Young People Have No Faith in Notley

April 25, 2018 Leave a comment

We always hear about how young people tend to lean “left” and approve of more “socialistic” policies.

Unfortunately for Notley and her gang, this might not be true in Alberta.

Take a look at this table from a CBC survey. Let me know if you see anything interesting:

FullSizeRender

That might be a bit hard to read, so let me just point out what I find interesting here.

The 18-24 year old crowd gives the Alberta NDP a pathetic 18% support on the question of which party will best be able to defend Alberta’s economic interests. That is encouraging even if our other Alberta political parties are quite bad.

Also interesting is that the only group shown here that appears to have more faith in the NDP than the UCP is the “post grad” crowd. Even then, they only beat out the UCP 42% to 38%.

For the NDP, that’s pretty sad because if they can’t count on overwhelming support from the over-educated, underpaid post-grads (who are often losers who work at universities and spend most of their lives whining for more government funding), who can they count on?

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Filed under Alberta, CMR, Education, Politics

The Equalization Scam: Ontario the “Have” Province Gets $963M

February 6, 2018 Leave a comment

The School for Public Policy published a useful review of the 2018-2019 equalization payments.

Let’s take a look.

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Looks pretty typical in a lot of ways. West (+Newfoundland) pays East.

Also, while Quebec gets a lot of flak for getting the biggest payment, they are far from the biggest recipient on a per capita basis.

table1-1024x174

But wait a second, didn’t Ontario just become a “have” province? Why are they getting a big cheque?

And that leads to the most interesting part of this year’s equalization:

This brings us to Ontario. The $963 million it will receive in equalization is entirely composed of adjustment payments. Absent these payments, the total equalization program would cost $17.2 billion and Ontario would receive nothing. But at $70 per person for receiving provinces, the adjustment payments add $1.76 billion, which brings the total cost of the program to the $18.96 billion dollars paid in 2018/19.

A Costly Quirk?

Why should adjustment payments be made at all? And why should they be paid to Ontario, a “have” province prior to this stage of the formula? The limit was put in place by the previous government in 2009 to keep costs under control and limit uncertainty. But why does it also act as a floor? And… must it? The Fiscal-Arrangements Act is somewhat ambiguous on this point.

Nope, this doesn’t appear to be a redistributive scam at all. It’s not like Canada already has the federal health and social transfers, or that the federal government already spends money in provinces at different rates.

central canada equalize

 

Filed under CMR, Ontario, Politics, Quebec, Welfare Tagged with

Equalization 2018

December 12, 2017 2 Comments

Filed under CMR, Politics, Quebec, Welfare Tagged with ,

King Trudeau?

October 2, 2017 Leave a comment

king-trudea-sized

 

What if Justin Trudeau became the King of Canada?

I recently reread an old Hans-Hermann Hoppe essay entitled “On Theory and History. Reply to Benegas-Lynch, Jr.”

To summarize briefly, it responds to criticisms leveled against Hoppe’s innovative argument that absolute monarchy should, all things being equal, be less exploitative than democracy. The original paper in which this argument appeared and to which B-L directs his response is quite brilliant and is enough to make most people at least contemplate their long held prejudices (“democracy is bad but everything else is worse”). That paper is available here — it was used as the first chapter of Democracy: The God That Failed. 

Hoppe’s reply is very worth reading as it provides a helpful overview of how one should use economic or ‘praxeologic’ theorems to analyze history — and how one must take care when using history to evaluate such theorems.

It’s a shame this reply was not included as an appendix to Democracy: The God That Failed like Hoppe’s “Four Replies”  in The Economics and Ethics of Private Property.  It is classic Hoppe.

In his original critique, B-L attempts to score a rhetorical headshot against Hoppe by asking, basically, what would happen if Bill Clinton became King of America (remember, this exchange is from the 90s). Clearly, he thinks, that would be much worse than the status quo of America’s democratic system.

Unfazed, Hoppe describes why this would represent a huge improvement.

Just for fun, I thought I would adapt this section of Hoppe’s response to political milieu of the True North. Read on:

What if Justin Trudeau were to become hereditary king of Canada; wouldn’t this make matters worse than they are now with him as prime minister?

The answer is a decisive No.

First off, given Trudeau’s obviously high degree of time preference, by making him owner rather than caretaker of Canada, his effective rate of time preference would fall (as high as it might still be). More profoundly and importantly, however, the transition from a Trudeau prime ministership to Trudeau kingship would require substantial institutional changes (for instance, the abolition of Parliament and parliamentary elections, the elimination of the Supreme Court, and the abandonment of the Constitution), and these changes could not possibly be implemented without King Trudeau losing thereby most of his current power as prime minister.

For with everyone except Trudeau and the Trudeaupians barred from politics and political participation, and with Trudeau installed as the personal owner of all formerly public (federal) lands and properties as well as the ultimate judge and legislator for the entire territory of Canada, popular opposition against his and his clan’s excessive wealth and power would bring his kingship to an end before it had even begun.

Thus, if Trudeau really wanted to hold onto his royal position, he would d have to give up most of the current – democratic-republican – government’s property, tax revenue, and legislative powers. Even then, in light of Trudeau’s less than exemplary and shining personal history and family background, his United Kingdom of Canada would almost certainly be faced with an immediate upsurge of secessionist forces all across the country and quickly disintegrate, and Trudeau, at the very best, would end up as King Justin of Ottawa.

 

Filed under CMR, Democracy, Politics Tagged with , , ,

Why Do We Get Such Bad Leaders?

