The Editor:

Are you prepared to give up $13,000 during your golden years? MP Ed Komarnicki and Prime Minister Stephen Harper think you are. That's what the average Canadian will have to give up thanks to the federal budget introduced by the Conservative Party March 29.

The budget cuts retirement benefits by raising the age of eligibility for Old Age Security and the Guaranteed Income Supplement from 65 to 67 years, forcing Canadians to postpone their retirement for two years. For low income seniors, it's even worse. They stand to lose up to $30,000 which could hike seniors' poverty by up a third.

It's a massive hit to the least-well off. It's mean-spirited and it's wrong.

The Conservatives offered zero financial analysis to justify the cut because there is none. The OECD, the Parliamentary budget Officer and other leading experts have all confirmed that Canada does not face a pension crisis.

The Conservatives are also using the budget to make deep ideological cuts. They are cutting $310 million from Agriculture and Agri-Food, threatening farm risk management programs that have seen family farms through flood, drought and disease. They are cutting $166 million from Aboriginal Affairs, reducing funding for the fastest growing and most impoverished group in the country.

How skewed are these priorities? Take a look at what the government is not cutting: polls, advertising, bigger jails and stealth fighters.

Canadians should be asking Stephen Harper and Ed Komarnicki how they can justify such a small-minded Canada.

Yours sincerely,
Bob Rae,
Leader of the Liberal Party of Canada