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Back to HomeLetters - April 28, 2011Letters: April 28

Cheque Book Math, Pat Maloney

Re: Spanking, Steve Giles

Cheque Book Math

Anyone who actually believes that there will be a substantive difference between the way the Liberals and Harper’s Conservatives handle the deficit is dreaming. The Mulroney Conservatives ran up the biggest deficit in Canadian history. Paul Martin (Liberal Finance Minister) slashed and burned and left a $13 billion surplus for Harper. The Harper Conservatives then spent most of that surplus BEFORE the current recession. Harper & Flaherty have now run up the new biggest deficit in Canadian history.

By that evidence alone the Liberals are better suited to handle the deficit.

Harper has added to the structural deficit (not enough income to cover debt) by reducing the GST and lowering corporate tax rates (now 10% lower than our biggest trading partner USA). If the GST and corporate tax rates are not raised, then programmes will have to be cut.

This is basic cheque-book math. The Liberals have shown in the past that they are quite adept at doing that. The Harper Conservatives continue to pretend that they won’t. The Harper Conservatives lie.Stephen Harper lied repeatedly about the legality and legitimacy of a coalition and he is lying repeatedly about who legally forms a government in a minority situation.It is not automatically the party with the most seats; it is, and always has been, the party that has the confidence of the House. If the party that wins the most seats can’t gain the confidence of the House, then it doesn’t get to form the government. This is what parliamentary democracy is all about. It is the majority of the elected members who decide because they represent the majority of the votes.

Canadians elect a parliament, not a prime minister, nor a president, nor a dictator. Harper has absolutely no qualms about misleading the Canadian public on two of the basic tenets of parliamentary democracy.

Harper also continues to spread false information about the reasons behind the current election. The government did not fall because parliamentarians rejected its budget; it fell because Harper’s Conservative government abuses Canada's democratic system.

In his book, Harperland, Lawrence Martin counts 70 instances of things that “go against the democratic grain” including stuffing independent boards and tribunals with partisans, trashing the reputations of watchdogs and replacing them with lap dogs and repeatedly denying access to information, to which we can add being found in contempt of parliament (the first time in Commonwealth history) and directing the Senate (which he promised to abolish, then loaded with partisans) to defeat environmental and social legislation passed by the majority of the House.

This election should be being fought on the state of our democracy. We are privileged here in Canada to be free to conduct our democratic affairs but that doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t be vigilant when a party like the Harper Conservatives seeks to undermine our democracy. Our forefathers fought and died to guarantee it. People in the Middle East are right now fighting and dying to attain it. We must fight to maintain it.

Patrick Maloney

Re: Spanking

Both letters to the editor on 21 April 2011 touched on the issue of corporal punishment of children. In the first, John Wallace is accused of not founding in fact his statement, that repealing Section 43 of the Criminal Code (which protects parents from assault charges), would “make all spankers, who discipline with love, criminals”.Obviously, Mr. Wallace had read the Supreme Court of Canada judgment, which ruled in 2004 that Section 43 was not in violation of the Constitution. It stated: “Without s. 43, Canada's broad assault law would criminalize force falling far short of what we think of as corporal punishment.” It is inconceivable to think that Sec. 43 could be repealed without a concurrent increase in the number of parents being charged with assault. In Canada our special interest agencies, funded by governments, are so active that parents who simply yank a child sideways by the arm would immediately find themselves in court.

In the early 1990s one agency tried to make case history. I refer to the unnecessary London, ON, trial of the American dad who spanked his daughter when she threw a tantrum and slammed a car door on her little brother’s hand. He was found not guilty since the punishment was reasonable and because corporal punishment was not a crime in Canada. Perhaps these social activists studying this topic would do better to spend some time following the development of the belligerent child in the US who was recently tasered by the police. It appears that that was the first time in that child’s life that he did not succeed with his outrageous behaviour. Oddly enough, if this had happened in Canada we would have not known the details or seen the child on TV due to our privacy laws.

As for the second letter by Ms. Forsey, denying that the Liberal party wanted to make spanking a criminal activity, it should be pointed out that the Liberal party did not counter the statement by a University of Ottawa professor that the government had a moral duty to enact into law and policy, the findings of social research for the good of society. Who is running this country? The people or the special interest groups?

BTW, I am not an advocate of corporal punishment and ask all parents never to strike in anger and to think twice for the good of their own conscience!

Steve Giles