Thank you, Mayor Brad Woodside for having the backbone to ask the question that our elected representatives continually hide from.  Whenever they dare to raise the subject they are severely reprimanded.

When was FREE SPEECH removed from our Charter of Rights and Freedoms? In a democracy our MLAs should have the right to introduce and debate any and all concerns of their constituents.

Healthcare and education, as well as bilingualism are constitutionally protected rights, yet there appears to be no problem with introducing cost saving measures such as reductions and closures of schools and hospitals.

This in itself proves when it comes to legislated bilingualism and duplication there is a double standard.

The government has recently introduced legislation to repeal the Taxpayers Protection Act, the Fiscal Transparency Act, the Fiscal Stabilization Fund Act as well as the Health Care Funding Guarantee Act paving the way to reduce funding and introduce new tax measures without approval of taxpayers via referendum.

This should be extremely worrisome to all New Brunswickers. We can only hope that enough MLAs will see the danger of eliminating such taxpayer protection and vote against this legislation.

We need more mayors and individuals in prominent positions to muster the intestinal fortitude to support Mayor Woodside. He, like many others, can see the path that our province is being taken by individuals with their own hard line agenda. We should take a lesson from how the English language and institutions were systematically eliminated almost to a point of irrelevance in Quebec by similar means.

To learn who rules over you simply find out whom you are not allowed to criticize. “VOLTAIRE” famous French writer.

Ronald Bubar

VP Anglo Society of N.B.