Is Canadian Politics About to Get a Dose of Austrian Economics?

The Facebook page of Conservative Party leadership aspirant Maxime Bernier posted the following image with the question “Which of these economists do you prefer?”:

WHOA, wait a minute.

What is going on here? Have we entered the Bizarro World? Does Spock have a beard?

The four economists in the picture are amongst the hardest of the hardcore free market economists in history.

The mere fact that this multiple choice question was posed with these four options makes us kind of like Maxime Bernier’s style. The fact that Murray Rothbard is in this list at all is frankly shocking. In a good way.

So here’s what you need to know:

Someone who seems to like the Austrian School of Economics is running for leadership of a major Canadian political party. This is almost too wonderfully weird to believe.

Bernier has already proposed abolishing the CRTC, ending monopolistic supply chain management, having a more laissez-faire approach to air travel, privatizing Canada Post, and replacing corporate welfare with lower taxes for all corporations. Bernier is showing that he will attack sacred cows in Canada’s reflexively progressive political discourse.

Now comes this Facebook post, intimating that underlying these consumer-friendly proposals is at least some solid classical liberal economic foundations.

Honestly, as far as Canadian politics goes, that might be the best we’ve seen in the last century. Maybe we will see someone approximating a real classical liberal leading one of Canada’s main political parties.