Leaders’ actions speak more than words

Re: “Debate was a waste of time,” letter, April 28. In the end, election debates are meaningless because talk is cheap. The only things that matter are the actions of these political leaders, which speak volumes.

Premier Christy Clark gushed about governing with “the best interests of people at heart” during the debate, while at the same time condemning 30,000 people to a life of unimaginable deprivation as they try to survive on $610 a month. Her callous refusal to raise the welfare rates will result in suffering, illness, malnutrition and homelessness in the lives of people unlucky enough to be poor.

In the previous debate, Green Party Leader Andrew Weaver expressed concerns about the present government putting “those who have ahead of those who do not have.”

Yet Weaver was silent during months of media coverage of one of the worst injustices in B.C. political history, the elimination of the bus-pass subsidy for clients on disability assistance. And the man who includes “social justice” as one of his party’s principal values voted for the budget that contained the bus-pass changes.

“B.C. must stop selling out to corporate and foreign interests,” states Weaver in a March press release. But his words ring hollow in light of his appeal for foreign money on his Facebook page in 2016: “A fundraising plea for the 2017 campaign … My friends anywhere in the world can donate any amount of money any time. We do not have restrictions in B.C. on out-of-province donations.”

Actions, not words, will determine my vote. Doreen Marion Gee Victoria