I am writing in reply to John Steven’s letter of Aug. 26 where he talks about the opposition to our Prime Minister Stephen Harper. This is part of a distasteful development in this election campaign of name calling and fear mongering. It is my observation that the liberal/socialist left has certainly become united to spread all kinds of lies and fears in the general public about the Conservative Party and our PM.
Let me give you an example. Recently a group calling themselves Engage Canada has been running TV ads against the Conservatives. In it they make the claim that the government is gutting $36 billion out of health care to the provinces. That is an unsubstantiated lie! In fact the opposite is true. The Finance Department figures show that transfer payments for health actually increased from $29 billion in 2006 to $47 billion in 2015. They guaranteed a six per cent increase each year from 2009-2014 when the present accord ran out. After the election campaign the government has said that it will sit down with the provinces and renew it for a further five years for at least the six per cent amount. Interesting that the Engage Canada campaign is financed by union workers’ dollars. I wonder if they all know that and agree with the spending of their hard earned dollars that way.
The “extraordinary uproar of negativity” that Steven talks about is fueled by hysterical accusations from the left of centre parties. They call Stephen Harper an ideological conservative who is leading Canada into the dark ages. Let me tell you that ideological conservatives in the midst of a crippling recession in 2008 would not have put our country into debt to pay for massive public works programs and community needs like soccer fields and arenas. That was quite distasteful to many conservatives including myself. But the fact of the matter is that that is exactly what the Conservative government did. Then they worked hard to give us good fiscal management and have cleared that massive debt they accumulated in seven years and balanced the budget.
Their actions have made us the envy of the world and time and time again we are touted internationally as the best country in the world to do business in (Forbes magazine report), that has the most affluent middle class in the G20 group of richest nations and who came out on top in surviving the huge recession of 2008. Yet the screeching masses of the left will tell you that Conservative economics policies have plunged us into debt, raised taxes and is leading us into another recession. Nothing could be farther from the truth.
I would hope that somewhere in this election campaign we would all hear the truth and not just someone’s perception of it. And that we start to become more civil in our speech and action, looking for the positive things that are happening in our nation making it the best country in the world.
Reed Elley, president
Cowichan-Malahat-Langford Conservatives