Are you saving $14,180 a year for your pension? That is how much you would have needed to save - every year for 35 years - to pay yourself a pension equal to that of a federal public servant retiring today. That's why taxpayers are on the hook for an unfunded federal pension liability of $208 billion, according to a recent C.D. Howe Institute report.

To save taxpayers from this giant and growing future bill, the government needs to make changes.

Most employees in the federal public sector enjoy defined-benefit pension plans. They may retire and be paid a guaranteed pension of 70 per cent of the average of their highest five consecutive years of paid service. These pensions are fully indexed annually to cover cost of living adjustments. These days they get 2.9 per cent a year, almost three times the rate of inflation.

In 2009-10 the number of federal employees reportedly earning over $100,000 was 42,050, having almost tripled in five years. Earning $100,000 puts one in the top 2 per cent of income earners in Canada.

Imagine an employee who started working for the federal government at age 25 whose average salary for pension calculations is $100,000. This employee is entitled to retire at age 60 with a full pension starting at $70,000 per year, indexed for life. At age 81 she would be paid $135,099. With an average life expectancy of 81, this recipient will be given 24 years of benefits totaling $2,379,887.

Anyone else retiring on their own savings would require $1,014,200 in the bank at retirement (CPP excepted), earning a 5 per cent annual return, just to yield an annual payment of $70,000 - with no indexed growth! In order to save up that amount an individual would have to save $11,194 per year, every year for 35 years. If one was lucky enough to have an employer willing to match contributions then a person would still need to find $5,597 - per year every year. Not easy to do, especially in the early days of your career!

In order to have enough to pay oneself an indexed pension like a retired public servant starting at $70,000 and growing to $135,099 after 24 years, you would have to have saved $1,280,732. This means an individual would have to save $14,180 a year - every year for 35 years - and earn 5 per cent every year in compounded interest, hoping the markets never crash. If your employer pays half then you still must save $7,090 every year from age 22 to 57!

In 2010, there are 261,159 federal retirees and survivors receiving retirement payments. This is projected to grow to 296,180 in 2015 - a 13.4 per cent increase - when fewer taxpayers will be around to pay for more retirees. That's expensive.

http://telegraphjournal.canadaeast.com/opinion/article/1319689

The link in my post does not always work. The following is another link to the article I referenced in my post:

http://news.therecord.com/Opinions/Editorials/article/817750

Yesterday I heard George Abbott, candidate for leader of the Liberal (sic) Party interviewed on the CBC. When asked whether he supported the HST, he affirmed that he did. He said that our government needs the additional revenue to offset the current budget deficit.
Perhaps he did not hear his leader, Gordon, state that the HST is "revenue neutral". It is time for this government come clean on what the HST is really for and what its effects have been.

Charles: Instead of trying to pull federal employees down, why not work on bringing back decent, defined benefit pensions for Canadian workers? If globalisation is destroying our middle class, maybe we need to think about pulling back from the race to the bottom in wages and benefits. We should not have to reduce our workers to a level of India or China.

I really don't think charles is trying to pull down federal employees at all,sardonic.
You may be missing his point.
His post simply points out what the average joe is up against when facing retirement.
There are glaring problems with the way government pension plans are funded and,at the present level, they are just not sustainable.
The government/s know that, and have for a very long time.
Someone is going to have to step up and pay the piper,and those on the bottom end of the scale are not in a position to do that.
Other countries are finding themselves in the same position and much to the anger of their taxpayers,are begining to make changes, such as raising the retirement age to 65 minimum.
Perhaps too little,too late.
I don't know a lot of people not working in the federal, or even provincial public sector, who can afford to stash away $14,180 dollars a year toward retirement,particularly if they are raising kids.
Unfortunately,once the kids are out on their own,they don't have much time left to sock it away.
Another case of those on the bottom paying for those on the top.

Tuition fees are skyrocketing, schools are closing....and they are giving away free heavy equipment training in Afghanistan, building schools, digging wells and the list goes on.....at least with the overly generous pensions we can hope the money will circulate in Canada.??

I agree with the points raised by Charles, we have to wake up, the gravy train is over loaded with passengers and running low on fuel, the next steep grade may see it falter and start to roll backwards, and if/when it does, theres gonna be a helluva crash. The average Joe and Josephine will never see those fat pensions, we are hoping that there will still be a CPP & OAS, and that our savings will be enough to make up the difference between poverty and getting by. I am not complaining, but I am worried about maintaining a comfortable lifstyle for 20-30 years post retirement.
metalman.

