Wow, reading Tom Fletcher’s vitriolic article (Penticton Western News, April 20, The NDP’s great leap backward), I’m reminded again of the harsh reactions to the Leap Manifesto.
Looking at the comments on the internet it seems that people feel so threatened by this that they are advocating murder and bringing back the gas chambers. (I did read that).
Mr. Fletcher quotes “demand number six” which says we want high-speed rail, powered by just renewables, to unite every community. Then he goes on to say that this effectively declares all of rural Canada irrelevant. When I last looked, most communities are in rural Canada. Many times I wished that Mulroney had left the tracks across the road from us (he had them all removed so there was no going back). I’d love a train that went to the coast. I’d be down there a lot more frequently. Number six goes on to say “in place of more cars.” It’s downright scary driving to the coast now.
In Jack Layton’s book Speaking Out Louder, Jack writes “In Calgary, the city council endorsed the building of a new rapid-transit line extension, and they contracted with a wind power manufacturer to provide all the electricity needed to run it.” (Look it up).
Mr. Fletcher goes on to ask how all this would be paid for, then accuses the “Occupy tent” people of pulling out the old standby of higher taxes on corporations and the wealthy. Who else is going to pay for it? Haven’t we paid enough for their wasteful ways? A corporation can walk into a community, take all their riches and leave them with illness and a big mess to clean up at taxpayers’ expense, or spirit their money away to tax havens, or spill oil or fuel all over the place and leave the clean-up costs to the taxpayer once again, but to even suggest that they pay higher taxes is met with derision and vitriol.
The Leap Manifesto is not a Communist document or even an NDP one. Fletcher mentions that Greenpeace and the Sierra Club signed it but he didn’t mention the other 39,292 signatories.
Mr. Fletcher is assuming that the NDP has adopted this document holis-bolis. Not so. They passed a resolution saying that they will discuss it. If that brings forth such a wave of fear and anxiety we are in a dark place and have intentions of staying there.
Donna Stocker
Cawston