Dear editor,
It is a well-worn adage that if you repeat something often enough, it becomes the truth. And as such, I am writing to refute your claims that the increasing demands for Old Age Security payments are in some way financially unsustainable. And I do not do so based on some ideological position of my own. I am basing my assertion that our Old Age Security Pensions are entirely sustainable on the government's own assessment by The Parliamentary Budget Office which made its report to the Harper government prior to the tabling of its latest budget.
Simply repeating a Conservative Party press release exulting the virtues of these cuts to seniors in the future is just adding to the misinformation about old age pension sustainability.
This is the same Conservative government who claimed that the new F-35 fighter jets would cost only $16 billion, when they had information from their own Auditor General that the real cost estimate was $25 billion and likely to rise.
I am perplexed as to why you would characterize this government as having a long-term vision for fiscal responsibility given these factual discrepancies, and in the case of the fighter jets, represent a $10 billion "error" in their internal accounting.
While an editorial is not necessarily journalism, it seems as though one can support a political philosophy without abandoning a journalistic standard for the facts.
Keith Porteous
Denman Island