Politicians’ sense of entitlement

Dear Editor:

Regardless of the party, B.C.’s voters face a cruel dilemma: They must always vote against a party rather than voting for their own party.

For nearly 50 years I have written letters to editors about the culture of entitlement in Ottawa. Today, that free-ride attitude has reached every municipality in Canada.

Not long ago the “Green Weaver” was for the Site C dam; now by supporting the NDP and John Horgan he is against the dam. Horgan does not want the dam. Something else Horgan does not want‚ he is against the “recall” legislation all B.C. voters should be entitled to. He admitted as much at a Penticton NDP rally a few months ago. In that respect, he is quite similar to the free-riding Christy Clark.

Clark once worked for Jean Chretien as a Liberal intern. Chretien was one of Canada’s most opportunistic politicians. While he was the prime minister, he literally followed in the footsteps of prime ministers Pierre Trudeau, Brian Mulroney and Paul Martin. Those four Liberal PM (Mulroney, a Red Tory, was actually a Quebec Liberal) helped themselves to hundreds of billions from the federal treasury in the form of subsidies and grants for Quebec companies. Those four were the “silent partners” of Power Corporation: Power Corp is the Quebec conglomerate that actually owns most of Canada today.

Chretien’s daughter, France, is married to one of the Desmarais sons. They own the controlling interest in Power Corp. Paul Desmarais Sr. started Power Corp. in 1962. He had previously gone broke. Discovering the magic of federal grants and subsidies, his first grant was for $40,000; he never looked, by 2008, Power Corp. was worth $100 billion.

Clark picked up a lot of Chretien’s bad habits. Her political mistakes are numerous. Three of the worst examples were in accepting the Liberal Party’s gift of $50,000 to top up her salary; abusing her corporate jet travel, costing the taxpayer $500,000; and ignoring my request for a judicial enquiry with forensic and subpoena power to investigate Penticton’s municipal election in 2014.

One polling place for 35,000 people. Kelowna, with 3 times Penticton’s population had 13 polling places. Summerland, one-third the size of Penticton, had two polling stations. I had asked the premier and three of her senior ministers to appoint a retired judge as commissioner from either Alberta or Saskatchewan. Three months later I received the usual “gobly gook” form letter, informing me that she could not interfere in a municipal election: Had she simply acted upon my request, today, she might be the legitimate B.C. premier.

The B.C. taxpayer is once again stuck with leadership that could not run a peanut stand. Only in Canada, eh?

Ernie Slump Penticton