LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

A lump of coal for Ontario from Ford and Co.

On Nov. 21 our Progressive Conservative government in Ontario voted down an NDP motion to have take-home cancer medications covered, as well as drugs administered in hospitals. Ross Romano, PC MPP for Sault Ste. Marie, compared those asking for such coverage to spoiled children who want all the toys they can get.

He says that when he’s out shopping with his three kids and they say, “Daddy, I want that and I want that,” he has to be “the adult in the room” and say “no.”

Similarly, in the case of those cancer patients asking for drug coverage, “Someone has to play the parent once in a while and say, ‘Sorry. You can’t have everything. You just can’t. That’s the world we live in.’”

From Doug Ford and his government, a lump of coal for Christmas to those struggling against cancer.

David Fowler

Wainfleet

Overspending and over-taxing

Information has now become available about the horrendous mismanagement of Kathleen Wynne’s government in regards to Ontario’s finances.

PC Treasury Board President Peter Bethlenfalvy revealed shocking figures after his department went through the province’s accounting books with a tooth comb.

The $345 billion debt the Liberals accumulated over the last 15 years resulted in a downgrading of Ontario’s credit rating. To pay off this debt the Ford government is forced to pay $1.4 million every hour, says Finance Minister Vic Fedeli.

NDP Leader Andrea Horwath was part of the problem. She could have stopped the Wynne government, but that wasn’t in Andrea’s interest.

Talk is cheap as we so often hear, but actions matter.

The same we see with Justin Trudeau on a much larger scale. Expected this year is a deficit of $19 billion after he campaigned to cap deficits at $10 billion and balance the books by 2019. The payback time will be decades.

To deal with these incredible debt levels, taxes and service fees will increase, making the cost of living much more expensive, especially for the most vulnerable in our society.

If voters would have cared and done their homework before both elections, provincial and federal, they would have known that socialist policies would hit them hard in their pocket books by largely increasing the cost of living.

Socialists overspend and over-tax people into poverty.

Rob Janssen

Lincoln

Governments fail consumers on gas prices

There are four gas stations just around the corner from me, on the same street, blocks from each other.

Prices simultaneously go up and simultaneously go down (as elsewhere); they are a fraction of a cent from each other. How is this possible?

We have record-low oil prices below $55 a barrel; yet, the price of gas jumped eight to 10 cents a litre at the pumps a few days ago. Again, how is it possible that all four gas stations (as elsewhere) have identical prices?

There is a government agency called the Competition Bureau that is supposed to insure that businesses are competitive. Yet this agency does nothing when oil companies ensure prices remain the same at the pumps (no competition).

It’s nothing more than easy money (gouging) for the oil companies and government coffers.

It’s a pity that consumers can’t stick together like oil companies by staying away from certain gas stations for a week. This would be a loss of business at the pumps, and in turn, maybe lower prices to get our business back — just a thought. Lou Cesar

St. Catharines