Re: Strike a balance between progressive views and Conservative ones (Your Views, Sept. 1).
I think Bryan Corbett has nailed it. What happened to the conservatives we proudly supported under Peter Lougheed and Don Getty who treated all Albertans with dignity and respect, collected proper royalties, taxes and health-care premiums and ran this province properly, while building up the Heritage Savings Trust Fund for our children’s future? Members of my family spent countless hours volunteering for them.
The fact is they aren't conservatives anymore. They are Reformers, who are only interested in looking after their own well-being and that of their rich friends.
Jason Kenney states that he has no intention of raising our taxes and royalties back up to the Lougheed levels to get us out of this financial mess.
He claims that we don’t have a revenue problem, only a spending problem. We former bankers aren’t dumb enough to buy it. We don’t ignore what Norway and Alaska have accomplished, building up huge savings by collecting proper royalties and taxes. Instead Kenney claims he will fix everything by cutting billions off government spending by dumping the costs onto the backs of the people with a lot more privatization and as doctors point out, his plans for a lot more privatized health care is another perfect example of helping his rich friends, by giving them first priority to our health-care system, while creating a disaster for the rest of us.
While they bash the NDP government, they insult the intelligence of many true Alberta conservatives who knew we had to put a stop to what they were doing to us, deeply concerned for our children, and grandchildren’s future.
Now they are trying to discredit the NDP and Liberal governments over the Kinder Morgan pipeline and carbon tax, yet you don't hear any oil executives bashing them, do you?
The oilmen I talk to have nothing but praise for what they are trying to do to help them get their oil to new markets. They have accomplished a lot more in three years than Klein, Stelmach, Redford or Harper did in the last nine and as we have seen, Rachel Notley is another Peter Lougheed. She doesn't let anyone kick her around. She is exactly what we need to fix the mess we are in. A mess that Reformers, pretending to be conservatives, put us in.
Alan Spiller, Edmonton
