The Harper Conservatives are neither free enterprise nor democratic. Free enterprise refers to a form of capitalism where the government does not interfere in the economy.
The Harper Conservatives are using every lever of government to push through their rip it; strip it; and ship it mode of development of the tar sands, with huge taxpayer subsidies, in a way that favours only the Chinese and global extractive corporations.
All independent economic analyses reveal there is not even an economic case to be made for how the tar sands are being developed or the pipelines pushed through.
Ways that would make economic sense and benefit all Canadians, including Albertans, are shut out. We can’t even refine the crude in Canada because of the way this resource is being developed. And this before we get to health and environmental costs!
Do you have any idea of what is going to happen to ferry rates and the cost of everything on this island if the price of oil goes up by $2 – $15 per barrel as the oil and pipeline industries anticipate?
Then we have the Harper Conservatives repeatedly breaking Canada’s own election laws as well as intentionally lying to the House and Canadians about the benefits of the way they are developing the tar sands as well as the costs of the F-35 jets and the Libyan mission.
The misrepresentation of the full costs of the F-35s, as well as the total lack of due process in awarding that contract is what brought us the last election. The Harper Conservatives intentionally manipulated this so they could try again to get their so-called majority.
We need to stop this Machiavellian behaviour if we don’t want to end up in a neo-fascist state with a raped environment!
Yvonne Zarowny
Qualicum Beach
