Re: Letter: Kenney was not acting alone
The letter sums up what I have been saying for quite some time. We have to stop our politicians from supporting private health at the expense of public health care. If private health care is not working well in America – except for making huge profits for doctors, hospitals, pharmaceutical companies, insurance companies, and the doctors who defend them – why do our politicians want us to go down that road?
We cannot allow the government to introduce a provincial pension plan because it will undermine our social security safety net (CPP and OAS) for millions of our citizens. Plus, our provincial government doesn’t have a good track record for managing our money; the Heritage Trust Fund for example. Plus, it has usurped the teachers’ pension fund without permission from the teachers or from the public sector funds. Again, look to America where its social security system and its Medicare program are in financial difficulties.
We have to elect politicians who use our money to support the public services – public health care, public education, RCMP services, ambulance services, municipal governments, etcetera – not private companies. We should have a right to vote on such matters because our politicians have shown a propensity to spend our money supporting private businesses; the War Room is an example.
The majority of our citizens and the majority of municipal governments are opposed to the creation of a provincial police, yet we have UCP candidates supporting that idea. Question: If state and local police forces are such a good idea, how come we see so many problems associated with police services in America?
We see politicians also pushing against equalization payments (transfer payments), yet the formula for that program that is being used today was established by Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his sidekick Jason Kenney. Do we want to live in a country where a large segment of the population would be without adequate public services such as we see in the United States (health care, education, social services, police services, hospitals, doctors, etcetera)?
What we need is for our politicians to fully support of our public health-care system, and we need a national system so that protects us when we travel to other provinces. Why should we have to buy extra medical insurance to travel in our own country?
Lastly, our politicians should remember that they are “civil servants” responsible to the public, not to the interests of the private business interests.
George Thatcher,
Trochu
