FEATURED COMMENT – Canadians tired of guilt trips being downloaded on them

Re: Warren Kinsella column, ‘An open letter to Kevin O’Leary.’

I am not sorry to see Kevin O’Leary out of the Conservative leadership contest, as I believe he assessed his chances of electoral victory correctly regarding Quebec.

I do tire, however, of Warren Kinsella’s smug, sneering, “I have the moral high road and by the way I’m way smarter than-you” condescension at anything that smacks of common sense. This typifies the (self-described) Progressive elitist attitude toward average Canadians and Americans. You know the ones, your friends and neighbours, the salt-of-the-earth types that generate the actual wealth in our countries, that work in small business and private enterprise, pay their taxes, but have become tired of being told how they should think, act, vote, and having their hard-earned money confiscated by so-called Progressives to fund hare-brained government schemes and more government workers.

Ontario has lost 347,000 manufacturing jobs while hiring 363,000 government workers since 2003. This does not make sense. All most folks want to do is feed their families, have a roof over their heads, put a little away for retirement, and take a vacation now and then, a few simple pleasures.

They have been made to feel guilty for those things by the likes of Mr. Kinsella. In his last column published here, he poked fun at a fellow he met while campaigning for Hillary Clinton in one of the New England states because he had committed the sin of having a beard and drove a pickup truck. A grave error for certain in Kinsella’s world.

If he ever wonders why America elected Donald Trump, he need only look in the mirror, as the backlash of looking down your nose at Mainstreet USA was borne out in voting booths all across middle America. In some respects, and to a lesser degree than electing a Donald Trump, I hope it happens here too, and serves as a wake-up call that average Canadians are as tired as average Americans of guilt being downloaded onto them by The Enlightened.

KEN McCLELLAND