October 6, 2016 Leave a comment

Why Bad Men Rule
By Hans-Hermann Hoppe

trump-vs-clinton

One of the most widely accepted propositions among political economists is the following: Every monopoly is bad from the viewpoint of consumers. Monopoly is understood in its classical sense to be an exclusive privilege granted to a single producer of a commodity or service, i.e., as the absence of free entry into a particular line of production. In other words, only one agency, A, may produce a given good, x. Any such monopolist is bad for consumers because, shielded from potential new entrants into his area of production, the price of the monopolist’s product x will be higher and the quality of x lower than otherwise.

This elementary truth has frequently been invoked as an argument in favor of democratic government as opposed to classical, monarchical or princely government. This is because under democracy entry into the governmental apparatus is free — anyone can become prime minister or president — whereas under monarchy it is restricted to the king and his heir.

However, this argument in favor of democracy is fatally flawed. Free entry is not always good. Free entry and competition in the production of goods is good, but free competition in the production of bads is not. Free entry into the business of torturing and killing innocents, or free competition in counterfeiting or swindling, for instance, is not good; it is worse than bad. So what sort of “business” is government? Answer: it is not a customary producer of goods sold to voluntary consumers. Rather, it is a “business” engaged in theft and expropriation — by means of taxes and counterfeiting — and the fencing of stolen goods. Hence, free entry into government does not improve something good. Indeed, it makes matters worse than bad, i.e., it improves evil.

Since man is as man is, in every society people who covet others’ property exist. Some people are more afflicted by this sentiment than others, but individuals usually learn not to act on such feelings or even feel ashamed for entertaining them. Generally only a few individuals are unable to successfully suppress their desire for others’ property, and they are treated as criminals by their fellow men and repressed by the threat of physical punishment. Under princely government, only one single person — the prince — can legally act on the desire for another man’s property, and it is this which makes him a potential danger and a “bad.”

However, a prince is restricted in his redistributive desires because all members of society have learned to regard the taking and redistributing of another man’s property as shameful and immoral. Accordingly, they watch a prince’s every action with utmost suspicion. In distinct contrast, by opening entry into government, anyone is permitted to freely express his desire for others’ property. What formerly was regarded as immoral and accordingly was suppressed is now considered a legitimate sentiment. Everyone may openly covet everyone else’s property in the name of democracy; and everyone may act on this desire for another’s property, provided that he finds entrance into government. Hence, under democracy everyone becomes a threat.

Consequently, under democratic conditions the popular though immoral and anti-social desire for another man’s property is systematically strengthened. Every demand is legitimate if it is proclaimed publicly under the special protection of “freedom of speech.” Everything can be said and claimed, and everything is up for grabs. Not even the seemingly most secure private property right is exempt from redistributive demands. Worse, subject to mass elections, those members of society with little or no inhibitions against taking another man’s property, that is, habitual a-moralists who are most talented in assembling majorities from a multitude of morally uninhibited and mutually incompatible popular demands (efficient demagogues) will tend to gain entrance in and rise to the top of government. Hence, a bad situation becomes even worse.

Historically, the selection of a prince was through the accident of his noble birth, and his only personal qualification was typically his upbringing as a future prince and preserver of the dynasty, its status, and its possessions. This did not assure that a prince would not be bad and dangerous, of course. However, it is worth remembering that any prince who failed in his primary duty of preserving the dynasty — who ruined the country, caused civil unrest, turmoil and strife, or otherwise endangered the position of the dynasty — faced the immediate risk either of being neutralized or assassinated by another member of his own family. In any case, however, even if the accident of birth and his upbringing did not preclude that a prince might be bad and dangerous, at the same time the accident of a noble birth and a princely education also did not preclude that he might be a harmless dilettante or even a good and moral person.

In contrast, the selection of government rulers by means of popular elections makes it nearly impossible that a good or harmless person could ever rise to the top. Prime ministers and presidents are selected for their proven efficiency as morally uninhibited demagogues. Thus, democracy virtually assures that only bad and dangerous men will ever rise to the top of government. Indeed, as a result of free political competition and selection, those who rise will become increasingly bad and dangerous individuals, yet as temporary and interchangeable caretakers they will only rarely be assassinated.

One can do no better than quote H.L. Mencken in this connection. “Politicians,” he notes with his characteristic wit, “seldom if ever get [into public office] by merit alone, at least in democratic states. Sometimes, to be sure, it happens, but only by a kind of miracle. They are chosen normally for quite different reasons, the chief of which is simply their power to impress and enchant the intellectually underprivileged….Will any of them venture to tell the plain truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth about the situation of the country, foreign or domestic? Will any of them refrain from promises that he knows he can’t fulfill — that no human being could fulfill? Will any of them utter a word, however obvious, that will alarm or alienate any of the huge pack of morons who cluster at the public trough, wallowing in the pap that grows thinner and thinner, hoping against hope? Answer: may be for a few weeks at the start…. But not after the issue is fairly joined, and the struggle is on in earnest…. They will all promise every man, woman and child in the country whatever he, she or it wants. They’ll all be roving the land looking for chances to make the rich poor, to remedy the irremediable, to succor the unsuccorable, to unscramble the unscrambleable, to dephlogisticate the undephlogisticable. They will all be curing warts by saying words over them, and paying off the national debt with money no one will have to earn. When one of them demonstrates that twice two is five, another will prove that it is six, six and a half, ten, twenty, n. In brief, they will divest themselves from their character as sensible, candid and truthful men, and simply become candidates for office, bent only on collaring votes. They will all know by then, even supposing that some of them don’t know it now, that votes are collared under democracy, not by talking sense but by talking nonsense, and they will apply themselves to the job with a hearty yo-heave-ho. Most of them, before the uproar is over, will actually convince themselves. The winner will be whoever promises the most with the least probability of delivering anything.”

— Thanks to LRC — 

Filed under CMR, Democracy, Economics, Philosophy, Politics

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

August 15, 2016 2 Comments

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

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.

