Every once in a while Babel’s Member of Parliament finds some new way to really disgust the more decent among us. His latest foray into the slime is an attempt to crudely incite hatred against newcomers to Canada. He sees this as a political advantage in that he hopes the bigoted, the ignorant and the unthinking in our electoral district can align with him and vote for him.
It was one of those cheap grey sheets that are stuffed in the mailbox far too frequently by Canada Post on behalf of the Conservative Party. They are paid for with our money and parliamentarians call them ‘ten percenters.’ This latest one is directed against two Liberal Members of Parliament who are trying to solve a problem in Ottawa. That is something Babel’s Member of Parliament could never do. In Ottawa, he is a problem. He contributes nothing in parliament, in caucus or committees but another mindless vote for the Harper Conservatives.
It seems Ruby Dhalla MP and Bob Rae MP jointly presented a private members’ Bill in parliament that would reduce the current ten-year residency requirement to qualify for Old Age Security. One would not suppose that the objective is to pay a generous sum of about $13 per month to people at 65 and older who came to Canada at 62-years of age. The payments are obviously to bring attention to the concern for seniors who are brought to Canada by members of their family and might, by misadventure, be left in a penniless state through no fault of their own. It happens occasionally.
Well, Mr. Brown is incensed at the very idea of giving them any money. These indigents, he claims, will also be able to draw from the Guaranteed Income Supplement that he believes should only be given to people who have lived in Canada their entire life. He is outraged that these newcomers could possibly access some of this money to bring them up to the government determined poverty line. (That is not above poverty line, it is just up to it.)
And where Mr. Brown finds his `most experts` who say this could cost `the Canadian taxpayer` (sic) $700 million a year, is most curious. It would be interesting if he could produce one such expert–other than from The Fraser Institute that regularly pays academics to support its right-wing positions.
It is not clear to the reader of this garbage whether Mr. Brown wants these newcomers to be left to starve on the streets of our cities or if he wants to ship them back to the countries from whence they came. Obviously he does not want them looked after through our welfare systems that can cost four to five times as much to administer.
All Mr. Brown is, it appears, is against something humane. He should be aware that older people do not easily get accepted as immigrants to this country unless they are coming to be reunited with family. The bringing of families together is one of the finer aspects of Canada’s immigration policy. If he is against that, he should say so. In that way, voters in Babel would all know just how mean-spirited he is.
– 30 –
Complaints, comments, criticisms and compliments can be sent to [email protected]