Editor:
Stephen Harper's late January pilgrimage to the invitation-only economic summit of international financiers, CEOs and their political allies in Davos, Switzerland was a sordid display of fealty before the lords of largesse. Harper 's choice to use the feast of the fattest to announce he would 'solve' the imagined crisis of Canada's Old Age Security system by picking the pockets of the poorest speaks volumes for his contempt for Canadian democracy.
Harper is a dedicated follower of the dictum 'never let a good crisis go to waste', even if you have to invent the crisis to match your intended solution. Federal government funded studies on the effect our aging population will have on the sustainability of Canada's OAS system shows that there are no significant problems ahead. Yet Harper wants as yet unannounced changes to ensure the 'sustainability' of a program that is already sustainable with but minor tweaks along the way.
Harper's assertions of the projected growth of OAS payments is uttered as 'proof' of the impending crisis, without any reference to the growth of the overall economy over the same time frame, including the growth of taxes paid by Canada's seniors. When you're manufacturing a crisis it's not 'clever politics' to allow facts to interfere.
Stephen Harper's adherence to the mantra of 'corporate good - government bad' blinds him to the facts on a number of fronts: whether it be building expensive prisons to house those convicted of 'unreported crimes'; buying overpriced fighter aircraft without regard to their operational capacity over Canadian airspace, imposing a Medicare funding fiat on the provinces or cutting back on pension incomes for those who can least afford it.
Perhaps we need to remind Harper of the old adage 'there are none so blind as those who will not see'!
Jef Keighley
Halfmoon Bay
