Re: NDP鈥檚 problems go deeper (BC Views, Jan. 26). Tom Fletcher informs us that 鈥渋f it weren鈥檛 for private capital, competition and rewards for efficiency and innovation there wouldn鈥檛 be much of a developed world to analyze.鈥�

Only the Fraser Institute would agree with that statement.

In the real world it is mainly the concessions and publicly funded loans and grants that our economy depend on. It is these loans and grants, plus investor capital that business operates on. Corporations such as Alcan, Canfor and Bombardier, to name a few, routinely seek public money to improve their investments in our natural resources.

Industry Canada and Western Economic Diversification, not 鈥減rivate money,鈥� is the basis of corporate involvement in our economy. The billions loaned and granted to the business sector may never be returned to the taxpayers, let alone the interest on top of that.

Revenue Canada states that a large number of businesses pay low or no federal taxes. Government subsidies, not private capital are the real promoters of our economy.

Brian J. O鈥橬eill

Burnaby

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I was amazed to learn from Tom Fletcher that the B.C. New Democratic Party is in deep trouble, mainly because it believes it鈥檚 wrong that the fraction of British Columbians who control most of the wealth keep getting richer while the rest of us keep getting poorer.

Before Jan. 26 I thought it was the B.C. Liberal Party whose leader has been forced to resign in a shower of accusations of lying to the public and bungling the introduction of the hated HST. I thought it was the B.C. Liberals who were wallowing in the B.C. Rail scandal, the Kash Heed scandal, maintaining Canada鈥檚 lowest minimum wage, allowing a high rate of jobs lost through raw log exports, encouraging controversial net-cage salmon farming and waffling over proposed increases in oil tanker traffic.

But no, it鈥檚 the NDP who are the villains. They simply don鈥檛 accept the rule of the Gordon Campbells who get together with Big Business to pile up profits and tell the B.C. public what鈥檚 good for them. New Democrats seem to think that the first function of a democratic government is to reflect the needs and wishes of the people, not the financial ambitions of the wealthy and powerful.

Clearly the working class must be guided by politicans and corporate CEOs through controls funded by insidious schemes like the HST, which lightens the tax load of Big Business by putting more of it on the ordinary taxpayer.

Otherwise, the vast gap between the haves and the have-nots might start getting smaller, and we鈥檇 all be in deep trouble.

Tony Eberts

New Westminster