As a provincial employee, I get the same deal as the feds-up to 70% of my my best five years (indexing is there but not guarenteed). But I put almost $9,000 a year out of my income into the pension plan. As well, I pay extra into RRSPs and other plans to protect myself for retirement.

So, Gus, I guess my question is this-do federal employees contribute the same? Less? More? The story tends to skip over that.

Well metalman.... you can forget about OAS ... the bunglers have quietly made changes effective July 2011 that will wipe out part of the pension retirement income you might have been counting on ... if you bring your (lump sum) RIF withdrawals into your income because they will be classed as earnings instead of income for tax purposes. G&M has an article about it on their page this morning.

V.

Hey Charles. How much would one have to save to get a pension like Bill Gates?

Flah .... Gus???? Why pull me into Charles' nonesense post?

Sometime there is an "s" in "Flash" :-)

i worked for 26 years but failed to work the last 5 due to this i recieve bc disability of 892,the fed plan declined my app saying too bad you have to of worked the last 5 ,anyway so,, again dont fall ill cause the feds will kick the crap outta ya !!! sure is snowing alot

Sorry Gus-My bad. Its still early in the morning you know ...

we need a "Danny Williams" leader in this province. He 'fought' and 'got' for Nfld. He did not let the feds or Quebec or anyone take advantange. That is what a leader should do for his people. Where do we find one!

Sardonic... an interesting note on Abbott.. I think we are going to see more of that sort of lack of knowledge, understanding, and varying viewpoints as the issues are discussed by the candidates.

Of course, we have to remember that the story is that the HST is good for business because it will make them more competitive and thus they will build their business and hire more people to produce more services and products, thus paying more income as well as consumption taxes.

I sometimes feel I am a little kid again and being read a fairy tale by my parents.

The thing to keep in mind is that the vast majority of us are watching an activity we can do absolutely nothing about. This is not a general election.

You won't ever see a solution to the pension problem until you recognise that the overall economy, at present, is NOT fully financially "self-liquidating". Until it can be made again fully financially "self-liquidating", and kept that way, the problem cannot be solved.

Putting 'more' money into pension plans is NOT the the overall answer. Every dollar put into a pension plan is a dollar that has already been 'costed' into the price of some good or service. All 'costs' flow through into 'prices' EXPRESSED in dollars. But the ACTUAL dollars have been made deficient in relation to those prices by their diversion into a pension plan, and away from Consumer spending, which is needed to liquidate the 'costs'.

Pension plan money is INVESTED by the administrators of the plan, (or by yourself, if you so choose to have a self-directed RRSP, etc.) The investment of this money creates ANOTHER set of 'costs' while the 'costs' previously created still remain outstanding.

To bridge the gap between overall 'costs' and overall 'incomes' we currently resort to two methods.

One is to run what is called a "favourable" Balance of Trade with some other country or countries. Where we export more than we import and receive international credit convertible into Canadian dollars by the Bank of Canada to make up the difference.

NO country can ALWAYS run a so-called "favourable" Balance of Trade without physically impoverishing itself. For in so doing we are shipping out more REAL wealth than what we are receiving back in alternate REAL wealth ~ hardly the way to 'prosperity'!

The second way is through continually expanding debt. Herein there are also major problems.

Credit is created by the banking system as loans only for 'productive' purposes, NEVER for 'consumptive' ones.

Even so called Consumer credit, the largest sector of debt in existence today, is based on the borrower having some role in the 'productive' system, i.e. a "job".

Trouble is, amongst other things, "jobs" are being progressively eliminated as we increasingly find ways to have the 'machine' replace the 'man'. Or, now, outsource them to 'sweat-shop' countries.

That 'machine' has "costs" which flow through into prices, too, but they are largely CAPITAL costs. Incomes paid out at sometime in the PAST, and spent at THAT TIME, and now no longer available as incomes to meet those costs as they flow through into prices. Outsourcing simply removes 'money' from our country entirely ~it never was 'income' to anyone here.

We try to get around this by increasing CAPITAL SPENDING. Borrowing more money to build more plant, infrastructure, etc. All things which do not immediately come within the buying range of Consumers, but distribute incomes to them to make up the deficiency of incomes in their ratio to prices of goods and services that are already on the market, and DO come within the buying range of Consumers. This does NOT however, solve the problem.

