A6

Stumble Upon

del.icio.us

Digg

Facebook

Print

Email

14 Comment(s)

After reading Bruce Fitch's comments, I had to set the record straight. It is true that we modestly increased taxes in our first budget, but there's a bigger picture.

When we took office, independent auditors showed us that because of the mismanagement of the previous Conservative government we were facing a potential deficit of $400 million - and that is when the economy was going well. We had to raise taxes in the short-term to get the province's finances in order to make more transformative changes in the medium and long-term.

In 2007, we increased personal income taxes by approximately $50 million. This year we have lowered them by $118 million, by next year that number will grow to $232 million. Once fully implemented, New Brunswickers will save $323 million every year from the lower personal income taxes.

Mr. Fitch complains that top 1,300 income earners get benefits too - we don't deny that, taxpayers in every income group save.

However, those 1,300 people represent 0.2% of the taxpayers in this province; before our Plan for Lower Taxes they paid 6% of the all income tax in New Brunswick, under our plan, they will still pay 5.2% of total all income tax in the province.

We think that is a fair balance. We have brought in the largest single tax reduction package in the history of our province, and we have gone further than the Conservatives ever went in government and further than they ever asked us to go from opposition.

JACK KEIR

Acting Minister of Finance

Parking meter hike discouraging

Thank you mayor and council. You've helped me with a decision I'm making. My wife and I have started to look for a new home outside the city limits.

I've lived in Saint John my entire life except when we were called the Parish of Simonds and had our own town hall.

I find it interesting that our taxes are high and our parking expensive and our council is intent on overspending our money, yet they think people will want to come here or stay here.

Why?

I can move outside the city and get almost all the services without the cost and headaches. I can go shopping now in town or out of town without ever going near the city centre. The valley, Grand Bay and even Sussex are well equipped for the shopper. All have arenas, schools, retail shopping, insurance brokers, lawyers etc.

Who needs Saint John anymore? I do!

However, I and others are being encouraged to leave the city. How do you solve uptown business problems when you can't park without the fear of being five minutes late for the meter and paying what is now an outrageous fine?

I'm sorry I voted for any of these people and hope the next bunch will be more concerned with getting people into the uptown instead of chasing them away.

I shouldn't complain, though. I'll probably be voting in another municipality.

GEORGE SMITH

Saint John

Use more wood in providing heat

Recently Newcastle Lumber went into receivership. At the same time we see government granting more permits for the export of wood. Those of us in the woodlot sector want to see our sawmills survive; they are some of our best customers. We need more progressive thinking to ensure survival of not just the sawmills, but our entire forest industry.

There have been many incredible opportunities identified on the energy side for wood biomass.

I believe one of the best opportunities is producing heat, whether it is by burning biomass chips or wood pellets. Wood from our forests is the ultimate renewable resource and the use of it within the province would maintain wealth here.

Providing heat is the most efficient use of biomass. Biomass for electrical generation operates at 15-25 per cent efficiency and cellulosic ethanol converts at 35-45 per cent.

Combined heat and power can achieve efficiencies approaching 70 per cent. What community does not have a public space that requires heat?

Our region largely relies on oil and coal for heat and electrical production. A move toward converting to biomass for heat would allow us to create local jobs, achieve energy security through energy independence and create new markets for wood from our forests.

Using the forest sustainability can provide for our economic and ecological well-being.

We can squander this precious resource or we can use it to make heat and combined heat and power with great efficiencies leading to increased wealth in local communities around the province.

KEN HARDIE

Manager, N.B. Federation of Woodlot Owners

A Christian act of love

Imagine you are a six-year-old, a Grade 1 student in a New Brunswick school. Your parents belong to a denomination which is not part of the religious mainstream. They have decided that you belong to this religion as well, although your idea of God is very unformed, and you are perplexed by the rules that have been laid down in his name.

The hardest one for you to understand is why God looks with disfavour on anyone who sings or listens to the national anthem. Why would God make a rule that causes you distress every day?

When the national anthem is played, you must vacate your seat, walk past your classmates and stand alone in the hall. You are alone because there is nobody else in your class whose God disapproves of national anthems.

You feel embarrassed leaving and isolated standing in the hall. The only person who sees your daily discomfort is the principal of your school.

He doesn't understand why your God has laid down the rule either, nor can he change it. He can do something for you though. He can suspend the morning ritual of singing the national anthem. It will be played at school assemblies and special events, but your daily humiliation will stop. Like many people, you do not know what a Christian really is, but you do know an act of love when you experience it.

ANNE BAKER

Saint John

Drop parking fees for patients

I would like to bring to the public's attention a situation that has become complacent within our society, that being our no-user-fee health-care system.

I have made four visits to the Regional Hospital to have medical follow-up treatments only to incur parking fees totaling $15. This is not acceptable, as it constitutes a mandatory fee that one must pay in order to have treatment.

In our national capital, when a person has to be treated or requires emergency treatment the parking ticket is validated. That seems fair to me.

The parking fees at Saint John Regional Hospital and at St. Joseph's are absolutely outrageous. Shame on you.

It is incumbent on the minister of health and the government of New Brunswick to insure that no additional fees are imposed to access our health care system and to support the universality of our health-care system.

DONALD P. MOULTON

Saint John

Money going to wrong priorities

It boggles my mind how our government can allow our children (the future of our self-sufficiency) to go without library services and teacher assistants for the paltry sum of $2.9 million, and force our children to walk 2.4 kilometres to school in this day and age along some roads that are less than safe for adults to walk along at the best of times.

Wait until the sides of the roads are clogged with snow. One child injured or killed is not worth the risk.

Also, we are in desperate need of new schools in Gunningsville and elsewhere in the province. Yet, here we are spending $68 million on removing a causeway in the hopes a few phantom salmon "may" decide to come spawn up the Petitcodiac.

Forget that there are dams everywhere else that use fish ladders that work just fine, and forget that an eco-system that has developed over the last 40 years will be destroyed in the process. How hypocritical can these environmentalists be when there is a dam on the Turtle Creek as well and just about every other river in the province?

It seems whatever cause someone can dream up, there will be a band of tree huggers willing to push the government to correct this "grievous error" and find enough data to support their claim.

Our children should come first and foremost and that's where "our" money should be spent.

Where the heck are our priorities?

Again, it boggles the mind.

BERNIE DEVEREAUX

Riverview