 

Filed under CMR, Politics Tagged with , , , , , ,

Does Progressivism Have a Future?

July 4, 2016 Leave a comment

Probably not. So-called “progressivism” has no guiding principle at all. It is driven by fickle emotions and a worldview that thinks you can have your cake and eat it too. There is no hard limiting factor with which progressives can judge if their frivolous proposals have gone too far. That’s why reasonable people think progressive demands and proposals are getting… progressively more laughable and absurd.

Filed under CMR, Philosophy, Politics Tagged with , ,

Election 2015: How Bad Are the Conservatives?

October 6, 2015 3 Comments

In this series CMR will examine the policy proposals set forth by the top three parties in Canada’s 2015 federal election.

PART I: The NDP
PART II: The Liberals
PART III: The Conservatives (current article)

Obviously these parties are all terrible. So the question is simply this: which party will beat you with the biggest stick?

We will refer to the helpful National Post article “Everything you need to know about the parties’ platforms, from taxes to terrorism to the environment.”

In Part I and Part II, we reviewed the NDP and Liberal platforms. It enough to make any reasonable man fear for Canada. We have saved the current ruling party for last. Can we expect the Conservatives to be any better?

Those who prefer smaller government will usually assume the so-called ‘conservative’ party is the best choice. But the CPC is Canada’s neocon party, so — despite over-the-top proclamations from the opposition during election season –they offer only a different variety of socialism.

The issue then becomes whether the socialism of the Cons will cause less suffering than the socialism of the somwhat more leftist centrists, the Liberals, or the somewhat more radical leftists in the NDP.

The Cons have been leading the government since 2006, and they have had a majority since 2011. In all that time, they haven’t done much that is “conservative”: tax cuts have been cruelly parsimonious and offset by higher and higher spending as well as the overall expansion of Ottawa’s interventionary powers. Just look at the numbers. In 2006, the Conservative’s budget was $220 million of expenditures. In 2015, government spending will be $290 million. Meanwhile, our GDP has gone from $1.3 trillion to $1.8 trillion in that time.

If we are to be charitable, when you think of what we’ve seen around the world post-2008 financial crisis, Harper’s Cons have presided over a government that is growing relatively slowly. The other parties might grow the government at a far more accelerated rate.

Change for the sake of change is not good. We can see that in Alberta. The incumbent party is usually corrupt and lazy but less dangerous than a party aggressively campaigning to bring “change” and “fix things.” Anyone with a modicum of political wisdom knows “fixing things” in political speech translates as “bigger government, more spending, more taxes, more interference.”

So here we go: the Conservative Platform and parts of their record.

Economy, Taxes, and Pocketbook Issues

– Introduced a “family tax cut” that allows couples with children under age 18 to split up to $50,000 of income; caps non-refundable benefit at $2,000.

This is relatively good because it leads to less tax paid. It is somewhat unfair in the sense that it only applies to certain people, while others get nothing. What about couples with no children? What about single people? Relatively good, but every other taxpayer needs more relief as well.

– Increased annual contribution limit for tax-free savings accounts (TFSAs) to $10,000 from $5,500.

The TFSA is a useful tool for getting more tax free investment income. The TFSA is better than the RRSP and here at CMR we are happy it exists. Increasing the contribution limit is good. Too bad they didn’t make the contribution limit even higher, or just eliminate it. Imagine — no tax on investment income! Canada economy would be the envy of the world within two years.

– Increased Universal Child Care Benefit to $160 a month for children under age six, up from $100; added new monthly benefit of $60 for children age six to 17.

We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again: if you are a net taxpayer and you get the Child Care Benefit, it’s just like taking a regular old tax credit and reducing your overall level of taxation. If you are a tax-consumer (like a welfare recipient or an employee of the government), this is just extra welfare. The policy is a mixed bag in the first place, and increasing is kind of here nor there.

– Reduced small-business tax rate to nine per cent from current 11 per cent by 2019; have reduced corporate tax rate from about 22 per cent to 15 per cent.

Very good. They should have cut it further. Even to zero. All corporate taxes should be called “shareholder taxes,” because that’s who pays for them. These corporate and small business taxes are sinister forms of double-dip income taxation and should be abolished.

– Promise to balance the budget this fiscal year.

It appears they have accomplished this. But as we have said before, balancing the budget is only good if balanced by means of spending reductions.

– Increased eligibility age for receiving Old Age Security benefits to 67 from 65.

Probably good overall, since the Old Age Security benefit shouldn’t exist and therefore it would be a good policy to increase the eligibility age to 500. For some, however, it is a way of getting back money that has been previously plundered from them in the form of taxation.

– Are examining ways for Canadians to voluntarily contribute more to the Canada Pension Plan.

The CPP is dreadful but at least the policy under consideration is more voluntary contributions. None of the contributions now are voluntary. A real improvement would be making the entire CPP voluntary — let people opt out if want.

However, putting more money in the CPP is economically harmful, even if it is voluntary. It gives more capital to the government’s portfolio managers, who then allocate vast sums of money with inauthentic investment theses and have a considerable impact on economic activity. The CPP is not a natural institution and giving it more money and power hurts the entire world. It is inherently incapable of making economical investments. Its assets should all handed over to taxpayers.

And… that’s it? That’s the Economy and Taxes part of the Conservatives’ program? Where are the income tax cuts? Where is the elimination of the GST? Where are the brutal cuts to government spending? Maybe they will throw us a bone elsewhere in the platform, but so far this ‘right wing’ and ‘conservative’ party is extremely lame. They clearly are neocons — leftist liberals who crave large government that provides mountains of resources for welfare and warfare.

Security and Terrorism

– Committed Canada to a military mission against ISIL, sending CF-18 fighter jets to Iraq and Syria.

