Letter to the Editor
Editor,
I went to a 55+ club meeting today to listen to Larry Miller address the club. I needed to hear him and I did. He comes across as being kind of home spun, and sounds okay, but somehow manages to make me wary. He tows the party line very close, but does pepper his talk with personal anecdotes that were geared to the older audience.
As my dad used to say about many politicians…“Bull Shit Baffles Brains”. The Cons are masters at this.
He touted the income splitting and TFSA programs of the conservatives. I was surprised that he brought up the fact that there was a lot of criticism in the media that the plans are mostly attractive to wealthy savers. I agree with that. He did not deny this.
My research has revealed that:
-
15% (5M) of Canadians are 65 or over.
-
60% of people who could invest in a TFSA have not done so because they do not have the funds.
-
And remarkably, 15% (650,000) of seniors are living below the poverty line.
In fact 80% of Canadians over age 14 have work or retirement income of $80,000/yr or less .. This group of Canadians will benefit less under the Conservative tax savings plans than under the other party plans.
I could not stay for the whole meeting, but got to hear and ask some questions.
I gave him a chance to talk about Conservative policies about health care. Apparently Larry did not know much about the issue or chose to gloss it over. Health care is an issue that illustrates a Conservative libertarian trend to shrink government in all ways. Transferring problems to provinces and municipalities. Larry claimed that Provinces administer Health care and funding is currently a 60:40 split (feds to provs), but he did not mention that this is soon to change.
To Quote from one of the articles linked below:
“Harper has quietly put in place the mechanism for deep cuts to federal support for public health care. There was, of course, no proclamation pointing that out. His government simply announced, just before Christmas in 2011, that there would be no negotiations to renew the expiring health accord with the provinces.
“Instead, it unilaterally imposed a new formula — which will cut federal support for health care by an estimated $36 billion over the next decade, leaving the cash-strapped provinces scrambling to cover costs, with private, profit-seeking health entrepreneurs buzzing at their doorsteps.
“Yet the media treated this hugely significant change as a dull story about federal-provincial spending formulas, and largely buried it in the rush of year-end media trivia. It has received little attention since.
As a result, few Canadians seem to realize that, as things stand, our medicare system — an institution cherished by millions — faces serious spending cuts starting in 2017.”
This issue is of concern to me. Is Harper trying to Americanize Canada’s health care system?
These articles are a couple that I found that define the problem.
http://briarpatchmagazine.com/blog/view/addressing-the-conservative-attack-on-canadian-health-care
The BSBB force runs strong in this one!
Dave MacDougall, Meaford
