Editor, The Times:
I can hear the ghost of my late waggish friend.
Well it didn’t take the bulldog-graced Irishman (Flaherty) long to let us know just who is going to pay for his corporate tax breaks - you, you suckers!
As a commercial fisherman (now retired) and licensed skipper, one item of Flaherty’s budget massacre hit me between the eyes.
This was the shutting down of one or more emergency call centers on the East Coast (could the West Coast be far behind?).
In other words, the perfect storm is brewing, your ship is sinking - don’t call us and we won’t call you.
Anyway the funds used to keep your call center open have been reallocated to the pockets of our corporate friends whose generous support played no small role in getting Harper a majority government.
Other planks of Harper’s agenda are equally dubious - kill the long gun registry. Yes! Lock the barn doors after the horse has long been turned into glue and dog food.
Tough on crime. Well, some of this (as Ian Mulgrew points out in the Vancouver Sun) has merit, but other aspects intrude directly into the rights and freedoms of ordinary Canadians!
At an earlier time I alluded to Jim Flaherty wanting to build a lighthouse high in the sky.
Come to think of it, why not just shut the lighthouse down? After all, who needs it? Just some lost mariners (except for some mega-yacht owners and they usually have all the latest satellite navigation stuff).
After all, the taxpayer’s money should go to the most deserving of Canada’s populace.
Dennis Peacock
Clearwater, B.C.