Harper wants to be a War Prime Minister. He regrets that Canada didn’t participate more in the disgraceful Iraq War. He is excited to participate in the noble crusade against the evil Islamic State, as he was eager to participate in the war on Libya (which, by the way, has made that country far worse than before, and directly contributed to the rise of ISIS in the first place).

Putting aside the rather important fact that dropping bombs in civilized areas always kills civilians, in a purely realist sense intervening militarily in this conflict is extremely dumb. ISIS is brutal and vile, but it is not a threat to Canada, and Ottawa has no business forking over our resources to help evil governments in other parts of the world other evil people they don’t like. The only hope for resolution is for regional stakeholders to figure it out. Turkey or Jordan could crush ISIS in a month if they wanted to. No one wants to act decisively though, because they expect the US and its allies to do the dirty work for them. Crowding out local solutions by picking one side and bombing the other will ultimately make things worse, as it always does — like government spending crowds out good investment. Every time the Western military-democracies topple a dictator in the Middle East, the outcome is worse than before. Why can’t we learn?

And now that Russia is intervening to fight against ISIS and anti-Assad rebels in Syria, there is even less imaginable justification for Harper to participate in the intervention there. Russia is making a mistake, but we all need to let them make that mistake.

The war issue is one of Harper’s biggest weaknesses — Liberals and NDP have him beat on this.

– Passed Bill C-51, with broad new powers to the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) to expand surveillance and actively disrupt threats to national security. The bill makes it illegal to promote terrorism; lowers the legal threshold required for police to arrest and detain suspected extremists without charge; and allows more than 100 government entities to exchange Canadians’ confidential information if it is “relevant” to a potential or suspected national security threat.

This bill is an assault on the civil liberties that help protect innocent people from the government’s power and expands the surveillance powers of the state. Bill C-51 is an abomination.

– Committed $292 million over five years to help RCMP, CSIS and the Canada Border Services Agency combat terrorism.

We need to cut the budgets of the RCMP, CSIS, and Canada Border Services Agency, so this is a bad policy.

– Created a new parliamentary police force by integrating the former, separate House and Senate security staffs into the Parliamentary Protective Service, while also committing $39 million in additional funding for operational security measures in the Parliamentary precinct.

Right… just what we need, bigger bureaucracies with more money.

Energy and Environment

– Approved the Enbridge Northern Gateway oilsands pipeline that would run from Alberta to the coast of Kitimat, B.C.; support the proposed TransCanada Energy East project, a west-to-east oil pipeline from Alberta to New Brunswick; support proposed TransCanada Keystone XL oilsands pipeline from Alberta to U.S. Gulf Coast.

Basically they don’t oppose these, which is fine. They should not be opposed so long as the projects respect property rights.

– Committed to reducing Canada’s emissions by 30 per cent below 2005 levels by 2030, largely relying on provincial measures to meet that goal.

This is a dreadful policy and needs to be reexamined. “Carbon emissions” should not be the subject of government policy. Relying on provincial measures is better than having Ottawa dictate everything though.

– Agreed with other G7 nations to move to a low-carbon economy by 2050 and eliminate use of fossil fuels by the end of the century.

A foolhardy and destructive policy, but in a lot of ways these kinds of agreements are meaningless. Just look at Kyoto. We should probably be using MORE carbon in our economy.

Infrastructure and Transport

– $5.3 billion a year, on average, for provincial and municipal infrastructure under the New Building Canada Plan.

This is a terrible policy. Infrastructure spending should be left to the provinces.

– A New Public Transit Fund committing the federal government to spend $250 million in 2017, $500 million in 2018 and $1 billion a year after 2019.

We don’t need everyone in the country subsidizing people who live in big cities. Ottawa should completely stay out of public transit issues.

– $150 million for Canada 150 Community Infrastructure Program to fund community and cultural infrastructure projects across the country as a way to celebrate Canada’s sesquicentennial in 2017.

This makes the CMR editors cry. What a waste of money.

Foreign Affairs and Defense

– Increase Department of National Defence’s budget to three per cent starting in 2017-18, totalling an additional $11.8 billion over 10 years.

I’m afraid that the Department of National Defence’s budget is far too large already ($20 billion). Harper should be cutting the military budget.

– Commit an additional $3.5 billion over five years toward maternal, newborn and child health initiative, on top of $2.8-billion commitment at G8 summit in 2010.

Great, more money for government health care. What a disgrace.

Social Issues

– Beginning in 2017–18, increase annual health funding to provinces to grow in line with nominal GDP, guaranteed to increase three per cent each year (current increases are six per cent annually).

This is a terrible idea, the exact opposite of what is needed. The only way we are going to make health care better in this country is to get Ottawa out of it. We do not need to spend more federal money on health care.

– Retool $2-billion-per-year Labour Market Development Agreements with provinces to reorient training towards needs of employers and job seekers.

So they aren’t going to spend more, they aren’t going to spend less, they are going to “retool.” Well, since the current system basically just pumps money into provincial governments and subsidizes the unemployed, it’s hard to imagine how “retooling” it would make it worse but obviously the policy is awful and this entire program has got to go.

– Provide $65 million over four years, starting in 2016–17, to business and industry associations to allow them to work with post-secondary institutions to better align curricula with needs of employers.

We don’t need to spend government money on this at all. It doesn’t do anything about the problem of government universities churning out economically unproductive graduates.

Democratic Reform and Governance

– Place a moratorium on new Senate appointments in an effort to pressure the provinces to accept reforms to the upper chamber or abolish it.

This seems relatively harmless. It doesn’t matter much. Basically everyone except the Senators think the Senate is dumb.

– Introduce legislation that would require Canadians’ approval in national referendum before first-past-the-post electoral system could be changed.

While we should generally oppose new laws, no one cares about this.

