Editor, The Times:
In the year 1909 Canada’s chief marine engineer W.P. Anderson ordered a lighthouse built on Triangle Island.
Triangle Island, a storm swept piece of rock, juts out of the Pacific Ocean on the northwest tip of Vancouver Isle.
The light was a horror show to staff or supply. It was shut down after 10 years mainly because it also was totally useless.
Col. Anderson had ignored a basic rule of lighthouse building – never locate a light over 150 feet above the water. The Triangle light was almost 700 feet above the Pacific.
There is another basic rule – do not give tax breaks in a time of deficit, war or both.
However, this is exactly what the Harper government is intending to do.
The rest of us are being bombarded with just how good all of these tax breaks are going to be for us.
Of course all this comes from a corporate media who also has told us that the HST is the best thing since sliced bread.
All one has to do is glance south of the border where ill conceived tax breaks (among other things), beginning with Ronald Reagan, have brought the mighty USA economy virtually to its knees. (This also proves that the free market Easter bunny doesn’t hop down the chimney with a bag of goodies to fix the economy).
However the bulldog-faced Irishman (Flaherty) as my late waggish friend used to call him knows it all better.
Ignoring the fact that the fog lies close to the water’s surface, he wants to build a lighthouse a mile up in the sky.
And if it all doesn’t work – well just like the aforementioned HST – guess who is going to pay?
Dennis Peacock
Clearwater,B.C.
