied by Kelowna-based Flair Airlines.

Ultra-low-cost carriers are new to Canada’s aviation industry and Hamilton airport executives have been keen to get at least one located here as a boost to their long-cherished dream of turning the John C. Munro Hamilton International Airport into a passenger destination.

While they have long argued that 2 million people live within an hour’s drive of the airport, its passenger history has been one of soaring hopes followed by bitter disappointment as more than 20 airlines have come and gone through the facility.

2003

Passenger traffic peaked in 2003 at about 1 million when the airport was the eastern hub for WestJet, before the airline moved the hub to Toronto’s Lester B. Pearson International Airport. In 2014 it handled 332,000 passengers.

The only year-round scheduled service from Hamilton now is a single daily WestJet return flight to Calgary. That’s in addition to seasonal service to vacation spots.

NewLeaf is headed by Jim Young, a former vice-president and chief marketing officer at Denver-based Frontier Airlines who also served for six months as president of upstart Canada Jetlines Ltd.(Source: Hamilton Spectator)

Published in the Saskatoon Star Phoenix, Saturday, January 9, 2016

Thursday October 15, 2015

October 14, 2015 by Graeme MacKay

By Graeme MacKay, Editorial Cartoonist, The Hamilton Spectator – Thursday October 15, 2015

Trudeau win could cancel need for Ontario pension, Wynne says

A majority win for Justin Trudeau’s Liberals next Monday could “absolutely” negate the need for an Ontario pension plan, says Premier Kathleen Wynne.

That’s because Trudeau has promised to enrich the existing Canada Pension Plan, possibly making the proposed complementary Ontario Retirement Pension Plan redundant.

“If we have a partner in Justin Trudeau to sit down and work out what they’re looking at as an enhancement to CPP that was always my starting point,” Wynne said Tuesday as she campaigned in four ridings in Toronto, Oakville, and Burlington to help the federal Liberals.

“That was the solution. A couple of years ago, that’s what we were looking at. We were looking at finance ministers across the country who agreed that they’re needed to be a change to the Canada Pension Plan,” she said.

She noted two-thirds of Ontarians have no workplace pension.

Wynne’s provincial Liberals introduced the ORPP, which takes effect in 2017, after Conservative Leader Stephen Harper refused to improve CPP benefits, which pay out a maximum of about $12,000 annually.

Under the scheme, workers without a plan would have to contribute 1.9 per cent of their pay, which would be matched by their employers.

On the eve of launching the 11-week election campaign, Harper said Ottawa would not aid Queen’s Park by administering the new provincial plan, which he views as a “payroll tax.”

“Kathleen Wynne is mad that I won’t help her do that,” he said in August. “You’re bloody right. The Conservative government is not going to help bring in that kind of tax hike.”

But Trudeau, who is leading in most opinion polls, has repeatedly pledged to boost CPP and work with Wynne to bolster retirement security. (Source: Toronto Star)

Saturday November 3, 2012

November 3, 2012 by Graeme MacKay

By Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator, Saturday November 3, 2012

End of Daylight Saving Time fills insomniacs with dread

The end of Daylight Saving Time this weekend mostly brings an extra hour’s sleep to a sleep-deprived society — but actually hurts the people who need sleep most.

This is the night when people with insomnia suffer even more than usual, then have to listen to their friends and family talk about how refreshing it is to catch up on sleep.

This paradox comes from the fall ritual of turning back the clock one hour. At 2 a.m. Sunday we officially move back to 1 a.m., adding one hour to the night.

In effect, we create a single 25-hour day, to be balanced out by a 23-hour day next spring.

For a society that tends to stay up too late at night, this is a bonus: just this once you can fall asleep at midnight, get up at 7 a.m., and still get eight hours’ sleep.

But for an insomniac, it’s the same poor-quality sleep as usual, followed by a day with an extra hour of being awake. In addition, it upsets their “circadian rhythm,” the mental cycle of day and night that tends to operate poorly to begin with in people with insomnia.

“Where people are normally getting an extra hour of sleep or sleep opportunity, for someone with insomnia this could actually be worse,” says Dr. Elliott Lee, a sleep expert at the Royal Ottawa Mental Health Centre. (Source: Ottawa Citizen)

Wednesday May 9, 2012

May 9, 2012 by Graeme MacKay

By Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator, Wednesday May 9, 2012

Lower fees forced on Ontario doctors

Sending a signal that will reverberate throughout Ontario’s broader public sector, Dalton McGuinty’s Liberals have broken with their conciliatory past by forcing a tough new deal onto Ontario’s doctors.

Less than two weeks after negotiations with the Ontario Medical Association fell apart, and despite requests by the OMA to call in a conciliator, Health Minister Deb Matthews announced Monday that a package of cuts to doctors’ fees will be unilaterally imposed through regulations, retroactive to April 1.

The abrupt manner in which the cuts were unveiled, amid claims by the OMA that Ms. Matthews has misrepresented discussions at the bargaining table, sets an aggressive tone for other negotiations – including with the province’s teachers. And it epitomized the shifting focus of a government once known for its big-spending ways.

The 37 fee-schedule changes announced Monday focus heavily (although not exclusively) on a relatively small number of high-paid specialists – mostly radiologists, ophthalmologists and cardiologists – and by the Liberals’ estimate will save $338-million in 2012-13 and $440-million in 2013-14. But sources say there are more broad-based cuts to come, to get the rest of the way to a two-year freeze in doctors’ total pay envelope.

Still on the table is the elimination of a “retention bonus,” which the Liberals had brought in to dissuade doctors from leaving the province. That benefit currently peaks at $5,000 every three years for doctors who have practised at least three decades.

The government also wants to revive so-called clawbacks of doctors’ fees once they exceed a level at which their ratio to overhead costs becomes skewed. (Source: Globe & Mail)

Tuesday June 15, 2010

June 15, 2010 by Graeme MacKay

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Tuesday June 15, 2010

Planning for the Future

For the past two years, the federal government and provincial finance ministers have been looking at what to do to help Canadians better prepare for retirement.

When the bottom fell out of the stock market in the financial crisis that swept the world in 2008, company pensions and registered retirement savings plans were hit hard. It was feared that some pension plans would not be able to meet their obligations to current and future retirees — and that some retirees would have no pension at all if the companies they worked for went bankrupt.

People who had to rely on RRSP savings faced the prospect of having to work several years longer than planned to make up for their losses.

While markets have recovered much of what they gave up and many plans that were at risk are solvent again, Canadians are still worried about what their retirements will look like.

An Ipsos Reid poll commissioned for the Canadian Institute of Actuaries suggests 42 per cent of Canadians over the age of 45 feel they are not financially prepared to live comfortably after they leave the workforce.

Seventy-two per cent said they were concerned about maintaining a reasonable standard of living in retirement.

A similar poll done by Ipsos Reid in November 2006 for BMO Financial Group suggested that 70 per cent of Canadians don’t feel they’re on track with their retirement savings — or don’t know if they’re on track. (Source: CBC News)