Justice

– NOT decriminalize or legalize possession of marijuana.

The drug war is a complete failure and it should end. It doesn’t matter if marijuana is good or bad. The Conservatives are terrible on this issue.

– Consider Canadian police chiefs’ call for ticketing system for people possessing 30 grams of pot or less.

This is better than putting kidnapping people and putting them in jail, but come on. Just legalize all drugs already. Alcohol is legal and the world hasn’t fallen apart.

– Re-introduce previously tabled legislation to imprison the most brutal criminals for the rest of their natural lives and quickly deport hardcore foreign criminals. Also, to enact an amended version of the government’s previous mandatory-minimum sentencing law for gun crimes, which was struck down as unconstitutional by the Supreme Court of Canada.

Deporting “hardcore” foreign criminals is a good idea. But if we can’t deport a brutal criminal to another country, we should send them to a deserted island or Antartica or the Sahara Desert or some other place where we don’t have to take care of them and they are far away from society. Minimum sentencing laws for gun crimes is a dumb idea, because it creates a greater possibility of disproportionate punishments.

Aboriginal Issues

– Review the 94 recommendations released in June by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which the Tory government established as part of the 2007 Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement.

The 94 recommendations are mostly bad, by the way. But simply “reviewing” them? That sounds fine, it will probably keep a few legislators and bureaucrats out of trouble for 15 minutes.

– Provide $500 million to building and renovating schools on reserves.

The government needs to stop making reserves worse.

– Commit $567 million over five years for Aboriginal people and northerners to help build “stronger communities.”

What? What does this mean? You can be assured when the government starts talking about building “stronger communities,” your communities will soon be less strong. We can all see how Ottawa’s efforts to create strong Aboriginal communities has been such a success so far (cough cough). This policy will inflict more damage on Canada’s aboriginals and northerners.

– Budget promises include $215 to provide skills development and training for aboriginal peoples; $200 million to improve First Nations education and outcomes in schools; and $30.3 million to expand a plan that helps communities create their own land management laws to improve economic development on reserve lands.

Stop. Please stop. Hasn’t Ottawa done enough to hurt First Nations?

Conclusion

Well, that was dreadful. While it has a few policies that help people pay less tax, the Conservative platform is full of economic destruction, while gleefully interfering in insane Middle Eastern civil wars and systematically spying on every Canadian. Truly Harper and his Cons are some of the worst ‘conservatives’ we have ever seen.

Final score:

D-

Filed under CMR, Democracy, Ottawa, Politics, Totalitarian Democracy Tagged with , , , , , ,

Election 2015: How Bad Are The Liberals?

September 2, 2015 4 Comments

In this series CMR will examine the policy proposals set forth by the top three parties in Canada’s 2015 federal election.

PART I: The NDP
PART II: The Liberals (current article)
PART III: The Conservatives

Obviously these parties are all terrible. So the question is simply this: which party will beat you with the biggest stick?

We will refer to the helpful National Post article “Everything you need to know about the parties’ platforms, from taxes to terrorism to the environment.”

In Part I, we looked at the NDP. Their platform is awful, but in all fairness they had a couple of good policies related, including the repeal of Bill C-51 and ending the military campaign against ISIS. On economic issues, they were entirely dreadful other than their teeny tiny tax cut for small business. They earned a score of D-. Let’s see if the Liberals can fare better.

As Canada’s center-left party, one would expect them to be a little less stupid more moderate than the NDP, which is the party of the far left. Practically speaking, they might be closer to the Conservatives (center-right) when it comes to governance.

Economy

– Cut middle-class income-tax bracket to 20.5 per cent from current 22 per cent; create a new tax bracket of 33 per cent for annual incomes of more than $200,000.

Right on, tax cut! For some people, anyway. But it is an incredibly small tax cut. A lousy 1.5%? Come on, Canadians deserve better. Most people won’t even notice this. But they want to increase taxes on the ‘rich’ (though I hesitate to classify someone as rich for earning over $200K per year). This which is politically appealing but does absolutely nothing positive for the economy (it merely shifts money from productive people to the government).

This would probably increase taxation on net, therefore this policy is bad. They should drop the tax increase and keep the tax cut, then at least this policy would be stingy and lame but not bad.

If the Liberals said they were eliminating income tax on anyone in the middle class, then that would be something to get excited about, even if they were increasing taxes on the wealthier brackets. Better yet would be to cut everyone’s taxes.

Heck, even the NDP said they would keep the income tax rates the same! Well, they are probably lying but it’s funny that the NDP is arguably better than the Liberals on federal income taxes.

– Cancel income-splitting for families; party calls it “a $2-billion tax break to the top 15 per cent of Canadians.”

We can say the same thing we said about the NDP wanting to cancel income-splitting: “This would increase the tax burden on any family to which it applies, and is therefore bad. That it applies mostly to the “wealthiest” is true depending on how you define “wealthy,” but it also applies only to those who have someone with whom they can split their income. So it is rather selective and narrow in its tax relief. This is an interesting matter on its own, and of course tax relief for everyone would be better. But regardless of the fairness issue, added tax relief for some is better than added tax relief for none.”

– Introduce a new income-tested, tax-free monthly Canada Child Benefit that would boost payments to all families with children and annual income below $150,000.

As we said in our discussion of the NDP, the Child Tax Benefit is effectively a tax cut to net taxpayers with children, and welfare for net tax-consumers with children. Essentially, this Liberal policy says families with annual income >$150K should pay more. It’s not clear whether lower income folks would get more or less out of the deal versus the status quo.

Overall, this policy is essentially just dumb because it fiddles with something that shouldn’t exist. A better solution would be to just give families income tax cuts. Fiddling around with these tax credits is annoying and a roundabout way to give tax cuts to some and welfare to others. Meanwhile, net taxpayers with no children don’t get squat. The whole Child Benefit system is unfair and stupid.

