Letters to your MP - waste of time

In the last 13 years here I have sent 3 letters to an MP. None has ever really been replied to.
The most recent was trying to see if the local (Conservative/Lois Brown) MP was in support of Harper's big government policies after they sent around a silly partisan booklet saying how pro freemarket they are:

Nothing back after 3 months, so I sent this reminder today. I expect no reply.

As an update. To her credit my MP (Lois Brown) called to discuss this, seems her admin chased her. She had no real replies other than to complain about how Jean Chretien's made his spending cuts. Admitting she had no proper answers she said she would contact me later to have a cup of coffee to disccus. That was a fair while ago now, I don't expect another call.

............

Hi:

Given there was no reply I can only take it that you agree with the big spending/anti-business policies of your leader Mr. Harper: or are afraid to speak out against it. To me the non-reply is the same in either case.

The Conservative Party has gotten even worse since I asked this question. Hard to imagine they could and of course you had to set an all time record for industry intervention to bail out fat cat union jobs at the car companies to do it and have now projected an all time record deficit as well (eclipsing the last Canadian deficit record, held by fellow Conservative Brian Mulroney).

I, as many people, do not like these highly socialist policies. Expect laughter if I hear any more from you or your party about how you are helping the economy. The excess is so bad in my mind, and the big government philosophy so unopposed in your party, that I can only assume it is your party's philosophy and so would never trust your party with managing the government even after the leadership change.

John
-----Original Message-----
Hi:

Thanks for the booklet bragging about tax savings - but it seems to have left a few of the most important things out.

Any economist knows you cannot really lower taxes without lowering spending, all you are doing is passing the taxes on to the next generation. The Federal Conservatives have been increasing spending at truly unfortunate rates since their original election, and now with this recession the level of spending is exploding. I suggest you review the history of more fiscally prudent governments, such as Jean Chrétien's, for a lesson on how to keep spending under control and act on it. Of course those Liberals were hardly careful with other people's money either, but at least they significantly slowed down the rate of increase and are not setting new spending records like the Harper Conservatives are.

You seem to have left out the tax increases, like the income trust taxation.
There was a specific promise by the Conservatives to not tax these, and taxing it is double taxation at it's worst. That promise was broken by the federal conservatives, but it is not forgotten. Perhaps this is in the fine print somewhere?

I'm also left with a really bad taste in my mouth by Prime Minister Harper's constant demonization of the "unfettered capitalist system" as the root problem of the current downturn. Clearly the overwhelming majority of the problem was government actions; regulations such as the CRA and the abnormally low interest rate policy after 9/11 in the U.S. along with others. That some greedy people made mistakes after being setup to fail by government does not make the system the problem and of course people like Madoff were under very heavy government regulation. That the regulators were laughably negligent in enforcing those regulations does not indicate they were unfettered. To call it "unfettered capitalism" - well this along with the high spending ways indicates to me that he is just one more socialist and I would have more more expected this from a Jack Layton than from someone who trained as an economist and worked at the NCC.

Ciao