Dear editor,
The Our Future supplement on Oct. 1 seemed more like thinly disguised Conservative propaganda than useful information.
The statistics that Black Press decided to quote were mostly good news stories of how well Canada has fared during the Harper years.
For example, crime rates are down, unemployment rates down, GDP rates second highest in the G7. Then some very irrelevant, but slanted stats about the wealth gap and increase in medical marijuana usage. Significantly, the stats on refugee claimants neglected to state that during Harper’s watch, on a per capita basis Canada has slipped to #61, admitting less than 1% of the 2.9 million new refugees in 2014. Also neglected was the fact that 130 nations have signed the international Arms Trade Treaty which cuts off the weapons supply to most of the nations that create these refugees. Canada remains the only NATO nation which has not signed and continues to sell war vehicles to Saudi Arabia. Harper has also closed nine offices serving veterans and replaced them with a 1-800 number while we have lost more personnel to suicide than to combat in Afghanistan.
The most important deception, however, is the graphic showing how our riding voted in the last election. What was made to look like a bar graph showed that the 43% of us who voted NDP rated only a slightly higher “bar” than the 5.1% of us who voted for the Liberals! The intent was to confuse those who want a change into thinking that a vote for the Liberals might accomplish this as well as a vote for the NDP. However, as the numbers clearly show, the NDP candidates in both our ridings have the best (and only) chance of defeating their Conservative opponents and, possibly, Stephen Harper.
Both the NDP and the Liberals have promised proportional representation if elected so now is the time to defeat Stephen Harper’s Conservatives so that, next time, we can all vote with our hearts and elect the government our country needs and deserves.
John McNamee
Comox