– Cancel TFSA increase to $10,000, saying it helps well-off Canadians who need it the least.

As we said in our NDP platform review: “The TFSA is one of the only good things the Harper Conservatives have ever done. Reducing the contribution limits means more taxable income and therefore this is an evil NDP policy.” So we can say the same thing here: Evil Liberal policy. Don’t you love the government deciding who is needy and who is not? Plus, not that it should matter, but it’s questionable whether these claims about the TFSA mostly benefiting rich people are true in the first place. Evidence suggests that people at a broad range of income levels benefit from the TFSA.

– Retain tax breaks for small businesses but want to ensure this doesn’t primarily benefit the wealthy.

This doesn’t really mean anything. Small business gets “tax breaks” i.e. lower tax rates if business income is under a certain threshold. Most small business owners are not rich, and even if they were, so what? In small privately held businesses, income flows through to the owner, who gets taxed at his marginal rate. If he is rich, that tax rate is higher.

Side note: You learn a lot about people’s underlying philosophy when they say “less tax” is a “tax break.” In other words, anything less than having 100% of income taxed is a tax break. These disgusting people are basically saying all your income belongs to the state, and anything you are allowed to keep is a “tax break.” Yuck.

– Balance the budget in 2016.

I really hate when politicians say they are going to “balance the budget” and leave out the important part of HOW THEY ARE GOING TO DO THAT. Raising taxes, or cutting spending? Raising taxes is bad and cutting spending is good.

I would argue that if the government is not going to cut spending, running deficits is better than raising taxes, although both are bad. But there is a difference: you really don’t have a choice as to whether you pay taxes or not. You do have a choice about whether you lend the government money. Governments racking up debts is still bad, because it absorbs private capital and pumps it into wasteful government spending, but at least the taxpayer is less directly affected.

– Cancel Conservative plan to increase OAS eligibility age to 67.

Same thing we said about the NDP proposal applies here: “Evaluating this is a little more complicated than most proposals. On the one hand, OAS is welfare for old folks. This involves subsidizing old folks (who tend to have more accumulated wealth) by taxing younger people (who tend to have less accumulated wealth). Taking money from poorer people and giving it to wealthier people is a weird policy. On the other hand, old folks who are/were net taxpayers deserve to get all their money back, so the OAS could be considered on the same terms as taking a tax credit. Overall, the OAS is bad and should just be eliminated, and with that in mind increasing the age limit is probably better because the best result would be increasing the age limit to 1000 so no one could get it.”

– Increase Canada Pension Plan contributions and benefits for Canadians.

No. The CPP is a disgrace to humanity. If people want to put more money into the CPP, I guess that’s their choice, and they should be allowed to do that. In general, however, people should be allowed to opt out of the CPP and take responsibility for their own retirement. The younger generation will be lucky to get anything out of the CPP. Forcing people — at gunpoint, if necessary — to put money into the CPP is a moral and economic atrocity.

Security and Terrorism

 – End the bombing campaign in Iraq and Syria but keep military trainers in Iraq and boost humanitarian aid to help refugees; allow more refugees into the country from Iraq and Syria.

You see, the Liberals start here with something good and then dilute it with something bad. Ending the bombing campaign in Iraq and Syria is a good idea. Entangling ourselves in brutal foreign conflicts is senseless. But the Liberals want to keep military trainers in Iraq — in other words, they want to support one evil faction against another evil faction. The correct choice is actually to not choose an evil faction at all, and stay out.

There should be no humanitarian aid from Ottawa — Canadians should send their own humanitarian aid if they want, and the government should have nothing to do with it. Likewise, dealing with refugees should not be a government issue at all — if people and private organizations want to help refugees by giving them a place to stay and money and such, they should be allowed to do so.

– Make amendments to anti-terrorism Bill C-51 by: limiting the sharing of personal data to 17 government departments and agencies with national security responsibilities; eliminating CSIS’s new power to obtain court warrants to break the law in some cases to disrupt suspected terrorists; adding a three-year sunset provisions on some parts of the law and mandatory parliamentary reviews of the extraordinary security measures.

The Liberals supported C-51, and these amendments are simply a joke. Oh, so personal data will be shared with only 17 departments and agencies with national security responsibilities. (How do we have that many bureaucracies with national security responsibilities? How do we have that many government agencies at all?)

How nice to eliminate CSIS’s power to break the law — after you gave it to them. Give me a break. They routinely break the law anyway so nothing will change without defunding CSIS and prosecuting lawbreakers.

Sunset provisions at least create the possibility that a bad law will go away, so that’s not a terrible idea because laws are virtually never repealed. But notice how politicians only propose sunset provisions on bad laws. Wouldn’t it just be better to not pass the law, and if it’s already passed, just repeal and try again? Don’t say, “Hey, this law is bad but we will keep it for a few years and then decide whether we still want it, By the way, we probably will.”

The NDP, which says they would repeal C-51, has the Liberals and Conservatives beat when it comes to this awful law.

– Create an all-party national security oversight committee to oversee the 17 government departments and agencies with national security responsibilities.

Committees. The solution is always committees. News flash: Committees are dumb and if you think we need more committees you are quite likely also dumb. They are routinely stacked with members favorable to whoever is setting up the committees in the first place, and inevitably create giant reports no one reads then everything just continues as it was, if not worse.

Government oversight doesn’t fix anything. It just changes the way the government wastes money. Furthermore, it usually doesn’t work as intended, because rather than restricting government activity, it tends to add legitimacy to functions that are bad in the first place. It does this by creating the illusion of “checks and balances” while it white washes bad things.

The only way to reign in abusive government agencies is to cut their budgets or get rid of them.