First of all, the increase in borrowing to fund increased Capital expenditure invariably RAISES prices, since the upper limit of 'price' is governed by the quantity of money available to meet it, and we've just increased that quantity.

Secondly, the money we have borrowed has to be repaid. If it is lent to private businesses, it is repaid out of future PROFITS. But if it increases productivity, and displaces labour and labour's incomes, overall SPENDING from those incomes will FALL. And even though the increase in productivity may result in a product being able to be sold cheaper, MORE product still has to be sold. For it is the TOTAL COST of ALL the ADDITIONAL product that has to be liquidated.

When business profits are falling OVERALL, (and I'm not talking about any specific Firm here, whose profits may well be increasing, but ALL Firms large, medium and small, in the WHOLE economy), the ability of businesses OVERALL to fully pay off their borrowings declines. And as that decline continues, the Banks become unable to extend further credit, accentuating the decline.

Currently we try to solve THAT problem by means which only defer it, and ultimately make it worse. By trying to convert the unrepayable, floating debt of the private sector into unrepayable, fixed debt of the public one.

The assumption being the public sector (government) can always tax to endlessly service that debt (pay the interest on it). However, we are already seeing what increasing taxes (HST, Carbon Tax, etc.) are leading to, even with interest rates at historic low levels on government debt (just wait til they start to rise!). An outright TAX REVOLT, as more nad more of us find we're increasingly having trouble finding the money (collectively) to pay them.

To believe we can ever solve the pension problem by ANY of the methods currently being proposed is the ultimate in financial naivety. Look at the BIG PICTURE if you want a solution. It has to be solved in the economy as a WHOLE, otherwise our attempts are simply a waste of time.

"You cannot expand credit at a rate faster than GDP forever without suffering a financial panic and collapse".

--- Karl Denninger

Government pension plans are just another example of the costs that are being passed onto the next generations. Whether it be these types of plans or CPP. The boomers didnt pay their share during the good times and it will fall to us during much more difficult times. Great. Thanks.

Pick a lane. Left or right but not both. k thx

Born in B.C....easy to point the finger at the boomers,but the reality is,if it wasn't for them and even those who came before them,there would be no government pension plan.
There wouldn't be a lot of things we now take for granted.
Government mismanagement of pension funds is where the blame really deserves to be placed.

RRrabbitt - The news story is about the GIS (Guaranteed Income Supplement) not OAS (Old Age Security). GIS is sort of like social assistance for low income seniors.

GIS is a top up for low income seniors who's combined CPP and OAS is below a certain threshold. If a senior has a bunch of money in a RRIF and takes on the required minimum each year then GIS is not reduced. Under the new rules, if a low income senior takes a large amount out of their RRIF in a given year then the GIS top up will be reduced.

I have a feeling that there are not a lot of seniors who's income is low enough that they qualify for GIS but have a large sum of money in a RRIF so hopefully this change will not impact too many people who are really in need of help. I think the change is really targeted at wealthy retiries who due to the type of assets they have don't earn a lot of taxable income. For example, a retired business owner may be living off the repayment of shareholder loans or other non-taxable cash flows and qualify for all sorts of government benefits.

Note: There is no clawback of OAS unless your income is over $66,335 per year and I beleive it if not fully clawed back until your income reaches over $100,000 per year. So you could take a lot of money out of a RRIF and not have OAS reduced at all.

As far as I know, there is not clawback of CPP for any income level. Correct me if I am wrong.

RRrabbitt - The news story is about the GIS (Guaranteed Income Supplement) not OAS (Old Age Security). GIS is sort of like social assistance for low income seniors.

GIS is a top up for low income seniors who's combined CPP and OAS is below a certain threshold. If a senior has a bunch of money in a RRIF and takes on the required minimum each year then GIS is not reduced. Under the new rules, if a low income senior takes a large amount out of their RRIF in a given year then the GIS top up will be reduced.

I have a feeling that there are not a lot of seniors who's income is low enough that they qualify for GIS but have a large sum of money in a RRIF so hopefully this change will not impact too many people who are really in need of help. I think the change is really targeted at wealthy retiries who due to the type of assets they have don't earn a lot of taxable income. For example, a retired business owner may be living off the repayment of shareholder loans or other non-taxable cash flows and qualify for all sorts of government benefits.

