Dear Editor:
I wish to comment on the Keith Baldrey's Jan. 6 column, A Hard Right Turn onto a Rocky Road:
Mr. Baldrey's View from the Ledge should more accurately be called "A View from the Far Left" to better define his take on politics and economics. He confuses a number of issues, conveniently blaming the "right-wing" government for a detrimental impact on the B.C. economy. He seems to be of the opinion that law enforcement doesn't need much more attention and funding from the federal and provincial governments. He quotes some general statistics that the overall crime rate is falling. However, he conveniently forgets that violent crime is up. I'm wondering how representative are his views supporting this revolving door justice system that we have seen in B.C. Mr. Baldrey doesn't seem to understand the concept that costs of prevention, if well managed, are typically lower than costs of repairing the damage.
His other concern is that the federal health care funding might be reduced due to tough economic times and criticizes spending cuts. At the same time he advocates the infamous Kyoto accord and wouldn't have problems spending money on non-defined, and very expensive, initiatives. Again, he conveniently forgets that the poorly conceived Kyoto protocol, the poster child of green movements, has already been declared as a complete failure by those countries that really care about their environments and economies at the same time. Building a pipeline in order to bring more revenues to the province is bad, implies Mr. Baldrey. Maybe he should educate himself about current technologies and potential financial benefits versus environmental risks. Any additional revenues could, after all, support health care funding.
In summary, Mr. Baldrey has no problems spending money and punishing Canadian economy just to comply with Kyoto's radical climate policy. At the same time he criticizes the "rightwing" Harper government for implementing cost cutting measures. It's difficult to follow this logic.
How about giving some credit to the federal government for fiscal responsibility and skillful handling of the current crisis? How about writing about fiscal mismanagement of B.C. crown corporations, health care management or infamous carbon tax to find cost saving measures and make our lives more affordable before it is too late? Criticizing the feds and allowing B.C. government bureaucrats to tax and spend on their pet projects leads to one outcome: eventually, as Margaret Thatcher once said, they will run out of other people's money.
Danek Kilinski North Vancouver
