We’ve learned the price of being Canadian

Re Dumping sewage part of ‘protecting’ river:

mayor, Nov. 12 What do Montreal sewage, the Gardiner Expressway, the Lac-Mégantic derailment and Walkerton water have in common?

They are the legacy of cynical politicians elected by gullible voters.

For decades, the likes of Mike Harris, Rob Ford and Stephen Harper have peddled the Thatcher-Reagan lie that government budgets can be pared without limit until we all live tax-free in Eden North and the wealth trickles down for the good of all.

The troublesome truth is, no matter what bookkeeping tricks we use, public debts inevitably come due in the form of failed infrastructure, lowered quality of life, disease and death.

Perhaps the most heartening implication of the Harper party’s ouster is that most voters now accept that there is a price for being Canadian — one that is well worth paying for the privilege of living in what is still one of the best countries on Earth. Paul Collier, Toronto Another good example of George Orwell’s “doublespeak” — this time from Montreal Mayor Denis Coderre.

He claims that dumping billions of litres of raw sewage into the St. Lawrence will actually help “protect” it.

Really? Don Dorward, Pickering Re Cut handouts for fossil fuel, Editorial Nov. 13 Are we to believe that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is actually serious regarding his aspirations to take a “strong and cohesive” message to the upcoming United Nations Climate Conference in Paris that Canada is back in the environmental green game?

Presumably the new prime minister assumes that the climate conference attendees will conveniently overlook Montreal’s recent dumping of eight billion litres of raw sewage into the St. Lawrence River.

Clearly there is no limit to the extent of Liberal hypocrisy when it applies to politically correct optics. Edward Nix, Oshawa