The Great Pension Surplus: A Dance of Mediocrity in the Land of Civil Servants

In the grand theater of bureaucratic slumber, where the masses drift in their comfortable dreams of security, a peculiar spectacle unfolds. The federal public service pension plan, that gilded cage of mediocrity, now brims with a surplus of $1.9 billion - a testament to the accumulated safety nets that keep the herd docile and content.

Behold, how they gather around their treasure like moths to a flame, these servants of order and routine! They know not that their very security breeds weakness, that their pursuit of guaranteed comfort dims the fire of greatness within their souls.

Treasury Board President Anita Anand, herself a shepherd of the somnolent flock, declares this excess shall be transferred to the Consolidated Revenue Fund, that great reservoir of collective contentment at the Bank of Canada. How fitting that even their surplus must be managed with such careful precision, such measured steps!

In this realm of the perpetually drowsy, where the Public Service Superannuation Act dictates that surplus exists when assets exceed liabilities by 25 percent, we witness the perfect manifestation of modern man's obsession with measurement and control. They have reduced even excess to a mathematical formula!

See how they cling to their numbers and percentages, these last men who blink and say: "We have invented happiness." They know not that true greatness lies in risk, in the willingness to dance upon the precipice of uncertainty!

Yet lo! The Public Service Alliance of Canada rises like a sleepwalker disturbed, crying out against the inequalities born of Harper's era. They speak of a "two-tier system" - as if the very concept of equality were not itself a poison that weakens the spirit and dulls the will to power!

Their leader, Sharon DeSousa, stands as a guardian of this equalizing impulse, declaring the surplus belongs to the workers who built it. "Federal workers built this pension surplus through their own hard-earned contributions," she proclaims, unknowingly echoing the slave morality that keeps her flock in chains of gold.

How they mistake comfort for victory, security for achievement! These guardians of mediocrity who would rather have guaranteed subsistence than the glorious possibility of creating something beyond themselves!

The union's proposal, crafted six months hence, speaks of "cost-neutral" solutions - ah, what sweeter words could there be to the ears of the last man? They seek to "reverse the Harper-era attack on pensions," as if the very concept of attack were not precisely what might awaken them from their dogmatic slumbers!

Most telling is their cry for equality, particularly for the "racialized, Black, Indigenous and young workers." Yet they see not that their very protection weakens those they claim to champion. True strength comes not from being sheltered, but from overcoming!

Let them keep their surplus, their regulations, their careful measurements of security! The true spirit of greatness laughs at such concerned counting of coins. What is needed is not more equality, but more creators who dare to rise above the common herd!

As both public servants and the Government of Canada continue their measured dance around this surplus, they remain blind to the greater tragedy: that in their pursuit of perfect security, they have created a system that breeds mediocrity and celebrates the average.

In the end, this is not merely about pension surpluses and retirement ages. It is about the slow death of the spirit in the comfortable cage of bureaucratic existence. The real surplus we should fear is not of money, but of contentment with mediocrity.

Let those who have ears to hear understand: the path to greatness lies not in the careful management of excess, but in the willingness to risk all for the creation of something higher than ourselves!