My letter is in response to Mr. Skakun proposing a local fuel tax.
I have lived in both Alberta and British Columbia. After moving back to Prince George from Grande Prairie, I have to say that the taxes we are asked to pay are ridiculous. FIrst our city council would like us to pay higher property taxes and now they want us to pay a local fuel tax?
We already pay unnecessary taxes like the carbon and environmental tax. The price of food and fuel have gone up immensely in the last five years yet our salaries have hardly increased. Many of us are having enough trouble paying the $1.33 per litre and Mr. Skakun and Mrs. Green would like to add an extra three cents to it?
The debt this city has acquired are the fault of the people running it, not the people living in it. People have put their trust into the elected officials to run this city. When you start introducing taxes here and there, you will lose that trust.
We work hard for our money and it is wrong to have people's money taken away because our elected officials are unable to budget properly. I don't know if you have noticed, Mr. Skakun and Mrs. Green, but times are getting harder. With tuition, fuel and food prices going up, we simply cannot afford any more taxes.
My mother is a nurse and in the last 10 years the provincial government has decreased her salary quite a bit. She has had to make immense sacrifices to raise a family of seven people. Should she be allowed to force others to pay her the $4/hr that was taken from her?
The citizens of Prince George have given all we can to our city. It is up to you, our officials, to make the right sacrifices. It's time to stop relying on the citizens of this city to provide bailouts.
Who will bail the private citizen out when he is losing his house? Who will bail me out when I can no longer afford my education? No one, that's who.
True leaders would live in poverty in order for their people to prosper. Bad leaders would have their people live in poverty for the leader to prosper.
Mr. Skakun and Mrs. Green, true leaders you are not.
Kevin Barredo
Prince George