And again: how do we have 17 government departments and agencies with national security responsibilities? That is way too many. The bureaucratic nightmare in dealing with “national security” must be suffocating.

If the Liberals weren’t clueless and/or dishonest, they would be getting rid of agencies rather than setting up committees.

Environment

– Continue to oppose proposed Northern Gateway pipeline; support Energy East and Keystone XL pipelines.

Frankly, the federal government should have no influence whatsoever in the Northern Gateway pipeline, which is an Alberta/BC issue.

It’s nice that they support Energy East and Keystone XL, in the sense that “supporting” means “not opposing.” The government shouldn’t be advocating for special industry projects one way or another. They should let these issues resolve themselves among legitimate stakeholders.

– Put a price on carbon pollution that allows provinces to design their own carbon pricing policies.

This seems contradictory. If you put a price on carbon pollution, you preclude the provinces from deciding how carbon pollution should be priced — or whether it should be priced at all.

Carbon pricing creates a weird managed market that benefits the most richest, most powerful carbon pollution generators and financial institutions while hurting everyone else. This policy is terrible.

– Partner with provinces and territories to establish national emissions-reduction targets.

Sorry, no. There should be no national emissions-reduction targets.

– Invest millions in clean technologies and enhance tax measures to create more green jobs.

No. We should not have the government pouring taxpayer money into politically connected businesses, destroying jobs in some sectors and to subsidize wasteful jobs in other sectors. However, we should not be opposed to cutting taxes, even if only for certain sectors of the economy. Although a tax cut for all industries is better, selective tax cuts are relative improvements. If they want to have “green” companies pay less tax, sure, I can get on board.

– Introduce an environmental review process with more “teeth.”

Virtually all the worst pollution takes place on government land. The problem isn’t an environmental review process that lacks enough “teeth,” but instead the fact that the government allows pollution on its land at all. Government land should be desocialized and laws of tort and trespass should be enforced. Adding more teeth just means a few more boxes need to be checked before the government will let someone dump toxic waste in publicly owned rivers. Ultimately, they are still letting someone pollute.

– Hold First Ministers’ meeting with premiers within 90 days of the Paris UN climate change conference this December to establish a framework for reducing Canada’s carbon footprint.

Canada doesn’t need to reduce its carbon footprint. Like, at all. So establishing a framework for doing so is dumb.

This proposal is completely moronic. Who cares what the climate change conference in Paris says? It is a conference of goons and fools. Reducing our carbon footprint hurts us and helps countries like India and China. We should be trying to increase our carbon footprint, so that we are wealthier and healthier.

– Increase the amount of Canada’s protected marine and coastal areas to five per cent by 2017 and 10 per cent by 2020.

No. All the marine and coastal areas should be desocialized. The end.

– Phase out subsidies for the fossil fuel industry.

Well, yes, absolutely! Now this probably wouldn’t result in any less spending overall, because the subsidies cut from A would just go to B, but in and of itself this is a good policy. The government should not subsidize any industries.

– Along with the U.S. and Mexico, develop a North American clean energy and environmental agreement.

ABSOLUTELY NOT! These kinds of agreement, whether they are ‘free trade’ agreements or ‘environmental’ agreements, result in harmful political integration and a surrender of sovereignty. We have less than 10% the population of the rest of North America. Canada would be surrendering power to other countries that don’t share our values. The agreement would harmonize regulations and benefit the most powerful and politically connected special interests.

Infrastructure and Transport

– Boost infrastructure funding through “alternative sources of capital” such as having large pension funds invest in major infrastructure projects in urban and rural communities.

The details are very fuzzy on what the Liberals intend for this. They have not given any concrete plan. They say they want to entice investment from private pension funds to invest in Canadian infrastructure projects. That could mean all sorts of things. In all fairness, we cannot judge this policy (but it will probably be bad).

– Provide infrastructure funding for affordable housing, public transit, transportation, climate change and “smart cities.”

NO!!! I mean, this is just dreadful. The federal government should not fund any of these things. The fact it extracts money from the provinces, takes a huge cut for itself, and then parcels out the rest based on political influence makes things worse. It would be far better to just cut that part of Ottawa’s budget and leave all infrastructure decisions in the hands of the provinces.

And don’t you shudder to think what happens when the government starts dishing out cash for “smart cities”? Smart to whom? Ottawa? All the stupidest possible public infrastructure fantasies will have their crazy advocates fighting over the federal money that’s up for grabs. Someone please save us.

– Hold a big city mayors’ meeting in Ottawa annually to discuss pressing infrastructure issues facing cities.

This is completely useless. A bunch of big city tax-devouring beggars rack up a big bill on a fancy trip to Ottawa so they can hang around with Justin Trudeau and talk about how much federal money they need, without which their cities will be lousy. Waste of time and money, and surely leading to nothing positive in the future.

Foreign Affairs and Defense

– Make Canada a “world leader” at multinational institutions.

National Post could have left it out of the article. This doesn’t mean anything. I am sure Justin Trudeau would like to give lots of speeches at the United Nations or something, but that doesn’t help anybody.

Realistically speaking, Canada probably shouldn’t even be in most of these “multinational institutions.” They do not represent Canada’s interests and tend to be counterproductive regarding the goals of prosperity and justice throughout the world.

Canada can be a “world leader” by advocating for peace and free markets, and be demonstrating those values to the world with its own domestic policies. This is not what the Liberals are offering.

– Reopen nine Veterans Affairs regional offices closed by the Conservative government.

I understand why this riles people up. The government treats veterans very poorly. But these are fake cuts. Veteran Affairs spends more money in total each year, so even if some regional offices close and a bunch of bureaucrats get fired in one place, the money is being spent elsewhere in Veteran Affairs. Are the veterans better or worse off than before? It’s impossible to say for sure. That is the problem with government spending.

