Seeing Through The Facade

 

If you didn't care for the suggestion I made in my previous post about what to do with the Doug' Ford pre-election 'inducement' you received in the mail, you might want to consider the following letter-writer's strategy:

Can Ford’s rebate buy voter love?, Mar. 23

I just received my cheque for $340 for my vehicle sticker rebate. It might as well have come with a Please Vote for Me! sticker personally signed by the premier.

With all the shortcomings illuminated by the pandemic in long-term care homes, hospitals and schools (to name just a few threadbare social services provided by the province), Premier Ford plays his “Buck a Beer” game again.

With Ontario falling behind other provinces in preparation for the transition to electric vehicles, the Ministry of Transportation could have used those funds to accelerate construction of Ontario’s charging network.

We should all judge a political party/government by what it does in the first year of its mandate, not in the months leading up to an election.

Early on, Premier Ford’s Conservatives cancelled the final $1 increase in the minimum wage in their first year, only to reinstate it within the last year. They played hardball with the parents of autistic children and limited nurses and teachers salary increases to one per cent, then labelled them as “heroes” during the worst of the pandemic. They cancelled climate change programs watched our greenhouse gas emissions grow. Most recently, they finally agreed to a child-care deal with the feds — they were the last province to do so — because the optics of being the lone holdout weren’t good going to the polls.

I think I’ll take my $340, which comes from my taxes anyway, and give it to another political party, one which will replace this government and address more responsibly the many pressing issues facing the province.

Frank Goldthorpe, Toronto 

Another letter-writer  reveals what should have been done with this thinly-disguised act of political bribery: 

I have just received the rebate for my licence plate stickers. I was surprised to learn that the rebate is not only for the current sticker, which I purchased in January of this year, but also for the sticker I bought in 2020.

My cheque came to $460.

What a waste of taxpayer dollars!

I do not need this.

This money should have been directed to the services that cry out for more funding: health care, education, poverty, homelessness and so on.

Granted there are those who will need and welcome this, but that help should have come in some other way, not to people like me.

Let’s hope this election bribe does not have its intended outcome.

Blaine Adams, Burlington

It would seem that the upcoming June 2 election will be a contest not only of contending political parties but also of the collective character of the electorate. How many will sell their vote for $340+?