I always read Leo Brincat’s articles with a jaded eye knowing where he comes from. His article Emulating Rudd (TMID, 18 December) was a panicked attack against the Nationalist government and as expected, he raised a few pet beefs.

He started with stating that the PN was stunned with the Labour victory in Australia. I am completely convinced that the voters in Malta are so impressed that they will vote MLP in the next election simply because Labour did so well in Australia. He conveniently forgot one of the main reasons for the Labour victory there being the stance of the former government towards the unpopular wars their soldiers are involved in. Fortunately, Malta is not receiving back any of her soldiers in body bags. There simply are no parallels between the Australian election and Malta’s yet to come.

Then he moved on to another issue which the MLP have been harping on for the last several weeks, namely the cost of living. Funny that he mentioned that, since only last night I was watching ABC news which included an interview at a grocery store with one of the shoppers. The shopper was complaining about the sharp increase of a gallon of milk in the last week or so (+23 per cent), bread, vegetables and canned food were also up in double digit percentages.

Incidentally, the shopper, in his concluding remarks reminded the interviewer that while prices went up, his wages remained the same. Here in London Ontario, the price of store packed pasta went up from 87 cents for 900 grams to $1.27 (46 per cent), store branded bread went up from an average of $1.27 to $1.67 per loaf (31 per cent), milk went up – depending on brand and store – by anywhere up to 25 per cent.

Now, when I mentioned store brands, I was using examples of the lowest priced items since these are considered as “loss items”, used by the stores to attract customers and compete with rival stores. If one had to compare to “brand” items, the increases would be substantially higher. And this is not to mention the gasoline (petrol) prices which fluctuate daily with the price of crude and the value of the Canadian dollar!

We must also not forget that Canada has an abundance of oil and the tar sands which some believe represent reserves larger than the Arab states’. Canada’s inflation rate (as announced this morning) stands at 2.5 per cent up from 2.4 per cent in October. What is Malta’s? I can imagine Mr Brincat taking the bull by the horns and wrestling inflation to the ground. The only way to do that is to revisit bulk buying, total state control on every aspect of the Maltese economy and banking systems which, in turn, would certainly induce the greatest influx of foreign investments.

Then he just could not resist emphasising the MLP’s zero tolerance to corruption, putting the matter at the top of its agenda. Come on, Mr Brincat, “secret” trips to Dubai with “selected” contractors in my books does not constitute a sincere attempt at being equally fair with the “other” contractors and besides, if the intentions were pure, why the secrecy? Declaring the GWU as a “preferred” entity is not exactly beyond criticism either.

Joe Martinelli

London, Ontario

Canada