Fletcher, unlike Dix, can’t see across the fence

Re: NDP’s problems go much deeper (B.C. Views, Jan. 26)

Mr. Fletcher wanted “…details of (Adrian Dix’s) analysis of the terrible effects of income inequality in the developed world.”

Between 1990 and 2009, the Canadian child mortality rate dropped 1.5 per cent per year. The United States’ rate dropped 1.7 per cent per year. Cuba’s rate dropped 4.5 per cent per year. Cuba’s is lower than the U.S.’s child mortality rate, according to UNICEF.

Yes, “there remains a whiff of Cuba,” as Mr. Fletcher said, in the NDP. You go Adrian Dix.

Just curious – why do Mr. Fletcher and Mr. Dix see things so differently? Both are bright guys, neither dogmatic nor indoctrinated, most would say. Maybe one of them actually acknowledges there really are two sides of the fence.

Finally, will the HST “equalize wealth” as claimed? In the 1950s when there was less Canadian poverty, corporate Canada paid 25 per cent of all tax revenues. Now they have paid billions of dollars of shortfall over the last half century. I don’t think the HST is going to reverse that by one dollar.

Life could be worse than under the NDP – Mr. Dix isn’t a Godless Canadian Communist.

Larry Wartel

Victoria

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