The following text may have been generated by Optical Character Recognition, with varying degrees of accuracy. Reader beware!

23 | Thursday June 1 5 , 2 0 1 7 | OAKVILLE BEAVER | w w w .insidehalton.com Your home is your castle - maybe your healthcare plan Dollais & Sense Peter Watson Guest Contributor Hom e V alu es up 100% over last 5 years ENERGYSTAR D o you think our federal govern ment could claim some of the equity of your house? No? Think again. To many, the idea of los ing some of the equity of your house to the federal government seem s absurd. Think what you want, there m ay be some logic to having this happen. We can sum up Cana da's economic reality with a few short statements. Many older Canadians are house-rich and cashpoor, and these same indi viduals, as a group, are re quiring significantly more in medical and health care services than they have in the past. Demographically we have turned into an older country. There are more seniors than children and due to increased life expectancy, it is projected that the number of seniors will continue to rise signifi cantly. The political hot potato of the next several decades is who will pay for those expensive medical and health care costs. Ideally, senior citizens should be financially inde pendent and pay their fair share. That is fine in theory, but many seniors don't have the cash. W hat they do have is a ton of wealth tied up in their principal residence. Unfortunately for the federal government, under current tax laws there are no income taxes paid on capital gains from a princi pal residence. Our government, and m ost governments around the world, do not have enough cash flow to pay for all the social benefits its citizens want and need. One solution is to tax younger Canadians more heavily to cover the health care costs of their elders. The younger genera tion have less job stability and many have stretched themselves financially to buy houses at current in flated prices. If you were advising the federal government over the next two decades, what would you recom mend? You can't get money from seniors if many do not have the funds. It is unfair to tax the younger generation because at some point you would have a major push back. The historic solution of offering services that can not be afforded is to bor row the money. The federal government has that ability. At som e point Canada's massive debt has to be ad dressed. It is not unreasonable to expect som e countries to declare bankruptcy in the years ahead. Remember several years ago when the city of De troit declared bankruptcy in order to get its finances back on solid ground? Eventually debt has to be paid whether you are an overspending consumer or an overspending gov ernment. Assum ing more debt to care for seniors is not a re alistic option. Union Gas Home Reno Rebate GET UP TO $ EASY FR O M PAYMENT PLANS On Your Enbridge Gas Bill* GET IN 5 ,0 0 0 REBATES 49 AIR MILES® m 9 Reward Miles For booking an in home estimate Visit our Facebook page /CONSUMERSCHOICEWINDOWS CONSUMER'S WINDOWS &DOORS ONTARIO'S LEADING HOME IM PROVER WWW.CONSUMERSCHOICE.CA Call for a no obligation estimate or our newest showroom or kiosk location 1- 800- 565-7366 D IS C O U N T C O D E M L300 Customer Satisfaction At your option, Consumers Choice's charges w ill appear in the Other Companies section of your Enbridge Gas Distribution bill. These offers and claims are made by Consumers Choice alone. Consumers Choice is not owned by or affiliated with Enbridge inc. or Enbridge Gas Distribution. ® TM Trademarks of AIR MILES International Trading B.V. Used under license by LoyaltyOne, Co. and Consumer's Choice Home Improvements Inc. see Transferring on p.34