As we head into the year of elections in our country — provincial (somewhat) and city — I would like to make a brief comment on a letter to the editor on Feb. 10 by our wanna-be Conservative MP Stephen Hill (Canada Not Faring So Badly).I remember my Grade 11 social studies teacher telling our class the best type of government we could hope for was a minority government like we have had under Stephen Harper.Mr. Harper has had no choice to stay pretty much on the course set by the former Liberal government under Paul Martin. Any move to push his right-wing agenda would have forced an instant election.Our corporate tax rates and tax policies — some good and some not so good — and banking policies were mostly the work of Martin.No doubt many of the readers have seen the same interviews I have with Martin on the CBC talking about banking regulations and the need for world banking standards.If Mr. Harper is so concerned about the Canadian economy why did he allow Ridley Terminals in Prince Rupert (a Crown corporation) to put U.S. coal companies ahead of Canadian interests?St. Louis-based Arch Coal is one of three U.S. based companies that have locked up 40 per cent of the capacity at Prince Rupert while Canadian coal producers go without and Canadian jobs are lost.It also happens that the CEO of Ridley terminals is George Dorsey, who is also the CEO of Edgewood Holdings, a private equity and advisory firm that was awarded the contract in 2008 by the Harper elite to manage the Ridley Terminals.Dorsey is originally from the U.S. and Edgewood Holdings is based in Vermont. Both Dorsey and Edgewood have had extensive dealings with North American coal, energy and mining.For the whole story go to www.opinion250.com where you can also read about the privatization of CN Rail. This my fellow voters and taxpayers is the definition of corruption.In the upcoming federal election Mr. Harper and his cronies will rant and rave about Michael Ignatieff’s ties to the U.S. and how he will fail to put Canada’s interests first. Mr. Harper has already shown how he values Canadian interests.Harper leading a majority government will endorse the corporate rape of this country and try and sell it to us as economic growth.We are all very fortunate in this country in the fact that we have managed better than most in the Great Recession due to the fact that we have a whole bunch of stuff that China and India want to buy, not any policies that the Harper government have put forth.Bryan DeFerro Trail