To suggest the Conservatives show outdated priorities clearly indicates that it is the editorial staff of the Saanich News who need a severe reality check.
The Conservatives have focused on reducing spending, balancing budgets, and reducing taxes for all Canadians. Talk to young married couples with children to note how they benefit from new the new child benefit packages.
How about the reduction of the mandatory withdrawal from RRIFs? And income splitting, as was the pension splitting provision of a few years ago, will put more money in the pockets of hard working Canadians.
The Conservatives are not impeding the growth of Canada’s vast resource base, including oil and gas extraction. They know full well the importance of resource extraction to the whole of the Canadian economy. The Conservatives have been ruthless in their free trade agenda. Dozens of deals in the last 10 years with nothing but negative comments from all of the opposition parties.
To suggest the Liberals, NDP and the Green Party are focusing on issues important to Canada’s future would indicate that someone has not reviewed the election platforms of any of the opposition parties. Does increasing corporate taxes, or imposing a variety of carbon taxes sound like sound fiscal policies in an era of downturns in the energy sector?
It is patently clear that the Liberals, the NDP and the Greens are adamantly opposed to pipelines of any nature, even the Energy East oil pipeline; to expansion of our oil and gas resources; and certainly insofar as the Greens are concerned, to the extraction of Canadian resources of any kind.
Governments can support our economy by getting out of the way of the private sector. That is where the Conservatives shine.
All of the opposition parties, particularly the NDP, would take an opposite tack, and such a future would be a sorry sight to see.
And by the way, Victoria and region have one of the lowest unemployment rates in the country, and both tourism and high tech is booming, so where are all of the these Canadians without a job and struggling to make ends meet?
The vast majority of our seniors are doing extremely well in B.C. with a health care system of the highest order. The Royal Jubilee Hospital is one of the finest in the country.
And Canada has just recently been voted the best country in the world. So it would appear the editorial writers of the News are outdated, not the Conservatives.
H.J. Rice
Saanich