LETTER: Mulroney's policies 'wreaked havoc' on Canadians

CollingwoodToday welcomes letters to the editor at [email protected] or via our website. Please include your full name, daytime phone number and address (for verification of authorship, not publication). The following letter is in response to Wednesday's guest column from Doug Lewis.

I am sorry, Doug Lewis. Aside from Mr. Mulroney's work on apartheid in South Africa, his work at home was an economic disaster.

The so-called federal sales tax burden was the manufacturers' sales tax and the only burden was on corporations, and the GST which replaced the MST was a burden on everyone, including children.

Free trade saw those same corporations have the ability to take their operations to the cheapest deregulated market, resulting in the closure of hundreds of plants affecting tens of thousands workers, their families and communities.

The operations that did survive saw wages, benefits and pensions reduced or cut drastically. Workers have never recovered.

The privatization of rail and air has seen Canada's passenger rail service is now outdated, unreliable and leaves many communities under-serviced. Compared to other developed countries, our system is an embarrassment. Ask any traveller what they think of Air Canada. Enough said.

I offer my condolences to the Mulroney family, but his policies wreaked havoc on tens of thousands of families and communities and we shouldn't ever forget that.

Ken Robertson Collingwood