GUNS AND PENSIONS

Today's Kitchener-Waterloo Record has an Opinion article by Geoffrey Stevens titled "Do we cut pensions to buy F-35s?". The overall theme of the article is certainly not complimentary towards our federal Conservative government. In fact Mr. Stevens makes no bones about his concerns with "the Harper government's" not embracing either criticism or the advice of experts on a number of issues. He saves his greatest criticism however for "...the Harper government's pigheaded determination to proceed with the purchase of 65 F-35 stealth fighter jets.". Mr. Stevens further states that "It's crazy. We have a government that feels it must reduce its' investment in health care and old age security, but has no compunction about spending an estimated $30 billion on aircraft the country doesn't need.". Mr Stevens in his Opinion piece gives a number of reasons and details as to why we don't need these fighter jets and why the recent claims of unsustainability of the old age pension system are incorrect.

For me the timing is equisite. It also parallels the madness south of the border where we have a government spending trillions of dollars annually on Defence which cannot adequately help its' own citizens in New Orleans after the disaster of Katrina. For me the issue is about government credibility in a supposedly democratic country. A minority of our citizens voted for the Conservatives yet they form a majority government. A minority of citizens believe in both the superiority of the F-35s and Canada's need for them. A majority of citizens however believe that the Old Age Security system should be enlarged and expanded not the opposite. Is this truly what Democracy is about? I don't think so.