I am writing to you in the hope that you will do all of your readers a great service by making them fully aware of the effects that the proposed Harmonized Sales Tax will have on their everyday lives. At this time Ontarians are beginning to become alarmed at what is in store for them in the years to come should the proposed tax be implemented on July 1 2010. Please give space to this subject as often as possible in order that every resident of the community is informed.
In my own situation, as a senior citizen living on a pension with my wife, a simple calculation of the added cost that we face amounts to at least $100.00 a month or $1,200.00 per year. On taking this up with a prominent Liberal I received his letter of response saying "we will see that consumer spending and the economy will be expanded with this bold move". If this is an example of the brains that are running the province our outlook is indeed bleak.
It is difficult to comprehend how any right minded politician can support a legislative move which will, in all likelihood, put them out of office at the next election. If we all speak loudly enough and often enough even the dullest brain at Queens Park will eventually get the message. It is to be hoped that all who read this and any other relevant material on the subject will appreciate that this is not about politics, Liberal, Conservative, NDP, Green or whatever, this is about survival. While this is going on the Liberals are using our tax money on a spurious advertising campaign to convince us that taking a massive new amount of money out of our wages and pensions is good for us. We all have friends and neighbours who have beeen hard hit by the current economic times, how will they be able to accept an additional burden when poverty is already at the door?
We will all feel the continuing effect of this savage attack on our modest incomes, not just for the rest of our lives, this tax will follow us into our graves, just read the proposals! McGuinty must be relishing the thought of extracting money from us every day at the gas pumps, at the light switch, in the kitchen, in the laundry, at the thermostat, in the coffee shop and on and on ad infinitum. We are told that business is in favour of the new tax. I would be interested to see a list of those businesses that are happy to raise the end cost of their product to the consumer and pass that added tax grab money along to our demonstrated wasteful government.
Let us hope that sanity will prevail before July 1st. 2010.
Ray Hutchinson
Marlbank, Ontario
