Confessions of a life long Conservative

Image above: Ben Lobb


January 12, 2010

Mr. Ben Lobb
Member of Parliament for Huron—Bruce, Ontario
Member of the Conservative Party of Canada

Dear Mr. Lobb:

I am a former Conservative supporter (when it was truly progressive) and also former card carrying Reformer who several times contributed significant money to the Reform party. I have voted Liberal only twice in my 56 years and never missed a vote.

I felt Manning was a man of integrity and liked many of the things the party stood for. Some sort of reform of the senate, a Canadian is a Canadian whether Aboriginal, from Quebec or any other part of Canada, deficit elimination and debt reduction, government transparency ,accountability, open votes in parliament etc. He was the best Opposition Leader Canada has had and I think greatly influenced the Liberal fiscal responsibility to eliminate 44 billion deficit left by Mulroney and decrease debt by 90billion.

I was apprehensive when Reform joined the Conservatives to form the Alliance. My concern was for the wrong reasons however because I never dreamed that the eventual leader, Harper, would be so disingenuous, depend so much on former Harris cronies who left Ontario 5 billion in debt and who themselves were divisive. Harper screwed Jim Prentice over during the leadership convention and MacKay had a part to play. I have voted Conservative and Reform most of my life because I believed they were fiscally the best.I was wrong.Trudeau left Canada with a 100 billion debt, Mulroney added 300 billion and it got to 500 plus billion by the time the Liberals took over at which time the deficit was eliminated and debt repaid by about 90 billion. Now Harper and your party is going to add 160billion to the debt that will take generations to get back to where we were when Harper took over.I am now of the belief that it is only the Liberals who can be our salvation. During the last election I read many Conservative comments about Liberals being facists.

Check the dictionary and it describes Harper perfectly and it is frightening. He is controlling, divisive, controlling even with his own MPs, highly partisan, deceitful, deceptive. He constantly avoids issues by blaming others. Because Liberals did it does not make it OK for Harper to do it.

He has lied about income trusts, accountability, transparency. He sidetracks important issues like Cadman, throws money at Quebec to get votes and then boneheadedly attacks the arts which is close to the hearts of Quebecers, he and Flaherty have always wanted tax harmonization but has McGuinty take the heat (I am for it), Missing in action on the Caledonia/native issue when native land disputes are a federal responsibility and lets McGuinty take the heat(I am not a big fan of McGuinty), prorogue to avoid a confidence vote and a democratic coalition( I did not like this idea but dislike shutting down parliament more),suggests that one is against our troops just because one questions the government regarding Afghan detainee issue.

Harper, until a few years ago denied global warning and suggested it was a socialistic money grab. Hires Bush's former press secretary Ari Fleischer who repeatedly lied to the world about WMD. Is he know going to advise Harper how to lie and get away with it? The USA looked at the Afghan detainee issue and found that 400 of 600 detainees were innocent and of no threat and should be released. Our troops, Red Cross, Amnesty International and the USA all warned Canadian authorities and other countries as well. Critics are NOT pointing a finger at our troops, who expressed concern, but at Canadian authorities and specifically the Canadian Conservative government including Harper, MacKay and their front man Mulroney(David I believe).

They have shut down discussion on Income Trusts. I have a document released through Freedom of Information that was the governments justification for taxing income trusts because of tax leakage.21 of 28 pages have been blacked out. So much for trasparency.It has happened with other parliamentary committees including Afghanistan, Linda Keen, Kevin Page etc.

You people have lied about tax leakage, allowed many Canadian companies to be taken over by private equity and foreign interests. $35 billion of savings were lost. Income trusts only offered the same tax benefits as pension plans for federal employees, MPs, OMERS, Teachers’, pension plans, private equity and others.

Now the GST. Canada's budget is about 300 billion. The gov't surplus was maybe 15 billion or 5% which in my opinion a reasonable buffer and not over taxation. Conservatives said the surplus was evidence of over-taxation. Does that mean that now with a 56billion deficit we are under-taxed? The GST is a better tax than what we had but should never have been reduced from 7 to 5 %.

I know I am rambling and long winded. I am extremely disappointed and believe Harper, Van Loan, Baird, Clement and other offensive bit bull type of politicians have to go. There is no place in society for these types. Even Tom Flanagan ,formerly Harper's right hand man, is speaking out as if Harper has overstepped his place and is very critical.

Ben, I believe you are a good person but those around you are reflecting badly on you. I will not vote for you and do what I can to get rid of the Harper Conservatives ASAP

Yours truly,

Anonymous Constituent

cc: Brent Fullard, CAITI