In defense of T.J. Burke's "sucks" blog
Long time readers know I'm a pretty conservative kind of guy. I'd probably throw my support behind a conservative party unless I'm given a compelling reason not to.
The PC's in New Brunswick keep throwing those reasons.
They have a solidly strong opposition in the number of members yet they've still been just plain useless.
The latest one is them going on the attack against T.J. Burke for his now infamous blog post that property taxes suck. The blog has since been pulled.
Now you knew political hay would be made of this one and that's fine but for PC MLA Bruce Fitch to say, "Is he (Burke) just sitting there complaining, or is he going to do something about it?" is hypocrisy at its best. Skyrocketing property taxes began on your watch Mr. Fitch and the previous government did NOTHING about it or would even admit they "suck" so to pull this holier than thou routine doesn't fool anyone.
Now you knew political hay would be made of this one and that's fine but for PC MLA Bruce
I'd rather have an MLA who lives in the real world, knows something does suck and at the very least raises the issue so it gets discussed, than a group of politicians who only view this as a political opportunity to score some cheap points instead of offering some realistic ideas.
By the way before I let the Liberals off the hook, Minister Greg Byrne has obviously been appointed to speak on the issue and told media this, "I have had many conversations with the minister (Burke) and he certainly recognizes that the property tax assessment system is a fair system and that the asset that you have and the asset that he has, is his best asset."
No Burke doesn't. He thinks property taxes suck and that something should be done. That's exactly what he wrote and given some petitions floating around, many New Brunswickers agree. There's nothing wrong with him reflecting what citizens are saying. That's what an MLA is supposed to do and muzzling him as the Liberals have done is ridiculous.
By the way, T.J. Burke's blog has not been updated since the "sucks" blog was pulled. I suspect he may be a little gunshy and the blog will either die or become so sanitized it will be useless. I hope I'm wrong. We need more frankness from our politicians and less spin.
Comments (1)
All comments are subject to the site Terms of Use. For a full commenting tutorial click here.
Our editorial team relies on filtering technology and our visitor community to identify inappropriate comments. In the event that a site user has submitted offensive content that has evaded our filter, please select the option to Flag As Inappropriate presented within the comment. Thank you for helping to keep this site clean.