Note: There is no clawback of OAS unless your income is over $66,335 per year and I beleive it if not fully clawed back until your income reaches over $100,000 per year. So you could take a lot of money out of a RRIF and not have OAS reduced at all.

As far as I know, there is not clawback of CPP for any income level. Correct me if I am wrong.

Govenment pension plan is forced contribution from the employee. Now if this was applied in the private sector maybe there would a lot less issues on funding retirement. This will not happen because the private sector is all about max profit and screw the worker.
I know people that owned businesses and worked in the private sector and lived for today and did not plan for tomorrow and they are the biggest whiners out there blaming everone except themselves.
The money accumulated in government pensions and CPP could have made the plans self funding, but the governments kept raiding the funds. That is why we have issues today.

For example in BC Hydro the unions fought for some say on how pension funds where invested but government would allow that. The unions won in every court right upto the supreme court of Canada. So what did the govenment do, change the law excluding BC hydro from the normal pension rules. I cannot remember the details but it gave the gov. an out.

So quit bitching about governmnet employees and look at what started the problem in the first place.

If anyone wants to bitch about pensions how about what the high pensions paid to the high mucky mucks in the private sector. They have any government official beat hands down.

kolberg says..."I have a feeling that there are not a lot of seniors who's income is low enough that they qualify for GIS..."

What planet are you living on????

kolberg says..."I have a feeling that there are not a lot of seniors who's income is low enough that they qualify for GIS and have a LARGE SUM OF MONEY IN A RRIF so hopefully this change will not impact too many people who are really in need of help"

jus cuz you can selectively quote parts of of a statement to change the meaning of the statement doesn't mean you should.

I guess this DRUNK that KILLED that little girl in the LML,doing 91km in a 50 zone .
2.5 yrs flippin joke it is! and she ia appealing her sentence,appeal court should increase her sentence to 15yrs or more!
Then on the other hand ,you ppl gave Scambell another term and look what he did,glub,glub!

kolberg...my apologies.

There are glaring problems with the way government pension plans are funded and,at the present level, they are just not sustainable.
The government/s know that, and have for a very long time.

This dos not apply to the provincial government pension plan . As a member of this plan we are given an annual report on the funding of our plan . The NDP set up a crown corporation that manages our pension fund and to date it has 18 billion dollars in the fund. The fund has two parts . One is the investments made by our contributions on the stock market and the other deals with pension payout to retirees.

As an employee I contributed 7% of my pay to the pension fund. 6% went to words my retirement and 1% went into an indexing fund.

I think that it would be prudent to get your pension information from the source and not from the news media. The federal government was never known to pay excessive wages that is to the general roll employee. Managers and supervisors are anther story. A tradesman at the pulp mill today makes between 60 and 70 thousand per year plus benefits and that does not include contributions to the pension fund. That comes out of their pay check.

Its not the wages that the government pays their employees. It is money that stays in the community. The big problem will always be how our tax dollars are managed to operate and provide services to the tax payer. And hey if the wages are that good why not go to work for the federal government. Check their postings Im sure there is work for you
Cheers

I'm not worried, as long as those cheque printing machines in Ottawa hum along smoothly. Don't worry. Be happy. Like the song says.

I'm thinking of doing a Weird Al Yankovic version of that song. It's for people who haven't saved enough to retire on.

Its called. Don't be happy. Worry.

Could be a smash hit.

Elections BC rejected a Fight HST recall application as too lengthy – but did so using rules that were drafted after it received the application.

The rejection has led recall organizers to suggest the province’s chief electoral officer deliberately thwarted their attempt to get approval to launch a petition to oust a Liberal MLA who supported the harmonized sales tax, and should step down.

While Elections BC has defended its new rules – which pushed the Fight HST application over a 200-word limit by counting the acronyms MLA and HST as eight words instead of two – recall organizers expressed concern that they were not included in the application form when they downloaded it from Elections BC’s website.

“It’s a total joke. This is the kind of thing they do in banana republics ... when they don’t want to have elections or they don’t want people to win. And we’re doing it right here in Canada,” said Chris Delaney, an organizer of the Fight HST campaign.

Mr. Delaney made the comments on Thursday after learning Elections BC had rejected Fight HST’s application for a recall in the suburban Victoria riding of Oak Bay-Gordon Head. Universities Minister Ida Chong is the first target of anti-HST activists’ campaign of recalls against Liberal members of the legislature.

