Taxpayers foot bill to promote Liberals

Editor: While I’m aware the writ for the May 2017 election has not been dropped, there appears to me a lot of campaigning by the Liberal government on television on a daily basis.

It is being disguised as “information for the public” to show the various ways in which we have benefited due to the Liberal government’s astute planning.

I am tired of seeing and listening to the advertisements about “Our Opportunity Is Here.” These “ads” are being paid by you and me. If I recall, in January, Premier Christy Clark said words to the effect “if political parties can’t fundraise in the private sector, the money comes from the taxpayers.”

Well we sure are doing that, and this comes from a political party which, I believe, has received more than $30 million in the last three years from businesses and wealthy corporate donors — not for you or me, but to help pay for Clark’s extra “bonus” over and above her salary.

The “Our Opportunity Is Here” ads continue to tell us we should be pleased to hear our MSP is going to be reduced, not now but effective January 2018.

British Columbia is the only province where the citizens still pay these premiums and after all the years (56 for me) of payments received from me, Clark has the gall to think I should be grateful to her and her party.

This is the same party that increased the payment for our household from $50 per month when I retired in 1995 to $150. That’s a 300 per cent increase. Wow.

They talk about a balanced budget and I ask you what part of their budget is balanced, since every year we see the debt load increases by billions and billions of dollars.

In our household, say for example, our food budget is $600 per month and we stay within that amount, we can say our budget is balanced. However; if we spend thousands of dollars on travel, purchase new homes, cottages, expensive automobiles and run a deficit of expenses over income by $300,000, our overall budget is not balanced.

The Liberal government, in my opinion, does not have an overall balanced budget.

I know I have not covered all my concerns and I close this letter hoping you will remember it was Clark as education minister who tore up the legal teacher/board of education contracts. This deprived a generation of our children to the best education available to them and, thankfully, the Supreme Court of Canada rectified this.

When you go to vote in May, I hope you will remember what is real and what is fiction.

Ron Shulhan, Penticton