Have you ever asked yourself what is the difference between a promise and a bribe?
Well, I have.
A promise, in my lexicon, is something one party willingly agrees to do or give to another. A bribe is more coercive, money or a favour given in order to influence the conduct or judgement of a person in a position of trust.
In other words, you might not like this, but you don’t have to be in a cage to understand most of Stephen Harper’s campaign offers are bribes because most are qualified: they will only be introduced once the budget is balanced, expected to occur around 2015, and only if you vote for him.
Stephen Harper and his Machiavellian-thinking party members do not seem to get that these ideas are things that he should be doing for Canadians right now.
Take, for example, the Fitness Tax Credit, ideas that came from Canadians who participated in the development of the Romanow Report on Health Care in Canada. That issue, you may recall, was pretty much the only issue to be discussed during the second to last election. That means Harper has had plenty of time to do these things already.
He seems to think that Canadians will not figure out if he had not reduced taxes for corporations who are already making millions of dollars in profit, we, the average Canadian, would be able to benefit both financially and through a healthier quality of life right now.
That is the problem with bribes. They only work when you have no other choice.
Ann MacDonald
Whitehorse