Mr. Delaney said organizers were never told MLA and HST (harmonized sales tax) each counted as more than one word.

Fight HST submitted its application on Monday. The document outlining the changes was uploaded to the Elections BC website on Wednesday afternoon. A cached view of the site shows it wasn’t part of the recall petition application package as recently as Tuesday.

Elections BC said Craig James, the province’s chief electoral officer, was unavailable for comment on Thursday. But a spokeswoman said Fight HST organizers were told after the application was rejected that the new rules would be put on the website this week.

When asked why organizers wouldn’t be made aware of the new rules until after their application was submitted, she said: “Before the application had been submitted, there had been no need for a policy. No recall application in the past had ever come close to the 200-word limit. It hadn't been an issue.”

When asked if an unforeseen problem could arise when Fight HST resubmits its application, the spokeswoman said Elections BC follows provincial legislation in all its decisions. She declined to comment on whether instituting such rules after the fact reflects negatively on the non-partisan, independent office.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/british-columbia/elections-bc-changed-rules-after-recall-application-was-submitted/article1814445/

BorninBC:-"The boomers didnt pay their share during the good times and it will fall to us during much more difficult times."
----------------------------------------The boomers DID pay their share, BorninBC, but 'inflation' has made the purchasing power of what comes out far, far less than that which was put in.

Andy says the problem is due to the government mismanaging the Pension Plan. That isn't exactly so. So far as picking investments go, Pension Plan managers are quite able to choose where to place the funds they manage, except they are hamstrung by what is going on in the economy as a whole. Which affects ALL investments.

As I said earlier, if, collectively, incomes are falling in ratio to the overall costs of production continually being impressed into prices at the point of final retail, then SPENDING from THOSE incomes on Sales will be falling in ratio to costs Expensed against them.

This will depress business profits, and with such a depression the ability of businesses to fully liquidate their loans as contracted is impaired. This leads, as it has led again recently, to repeated periodic "busts" in the whole economy, as bank credit dries up in the face of an increasing number of loans that cannot be amortised. Pension Plan money, no matter how well it is invested, can not earn an overall adequate return under that kind of situation.

ya know !!@! these guys that write in on friday with all their opinions and stats and re email sites really show how ignornatthings have become .. do you not see that more sometimes is not nbetter and if you do have an opinon then do you and only you have the brains to share it with us? if not then go find a site were you and them can throw stats and figures till your stupid heads explode !! TOU ARE MISSING THE POINT !@! WRITE YOUR THOUGHT AND MOVE ON !!!WRITE ITY SO YOU HAVE A POINT!!! WRITE IT SO ITS REAL!! FOR GODS SAKE !!YOU LOOK LIKE FOOLS

BAN THESE PEOPLE !! WHAT THIS IS,,,IS FOR PERSONS TO WRITE IN AN EXPESSION OF THE COMMUNITY ,A THOUGHT AN IDEA OR JUST A WISH ! STATS ,, AND ALL THAT CAN FIND A NEW HOME THANK YOU !! WE SHOULD KEEP THIS SIMPLE AND THEN YOU WITH ALL THE TRUCK LOAD OF CRAP WILL BE HAPPY !! HERE ITS JUST FOR YOU AND ME TO BE HONEST AND LOOK AFTER PRINCE GEORGE IN OUR THOUGHTS ,,, GOODBYE TO THE 10000000 BLAH BLAH BLAAH !!! GROW UP AND SHOW US HOW YOU FEEL

mmmkay. Just don't read it, I dont.

no a good written well investigated OPINION is what people read. a well written OPINION makes everyone see what the writer expresses,a good OPINION gives the readers enough info and interet to foolow the writer more,PLUS you make contact with your audiance an your idea moves on and on ,,, hey nice day now not snowing

r u drunk?

Charles it is never as simple as your own biased perspective. For example have you considered this background:

By 1999, the pension plans of federal public sector workers (public service, RCMP and Canadian Forces employees), had accumulated a combined surplus of $30.2 billion.

One of the main contributors to the surplus was the fact that the workers were paying into the pension fund based on calculations that assumed workers were receiving annual wage increases, when in fact they had a legislated six-year salary freeze in the 1990s. On average, federal public sector workers pay higher contributions to their pension plans compared to private sector workers.

