Much debate over tax changes, committee chair suitability
LETTERS
There have been very tense weeks regarding the proposed federal tax changes that will affect businesses in Canada. After extensive time and energy, the collected voices of the electorate were listened to by those who currently hold the majority government seats. As a new business owner, my time and energy would have been better spent on building client relationships and growing my business.
Moreover, all this noise over the shared refusal to appoint Rachael Harder, our MP, as chair of the Status of Women committee is political bullying and manipulation, as far as I can tell. I worked as a legislative assistant on Parliament Hill from 1999-2000 and quickly learned, as a naïve student of law, politics and government, that the most important agenda for politicians is to get re-elected. However, I remain fascinated by the game itself.
Even though I did not vote for Ms. Harder in this last federal election, I gained a new level of respect for her in the way she has advocated for business owners in her role as our MP.
Accordingly, I have decided to choose to vote for Ms. Harder in our next federal election. I think she is able to choose to make impartial decisions when it comes to administering democratic matters. This is not about prolife or pro-choice. This whole matter is political in nature and politics can get very nasty.
I fully support Charter rights and believe in the right of the individual to make responsible choices. For me, these choices involve living a clean and respectable life without causing harm to myself or others.
In the end of the day, it is all about one’s individual choice over whom to support or not to support.
This brings me to my last point: I choose to support the elected Members of Parliament who do not interfere in my choices as a business owner and who do not punish a Member of Parliament who, while not sharing their explicitly stated values, is perfectly capable of chairing a committee on women’s issues in a democratic manner.
Rose-Marie E. Nyberg
Lethbridge