LETTER TO THE EDITOR:

In the days following their 1995 election win, Norm Miller’s chosen
political party, the Ontario Progressive Conservatives, started gutting
income security programs in Ontario. The current Liberal government is
building on those slash and burn days of poor bashing. The just passed
Ontario Liberal budget seeks to make seniors, low income and the poor
pay for past and current Conservative/Liberal income security spending cuts.

Remember their claims that cuts to income and social programs would get rid
of waste and increase efficiencies, while tax cuts would spur job growth and
investment? In reality these cuts do nothing more than drive up inequality
for citizens, families and communities, put money in the pockets of those
with far more than most citizens in Ontario, and created a self-imposed
revenue deficit for this province. Seniors, low income earners and the poor
are bearing the brunt of these schemes. Shameful!

What is the specific effect of all this cutting of taxes and social programs?

Well, for one thing, it’s made the following statement no exaggeration:
“Seniors 65 and older on ODSP are required to endure dental pain”. For
anyone on ODSP, the full fee for dental services is not being paid, and
dentists in Parry Sound-Muskoka are refusing to treat those on ODSP.
Dental pain is a reality of daily life for a growing number of Ontario
citizens. Shameful!

God help us if Norm Miller’s Progressive Conservatives get elected as
the next governing party of Ontario. Ontario Conservatives would make
deeper cuts than their political buddies, the Ontario Liberals. The
race to the bottom is approaching the finish line with Liberal
budget cuts, and past and proposed out-of-control Conservative/Liberal tax
cuts. Remember that tax cuts were promised to spur job growth and
investment? nothing could be farther from the truth. Tax cuts haven’t
delivered. Along with cuts to social programs, they are deepening poverty
in the lives of those that need a hand up. Shameful!

Norm Miller’s boogeyman of debt crisis is an excuse to cut social programs
and to sell off valuable public assets. As well, it is used to promote a
long-standing interest in downsizing government. In 2002, Norm Miller’s
then-governing Progressive Conservatives started a movement to privatize
Ontario Northland. This has been accomplished by their political buddies,
the Ontario Liberals. The dollars from the cuts to Ontario’s  needed social
programs are going to reduce the provincial deficit; and with the sell off
of valuable public assets Norm and his Conservative comrades are pleased.
But more slash-and-burn is needed in their minds.

Seniors, low income, and the poor who have to live with these “political
pea pod buddies” are not so pleased.

Clyde Mobbley, Utterson,
Parry Sound-Muskoka NDP riding president