To the Editor,
As we pause to commemorate the sacrifices of our veterans this week, I am connecting the dots between the cuts being planned for Veterans Benefits and the reasons behind the “Occupy” movement.
I have just heard Mike Blais, president of the Canadian Veterans Advocacy, as he described the quarter-billion-dollar cuts being planned by our federal government to veterans benefits. (http://canadianveterans advocacy.com).
These cuts will present many catastrophically injured vets with a pathetic situation given the price they have paid fighting for our country.
I clearly see the disproportionate regard our government pays to the rich in Canada, when I juxtapose the concerns of veterans with comments made by Naomi Klein recently in regard to a proposition to tax the rich.
Klein quotes work done by Osgood Hall tax professor Neil Brooks, who says “adding a new marginal tax rate of 60 per cent to those earning over $500,000 a year, and a 70 per cent rate to those earning over $2.5 million a year — rates that would simply restore the progressivity that existed during Canada’s booming postwar decades — would raise almost $8 billion a year.”
Why would finance minister Jim Flaherty not consider such a tax on the rich (as already suggested by NDP leadership candidate Brian Topp) rather than bleeding our already wounded Canadian vets?
John Mayba,
Port Alberni