YOU SAID IT: Why not return it to taxpayers?

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Despite being a longtime Conservative, Doug Ford’s decisions and shenanigans have turned me away from voting Progressive Conservative in the next provincial election.

That said, I must counter the cynical views of NDP and Liberal MPPs regarding the $200 per person payment announced for early 2025.

Contrary to NDP/Liberal assertions, this isn’t borrowed money, but surplus, unexpected revenue from Ontario taxpayers. As it came from taxpayers, why not return it to them? Yet both opposition parties advocate more spend, spend, spending. Regardless of political stripe, that’s what has created the fiscal mess Ontario is in.

They want ever more spending on education, health care and other issues. Examine past budgets. The Tories have already considerably increased money for these and many other programs. When are increases enough? When will the opposition be satisfied? We cannot just keep throwing more money at everything. At some point, the amounts being spent at that time will need to be rationalized, with more efficiencies realized and perhaps some programs ended. The government of the day cannot simply continue to jack up spending to untold additional billions without end.

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Those who want to categorize the refund as pre-election vote-buying bribery will never be convinced otherwise. Perhaps it is. Still, one wonders what threshold of surplus, if always spent, would ever be high enough for opposition to decry that additional spending, rather than surplus money being returned to the taxpayers from whom it came? Knowing the profligate spending mentality of Liberals and the NDP, probably no amount ever.

MIKE ALAIN
OTTAWA

TAKE CARE OF FREEDOM

I recently heard a gentleman say that freedom is not static, it is dynamic, it is only as good as the caretakers who watch over it.

The values and principles that secured Canada’s greatness are being threatened on every front by the tyrannical, autocratic, dictators that compose the Justin Trudeau government.

Canadians must become better caretakers or our freedom will simply slip through our fingers.

BETTY-ANNE TREMBLAY
OTTAWA

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