The Editor,
Recently, I received some marketing material from our local Conservative MP. It has caused me to imagine what I might expect from him and his party as we move closer to the federal election later this year.
In this case, the flyer advertises our Conservative government's plans to help keep kids active. It reminds me of a similar ad a while back that touted the tough Conservative stance for justice and dealing with criminals. As I think about this propaganda, I imagine that it amounts to what are the earliest salvos of distraction in what is likely to be an onslaught of political posturing with the goal of saying as little as possible and helping almost no one, certainly not the regular people of our communities.
In my mind there more fundamental issues about the Conservative record that we should consider as the election draws near: Foreign policy, the environment, the silencing of scientists, our national energy policy, election fraud scandals, senate spending scandals, the dismantling of the CBC, silencing dissent, how we treat veterans, an unaccounted $2 billion - the list literally goes on and on.
As for the Conservative plan to keep kids active, again I wonder what our MP and his party are thinking about? More specifically, with whom do their allegiances lie?
The concept of being able to write off some of the expenses for sports fees, I must admit, is attractive - if you can afford to put your kids in sports in the first place. Surely our MP knows the statistics about child poverty in this province.
Might I also mention that with the dramatic turn of fortune in the tar sands and with companies like Target and Sony retreating from Canada, it seems fewer Canadian families will be able to take advantage of these kinds of tax cuts.
So who really are the Conservatives helping and to what extent? It is one thing to be able to write off a pair of sneakers for basketball and quite another to write off a season's pass to Whistler, the equipment and all of the fashion accessories to boot. The tax relief proposed by the Conservatives will only help their friends in wealthier families, who clearly don't need such help. Children of less fortunate families will not really benefit in a substantial way.
I think we deserve a better vision for Canada, our province and the Tri-Cities. I find that vision in the Green Party of Canada.
Brad Nickason,
Port Coquitlam
