sponse to MLA Scott Fraser’s comments (The News, Aug. 30).
As a business owner in this community whose customers are the very small businesses that Mr. Fraser claims are outraged, I can tell you first hand that small business has a heavy heart at the end of this.
Even the restaurant industry is back peddling as they have come to understand the HST. Why? The PST penalizes new business start-ups as well as re-investment and upgrades.
Those penalties limit our ability to grow and in turn create jobs. Small business owners who understand their balance sheet know this.
The public had over a year to learn what a business input is and why taxing at this point of the growth cycle slows job creation.
This referendum required setting aside your anger toward the Liberals until the election and voting for what would be best for the province as a whole. It was not about complaining that your $100 per week landscaping contract went up $7 or that your hair cut costs you an extra $1.40.
As a consumer I too am affected by these things but as the father of a 19 and 21-year-old, returning to a tax policy that penalizes a business for creating a job worries me as does the resulting $3 billion hole in the provincial budget. It really did come down to the small picture vs. the big picture, self interest vs. the common good.
For those of us of a certain age, the words of JFK come to mind.
However, the people have spoken and they said yes to a $3 billion deficit and no to a job-friendly tax policy.
We will all have to live with that, my children longer than I.
What really offended me about Mr. Fraser’s comments was his attack on the president of the Parksville Chamber of Commerce, Kim Burden.
Unlike Scott Fraser, Kim Burden speaks to all walks of the business community on a daily basis. Kim Burden has a history of volunteerism in our community that is extensive and selfless. Unfounded attacks on hard working people willing to contribute to their local community are simply uncalled for and wrong.
It is this type of behaviour that stops quality people from becoming involved, whatever their ideology. The chamber’s support of the HST is a reflection of the feelings of the majority of local businesses, the very people Mr. Burden represents, the same people that provide our community with jobs.
For Scott Fraser to suggest that Kim Burden’s leadership should be questioned or that he is out of step with his membership is the type of misrepresentation of fact that Mr. Fraser himself accuses the other side of.
For that I say shame on you Scott.
Brad J. Burton
Parksville