Editor, The Times:
Majority government so!
1. Vote subsidy to be scrapped. Read Brian Lilley’s article on this in the Toronto Sun.
According to Brian Lilley, the Conservative Party of Canada gets $10 million every year; the Liberal Party gets $7 million; the NDP gets $5 million; the Bloc Quebecois gets $3 million and the Greens get $1.8 million from the general taxpayers, who may or may not support any of these parties. Jean Chrétien instituted this when he decided that big corporations should not be able to donate huge sums of money to influence the elections. However, forcing citizens to support political parties from their taxes is also not a good idea,
2. The next promise made by the Conservative government is to dismantle the Long Gun Registry - a total waste of money that is not effective and does nothing to fight crime, for the simple reason that criminals don’t register their guns.
3. Senate Reform. This has been a sour spot with the Western provinces, which have been lobbying for a Senate that would be Equal, Elected and Effective (the three Es). Stephen Harper has tried to do this without opening the Constitution. He will bring in term limits (to eight years instead of for a lifetime). He has offered to appoint anyone elected by the provinces whenever there is an opening but, so far, the provinces are not cooperating. Not sure why.
4. Crime Omnibus Bill - This bill will be completed; much to the chagrin of the opposition (LIB+ND+BQ) who all said that we don’t need to strengthen our crime and punishment laws. It is okay not to punish these wrongdoers too harshly, it is okay to give them short sentences (halfway houses are just fine), and prisons should be strictly for rehabilitation, not for punishment. For far too long we’ve watched while the victims of these criminals are ignored and left feeling abandoned by society.
These are the four items to be tackled in the first 100 days.
Wayne Russell
The Vagabond Writer
A proud member of the BC ReFederation Party