Dear editor,
I fear that people like Derek Costantino, who voted for Stephen Harper thinking they were voting for "strong fiscal governance, smaller government and lower taxes," are going to be bitterly disappointed.
Mr. Harper has turned an inherited surplus into the largest deficit in Canadian history. Canada's banking system protected us from the worst impact of the global recession — it had nothing to do with the federal Conservatives.
In fact, Harper had wanted to deregulate the banks, which would have put us in the same mess as the United States.
He's supposed to be a trained economist, but plans to build prisons while Canada's crime rate is dropping. He won't divulge the costs of the stealth fighter jets he's buying without a publicly tendered contract; the F-35 may not even be the best choice of aircraft, and I hear its guesstimated cost doesn't even include an engine.
Smaller government?
Harper has bulked up the number of cabinet ministers since his election in 2006 when he boasted of having a smaller cabinet than Paul Martin. He has appointed more people to the Senate than any other prime minister, and used the Conservative majority in the Senate to kill a climate change bill without debate.
The lower taxes Stephen Harper promised in this election campaign will depend on whether the deficit has been wiped out —vote now, reap the benefits later (maybe). Big deal, when you compare them to his subsidies for oil producers.
W. Hunter seems to believe that the Opposition parties decided to "gang up" on Harper to defeat his minority government. I believe that Mr. Harper orchestrated the defeat of his own government when he judged the time was right to weasel a majority out of Canadian voters.
I am ashamed that Stephen Harper was even partly correct when he said that Canadians don't care about Afghan torture victims or contempt and prorogation of Parliament, his refusal to answer questions, ejecting people from campaign "rallies" and his systematic character assassination of political opponents.
I fail to understand what anyone sees in this guy. Could it be his swashbuckling attitude that scoffs at climate change, the Kelowna accord for First Nations people, the need for long-form census data and a gun registry, the safety concerns of people in charge of nuclear reactors and food inspection? His hiring of a top aide with fraud convictions or having members of his government charged with illegal campaign spending?
We have yet to hear about the auditor general's report on G8/G20 spending and possible pork-barrelling in Tony Clement's riding.
It's really hard for me to understand how Canadians could know all this about the Reform/Alliance/Conservative party and vote for them anyway. I like to think that they didn't know.
Anne Bauman,
Cumberland