Dear Editor:
Your editorial The Party in Power was right on! Also, what a classy and well-researched reply you made to Jamie Fishers Crossing the Line letter. Keep up the great work. Those people need to pull their heads out of the sand or wake up and smell the coffee as some would say. It is pretty obvious that the Harper government is pushing hard to buy votes. Dont forget that this is taxpayers money. The recent child care cheques are another example. The following segment is copied from an email I received today from a group called leadnow.ca:
Employment Minister Pierre Poilievre raced around the country in an election-style campaign to promote Harpers child care cheques, but theres one thing he hasnt told families: the new child benefit is taxable. Thats right. Taxable. Which means that the Harper Conservatives are not only trying to buy our votes with our own money, they also plan to take BACK a hefty chunk in April after the election. Most benefits are taxable, but heres the catch while bringing in the new child benefit, the Conservatives also just quietly axed our $2,225 child tax credit. After alls said and done, that means a typical working parent will receive just $13 a month to cover skyrocketing child care costs. Thirteen dollars. Not a single child care space, not affordable care and nowhere near an actual plan just $13. Thats not even enough to buy a pack of diapers. The scary thing is this could work millions of cheques are arriving in peoples mailboxes right now, and most of the Canadians Harper is targeting simply dont know that this is a cheap trick to try to buy their votes with their own money and leave them with little to show for it. Theyll see the hundreds of dollars in their bank account, not realizing its going to get clawed back at tax time, leaving them barely better off overall.
Granted, this group hopes to get people voting together to unseat the Harper Conservatives, but it makes a point that most people dont realize.
Lynn Askey
Invermere
