The Lucknow Sentinel, 2014-03-26, Page 44 Lucknow Sentinel • Wednesday, March 26, 2014
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editorial
Wynne, Horwath attack the middle class
premier Kathleen Wynne and NDP
Leader Andrea Horwath are por-
traying themselves as defenders of
"the middle class."
First, Horwath warned Wynne she
wouldn't support her upcoming budget
— and would vote with the Progressive
Conservatives to bring down the Liberals
— if it contained "any new taxes, tolls or
fees that hit middle-class families."
Soon after, Wynne responded she
wouldn't raise the HST, gas taxes or
income taxes to protect the "middle class".
Now it looks as if Wynne and Horwath
may be cooking up yet another deal (it
will be their third) in which the NDP will
support the Liberal budget, which might
contain corporate tax hikes and a surtax
on those earning over $150,000 annually.
The claim that either Wynne or Horwath
is defending the middle class is a joke.
Both are in thrall to the province's public
sector unions, members of which on aver-
age eam better salaries, benefits and pen-
sions than their counterparts in the private
sector, doing work of comparable value.
That's not protecting the vast majority
of middle class taxpayers who work in
the private sector, not the public one.
Nearly doubling the province's debt to
$272 billion in the space of 11 years, as
the Liberals have done, isn't protecting
the middle class.
Debt and deficits (Ontario's is $11.7
billion) are merely differed taxes, with
interest, the payment of which falls most
heavily on the middle class.
There aren't enough rich people to
give the Liberals the tax revenue they
need to pay off their bills.
It's average wage earners who are the
real cash cows for the spendthrift Liberals.
Wynne's claim she isn't taxing the
middle class in her upcoming budget is
absurd as well.
For example, if she raises corporate
taxes, which Horwath is fine with, the
middle class will pay in higher prices for
consumer goods and fewer jobs.
When the Liberals brought in the Har-
monized Sales Tax in 2010, they extended
the reach of the province's 8% sales tax to
a wide range of goods and services to
which it did not previously apply.
Among those items were the cost of
electricity, home heating fuels and
gasoline.
As the cost of those services rises —
including the recent steep price hikes
for electricity and the looming ones for
natural gas — the middle class is being
hit over and over again by that 8% pro-
vincial sales tax.
The Liberals failed to protect the mid-
dle class when they wasted billions of
dollars on eHealth, Ornge, the can-
celled gas plants and their disastrous
blunder into expensive and unreliable
wind and solar power.
All of that wasted money has to be
paid by the middle class.
The truth is, Wynne and the Liberals
aren't defending the middle class,
they're attacking it.
And Horwath and the NDP, by prop-
ping up the Liberals, are their enablers
and accomplices.
Ruth Dobrensky Submitted
World Day of Prayer celebrated
Karen Gaunt is seen showing off souvenirs from Egypt
as this years theme for the World Day of Prayer on
March 7,2014. And offering of $181 was submitted to
the Women's Inter -church Council of Canada.
letter to the editor
Liberals want public pushback
against Fair Elections Act
Dear Editor,
Election Day is a time when all Canadi-
ans, no matter their wealth, health or sta-
tus, are equal— each has the same say in
choosing our government. Yet alarm-
ingly, the integrity of our democracy is
threatened by three overwhelming prob-
lems in the Conservative government's
Fair Elections Act, Bill C-23.
Every Canadian is constitutionally
guaranteed the right to vote, yet accord-
ing to the Chief Electoral Officer C-23
risks excluding the vulnerable and mar-
ginali7ed by eliminating the use of vouch-
ing to prove your address. While most
people can prove their address with a
driver's license, not everyone can. Seniors
living with their children may not even
get a bill in their name, much less have a
licence. Students move often, and may
not have ID with their current address.
Indian status cards do not include an
address. For many in these groups,
vouching by another elector is the only
way to prove where they live.
Indeed, in the last election, 120,000
active voters relied on vouching—but if
C-23 passes they could be shut out. The
government claims it is concerned about
the error rate with vouching, yet the vast
majority of these mistakes are strictly
recordkeeping errors by poll workers.
There is no evidence to suggest that
vouching allowed people to vote when
they weren't eligible.
Another pillar of our democracy is a
level playing field, created through spend-
ing limits that ensure big money doesn't
drown out other voices. Yet C-23 exempts
"fundraising" from spending limits,
which could allow partisan messages to
be sent without it being reported to Elec-
tions Canada
Finally, C-23 also bans Elections Canada
from encouraging Canadians to vote. No
other country in the world imposes this
restriction, and in an era when voter turn-
outs have declined to worrying lows, this
restriction is exactly the wrong way to go.
Despite these concerns, there are some
helpful measures in C-23, like adding
another advance polling day or, as I pro-
posed in a Private Member's Bill two
years ago, increasing penalties for those
who break the rules.
Canada's democracy is a model around
the world. If we are going to stay, that way,
the Conservatives must fix the Fair Elec-
tions Act.
Dominic LeBlanc, MP
House Leader, Liberal Party of Canada