After returning home from the Chamber of Commerce four-party debate last Tuesday night in Castlegar we felt called to put pen to paper.
The way we see it, it was a good debate. Thank-you to our chamber.
All spoke well and earnestly on their individual points of view. I was impressed by the organization, energy and preparedness of Stephen Hill, with his hard work on his five plans and him being a major player in getting the Midway mills running again. Well done, Stephen!
Alex did well for all of us on the passport issue, but he is very limited in what he can do by not being in the party in office.
The only way I see to break this terrible impasse of repeated elections and wasting millions of dollars is to get enough Conservative candidates into office and let them demonstrate how they can really care for Canada well and move ahead. They have already demonstrated their ability to do so in this difficult minority situation.
We have seen and are now enjoying the many good things done during the last term and they will do better when in majority with cooperation of the other parties even though they kept up their negative partisan attacks all through the house sittings instead of seeking to create and present good legislation to be co-operatively negotiated.
The finance minister has presented solid, good budgets to which our industry responded with increased jobs. The world recognized the stable, wise leadership, even in minority, to bring our dollar well above par with the U.S.A. This helps to lower prices for our people. We have kept our head up in world recognition and in our helping NATO and peace keeping. The world has recognized the good government in place in Canada!
Our prime minister, Stephen Harper, is scrupulously honest and keeps his word, if at all possible, in the minority situation. For instance he promised to end the long-gun registration and tried, but was blocked by the parties fighting him rather than trying to negotiate the best for our people. He kept his word even at the expense of losing his seat on the UN Security Council. Integrity was more important to our prime minister than recognition and power for power’s sake (which I fear is a goal of the untried, worrisome Liberal leader).
Our prime minister is a serious man but carries himself and looks like a prime minister should to bring respect to our nation. He is able to remain calm in trying situations and the verbal attacks of the other parties and media. We need to do all we can to give Stephen Harper and our Conservative Party an opportunity to really show how well they can govern our nation in a full majority mandate and get away from these costly repeated elections. We need to have our own person in our majority party.
Voting for Stephen Hill for this term and allowing our Alex to retire knowing he has done the best he could seems to me to be our only and best option.
Let us try the Conservatives for one full term!
Bob and Betty Sahlstrom
Castlegar