Reader Offers Thoughts on Coming Federal Election

Editor,

A vote for Ruff means several things:

We would have no real policies to deal with climate change or environmental destruction caused by global warming. Instead, let’s build energy corridors (euphemism for pipelines) to export our fossil fuel pollution to the world. We’ll sell our “ethically” produced LNG, Oil, Gas to countries who still use coal. How does this help solve the world’s global warming issues? How does this help Canada meet our climate commitments? How does that demonstrate Canadian leadership to a world economy based upon renewable energy? It’s a very hard sell to people living in the far north, or those on coastal areas facing rising waters, or those dealing with floods, droughts, wild fires, worsening hurricanes, and tornadoes.
A vote for Pierre Poilievre: As much as I respect Ruff’s loyalty and support for the military, and local issues, his loyalty to Poilievre is where I draw the line. Poilievre is a populist, slogan loving, name calling, angry, divisive fighter. He has always been the Conservative Party attack dog. He has never learned how to cooperate or compromise, or reach across to other parties to get things done. So.. a vote for Ruff/Poilievre had better win him a majority or as a minority government, it will not last long. The Conservatives have no one to reach out to. They have burned all their bridges to moderates in other parties. The majority of Canadians think Carney is a better, more stable, more adult, more moderate yet firm leader for these times.
A cut to foreign aid to fund a military base in the far North. Foreign Aid helps people stay in their home country instead of becoming illegal immigrants on our borders. It’s very expensive to build, staff, supply a base in the arctic. The Russians have 30 bases up there. They fund them with embargoed oil shipments, and because they can. Totalitarian governments don’t have to answer to citizens. We don’t have any government owned oil slush funds so Poilievre wants to take money from helping people in impoverished, war torn countries who need it. All to build a single base? Too little, too late in my view. It’s better to monitor with satellites and use missiles to fend off attacks from Russia.
Relaxed gun laws: More semi automatic guns in people’s possession. This increases the probability of suicide, homicide, accidental death by guns. Who benefits from this policy? Foreign weapons manufacturers. Is it worth it just to play with guns?
Increased contributions to Tax Free Savings accounts for wealthy people. Canada has 41M people, 35M are adults over 20. Only 18M 51% of adults hold TFSA accounts. Of those, the majority don’t have enough money to keep their TFSA’s at maximum benefit. Bottom line, less than half of the population gets any benefit from this Conservative policy. It does benefit the wealthy people to pay less tax in Canada.
New Home buyers get a bigger GST rebate than is offered by Liberals. The conservative plan benefits wealthy people, investors, anyone. These people mostly want to buy/invest in 2 bedroom condos based on selling existing family homes. Does this increase the availability of affordable homes? No! The more modest liberal plan benefits only first time new home buyers not investors or down-sizers.
Use of the “NotWithstanding clause” to force people convicted of multiple murders to serve consecutive 25 year prison sentences for each murder. This appeals to those who seek vengeance not justice. 25 years of jail, (free room, board, health care, education, therapy, entertainment, security) is quite long enough. After 25 years most people change quite a bit. They would do things differently than they did 25 years ago. How much should taxpayers have to pay to seek revenge?
Lowering Income tax by 15% for the lowest tax tier is a recent electioneering ploy. The conservative plan is more generous (will cost more) than the Liberal plan. It may help those who are living close to the poverty line. Neither party plan has been fully costed. But ask yourself this. How can a policy to reduce taxes be compatible with reduce revenues. It would roll out over a 2-3 year time frame and in fact may never happen if the conservative plan is have a minority government.
Federal Carbon taxes to be totally eliminated by the conservatives. This effectively moves the problem of carbon taxes to the provinces. Industrial Carbon taxes have a 3 times greater impact on reducing carbon pollution than does Consumer carbon taxes. They do not impact the costs consumers pay because industrial carbon emitters can buy/sell carbon credits in a credit market. That market helps to create strong incentives to reduce emissions. It also means that low-carbon projects can use the prospect of credits to attract investment into Canada. The conservative AXE THE TAX policy on all carbon taxes actually hurts industrial investment into Canada. Besides.. how can you fight climate change with an axe ? Silly ehh.