Frank Martens takes great umbrage at the contribution made to Mayor Dan Ashton’s re-election campaign by a “questionable construction company.”
Well, let me tell you something, Comrade Martens: the owner of that same “questionable construction company” made a $1.5 million land gift to the Penticton Regional Hospital in October 2011; that very same “questionable construction company” owner generously underwrote the entire cost of having the popular band Trooper headline at Peachfest last August and perform before thousands of very happy Pentictonites; and a few years back, Dave Kampe — yup, the proprietor of that “questionable construction company”— donated the 16-hectare Peach Cliff property to The Land Conservancy for long-term preservation and benefit of all Penticton-area residents.
Thank God for people like Dave Kampe — successful entrepreneurs who have created hundreds of jobs, contributed millions in taxes to our local economy, and invested in bettering our community’s health care, culture and environment. We could use a thousand more just like him.
But what really peeves our cantankerous Summerland socialist is the fact that corporations can make political contributions at all. Not a surprising view, perhaps, from someone who has probably never signed the front of a paycheque. But he knows that the B.C. Liberals receive a lot of funding from successful private-sector individuals, directly or through their corporations, and he also knows that his central-planning-loving NDP candidates have to live off the table scraps tossed their way by the bloated public-sector unions in B.C. And just how puny are those table scraps?
Well, our friends at CUPE B.C. admitted to spending more than $127,000, and the Canadian Labour Congress recently fessed up to spending more than $148,000, to influence the outcome of the 2011 municipal elections in B.C. And where do these dollars come from? Ask their members, who are forced to contribute a portion of their dues each paycheque to underwrite loonie-left political diatribes.
So, my vote, my contribution and my efforts will continue to support candidates at the local, provincial and federal levels who know that the private sector is the greatest engine for social change ever invented, and understand that job creation and wealth generation are the instruments necessary to fund 21st century demands for government services.
Mark T. Ziebarth
Summerland