On September 14, 1999, Parliament passed the Public Sector Pension Investment Board Act (Bill C-78), which introduced amendments to the laws covering the three pension plans, allowing the federal government to grab the $30.2-billion surplus. The federal government is exempted from the Pension Benefits Standards Act, which limits employer access to any surplus in federally registered pension plans.

Bill C-78 also gave Government the authority to raise the mandatory employee contributions in case of a shortfall and to reduce or cease employer contributions if the pension fund accumulates a surplus in the future.

You may believe that Government jobs are easy the pension and benefits are great. It's not always that simple and the Federal employees in this town making over or even close to 100 is allot less than the 16% -42,505 persons- of the public service all these numbers are calculated on. I would suggest these 16% are primarily in departments HQ's in Ottawa or other major centres.

The number are for the minority top of the civil service and not the average. Full Pension at age 60 for some maybe but you need 35 years in to get 70%. Not sure what average salary is but its not even close to 100K. Sorry I have to call you this simplistic one eye open best case scenario.

There are too many employees everywhere these days paid over 100K. From my experience pay is often inversely proportional to usefulness. The gap between poor and rich continues to widen. We need to take a stand and hit those at the top not the guy in the middle putting in his 35 hard earned years to get 70% or 35k for his best 5 @ 50K.

There is $$$'s to be saved in many areas and levels of government but it is not always where you might think.

Have a good one

Well,there we have it.
Christy Clarke announced she is taking a week off to decide whether or not to run for Campbell's job or not.
My guess is she will do it.
Thoughts anyone?

Judging by the condition of the streets in downtown PG they have no snow removal budget left already...come on guys, it snows in this part of the country, get on the ball.

Hey, Stupid drivers! When pulling out of Pine Center onto the highway towards hwy 16 is a YIELD! YES, You have to brake for me to go by, and then when it is safe and clear it is your turn!

Then when you turn right onto hwy 16 IT IS A MERGE! Meaning you shove into a spot, when it is safe to do so. Not stop!

Good post monkeyboots. It's always enjoyable to read a rant like that from charles, but when opposing viewpoints are presented to him with factual information from people who actually work in the environment he speaks of, it's amazing how silent he becomes.

Anyway, to my point. Like you have stated, most people employed by government will not get full pensions. It's just simple math because they won't have the years of service. It's nice to bring out the "wow" example, but how about we look at the guy or gal who puts in 15 years making 55K per year. Their pension would be a whopping $16,500 per year when they retire. Wow, talk about living large!

And most people (I would assume charles included since he never mentions it in his semi regular cut and paste on the subject) don't factor in the employee contributions that go into the pension plans. They don't come cheap. Someone making that 100K charles talks about would contribute roughly 7% of their gross salary to the plan IN ADDITION to their regular CPP contributions. Joe private industry (I'm assuming charles fits in there as well), would flip if the government announced tomorrow that MANDATORY contributions to CPP were going to be increased to the same level as government pension plans are now.

Third, you have to look at pension plans as part of an overall compensation package. Many people do very well working for the government, however, there are many positions that are paid substantially less than their private sector counterparts. These would be professional positions like lawyers, doctors, engineers, economists, accountants, etc. For these folks, the pension makes up for some of the wage shortfalls experienced by working for government. Incidentally, most of the 100K jobs charles talks about would be for these highly specialized jobs, not for a clerk like many people seem to think. One wouldn't expect Canfor, Imperial Oil or CIBC to hire "budget priced" people to run their business, so why the heck would we want our governments to hire "budget priced" people to run our country?

Let's pay people what they deserve for the job they do. It's a simple concept really. If I as a taxpayer have to fund someone's pension so that I can live in a country like Canada, so be it. And as an aside, if you think a competent and functional pubic service doesn't contribute to what we enjoy here in Canada as citizens, I urge you to travel around the world and check out some of the countries that don't have we have. Just don't cry to your embassy if you need help, because remember, the people working there are probably overpaid as well, LOL.

Why are so many Drivers in PG in such a rush, you can go anywhere in 10 Minutes.
Yield ,Merge, Stop ,give the other a Break, if you hit someone or get hit you will have plenty of Time. You are not living in a big City it's only Prince George, Relax. Have a nice Weekend and drive safe.

Well said Monkeyboots and MNG.
The quote " From my experience, pay is often inversely proportional to usefulness", is so true.

Anyone with thoughts on how we are getting bored with the carbon tax BS.

If Christy CLark has to take a week to make a decision, she's lost my vote already.