Re: your guest columnist Mr. Mischa Popoff, column “the vision of few imposed on all” February 16, 2009. I give credit to Penticton Herald for publishing Mr. Popoff views because a free flow of information and views, vitalizes democracy, even such that cannot be argued in reasoned terms. Mr. Popoff’s major premise in his recurring views is that tax on energy and gasoline and hence higher prices, doesn’t affect society’s behavior and ration consumption. Then inevitably his view must be that energy and gasoline are not price elastic, thus changes in price have no impact on demand or supply. Well, some still believe the earth is flat, and those who do not can draw their own conclusion, and I recommend

Sometimes, we should be careful what we ask for and vote for – we may get it. Recently an aspiring politician to the right, under the label of “This Democracy”, wrote in a British Columbian newspaper, and joined the BC New Democrats dismissal of the BC’s government’s special carbon tax. Among other perplexing ends he claims that tax and hence higher prices on gasoline “won’t reduce gas consumption” and reduces CO2 emission in Canada, and carbon tax is “a tax on Western Civilization”. I trust when the society that makes up this Canadian democratic governed economy, consider such views. Uses common sense and call to mind that politics cannot be understood without the use of natural and social science and

Rick Mercer’s comments to Ipsos Reid’s December 2008 survey that Canadians lack basic understanding of their parliamentary system may not be rhetorical. How can a country function when half the population doesn’t know what the hell is going on and their own government actually likes it that way? If we want to protect this democracy we all have an obligation to wake up and get informed, because quite frankly, our members of parliament can’t be trusted with it anymore. In the Middle Ages, where there was no free speech and democratic freedom, Court Jesters could challenge society without the risk of being out of luck or worse, because it was a jest. The foundation for a democracy such as Canada’s