You’d be better off just getting eliminating all tax on military families and getting rid of Veteran Affairs Canada. Any money that Ottawa would otherwise tax and spend would just stay in the provinces and their health care systems could deal with sick and injured people.

– Create a cabinet committee to oversee and manage Canada’s relationship with the United States.

One of the worst ideas I have ever heard.

– Host a new trilateral summit with the United States and Mexico.

No.

Social Issues

– Strengthen the federal government’s role in safeguarding the national health-care system; meet with the premiers on how to improve the system in areas such as wait times, affordability of prescription drugs, and availability of homecare.

What is it with the Liberals and having all these meetings and committees?

Anyway, we really need to rethink our heath care system. We should leave the money in the provinces and let them figure it out. When something is as important as health care, you want your influence to be closer to home. Therefore, the Liberal desire to strengthen Ottawa’s role in “safeguarding” the health care system is the exact opposite direction we should go.

– Restore door-to-door home mail delivery by Canada Post.

Whatever. This basically just subsidizes Amazon. Mail delivery should be entirely privatized.

– Reinstate the long-form census and make Statistics Canada independent.

The long-form census is ridiculous and it’s insane that some think the government should threaten people with imprisonment if they don’t want to fill it out. What is wrong with people?

Democratic Reform and Governance

– Introduce changes to strengthen the Access to Information system and ensure this applies to the Prime Minister’s Office and ministers’ offices.

Supposedly they want to make all government data open by default otherwise the government must provide written response in 30 days blah blah blah. I think the people should have access to all the government’s data without restriction, but I don’t necessarily think the Liberals would help with this. The changes to the Access to Information Act, written by government lawyers, would probably just add more ways to avoid producing information.

Government agencies have secrets because they exist. You wouldn’t care about the Access to Information Act if the government didn’t have so much power.

– Create a quarterly, more detailed parliamentary expense report, and open up the secretive House of Commons Board of Internal Economy.

Theoretically we could get some entertainment and scandals out of this. Ultimately it wouldn’t matter much. So Ottawa would hire a few more bureaucrats to provide more detailed accounting of how parliament wastes money. Big deal. Why don’t we just… cut their budgets? Members of Parliament shouldn’t even get a salary.

– Create a non-partisan, independent process for advising the prime minister on Senate appointments.

Lame. No one cares. No one likes the Senate.

– Allow more time for questions and answers during question period, and introduce a prime minister’s question period.

Might occasionally be good for theatre, but otherwise has no meaningful impact on anything. The money will still be spent. At best it might slow things down — fewer laws, fewer ways to hurt Canadians. That would be good.

– Ban partisan government ads and appoint an Advertising Commissioner to help the Auditor General provide oversight on government advertising.

Lame. Why can’t we just ban all government advertising?

– Revamp the electoral process by eliminating the first-past-the-post voting system; will study measures such as ranked ballots, proportional representation, mandatory voting, and online voting.

All of the different electoral approaches to democratic majoritarianism are varieties of bad, and I’m not sure how they would rank. But one thing is for sure — mandatory voting is evil. Threatening people with fines and violence if they don’t pick one gangs of jerks or another is just cruel. The Liberals are evil just for considering mandatory voting. If anything, the ability to vote needs to be restricted. Anyone who works for the government or gets the majority of their income from the government should be prohibited from voting.

Justice

– Legalize pot and allow it to be sold – and taxed – in approved outlets. Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau says he expects people would not be allowed to buy the drug until they turn 18 or 19, depending on the province in which they live.

This is an improvement over the status quo. Putting sin taxes on it and allowing only “approved outlets” are bad ideas but this would lead to fewer injustices related to the drug war. The drug war is a complete failure. Surely the money would be spent elsewhere, maybe just allocating more resources to other parts of the drug war. Nonetheless, this would probably result in less state aggression against people overall.

  – Consider reviewing mandatory minimum sentences.

Depends on the crime, I guess.

– Require judicial nominees to the Supreme Court of Canada to speak both official languages.

Yawn. No one cares.

Aboriginal Issues

– Rebuild the relationship between aboriginal and non-aboriginal Canadians.

This doesn’t tell us anything. There is only one right way to do this: abolish the Department of Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development, and desocialize all First Nations, Inuit, and Metis land.

– Call a national inquiry into murdered and missing aboriginal women.

Inquiries, committees, meetings…

– Implement all 94 recommendations from Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

Has anyone read all of these? Mostly they just feed into the problem — demanding meaningless gestures, money, and more interference from the Canadian state, which has done such damage to the indigenous Canadians. They should be demanding freedom. They should be trying to get the federal government out of their lives completely.

– Create more transparency and accountability with First Nations; pass legislation in consultation with First Nations people on implementing the reforms.

– Provide stable, predictable funding for First Nations education to close the “unacceptable gap” in learning outcomes for First Nations students.

With funding comes control. More federal control over First Nations. This is more the same. First Nations need sovereignty and property rights, not more ‘help’ from Ottawa.

Conclusion

That was quite the slog. After all that, there can be no doubt the Liberal Party’s platform is genuinely wretched — a tissue of economic stupidity and amazingly pointless proposals. Their tax cuts are pathetic. You wouldn’t even notice. They definitely want to increase taxes and the burden of government in various ways. The aboriginal policies were a joke. Overall the Liberals only had a few things that were actually good, particularly their scaling down of the drug war and not bombing countries that haven’t attacked us.

Compared to the NDP, the Liberals had more completely pointless proposals and they seem to like committees a lot more. Both are dedicated to economically disastrous climate change issues and neither will do anything to make Canada better overall. The NDP was definitely better on C-51, but worse on the drug war.

Overall score:

D-

Next time: We look at the platform of the ruling party — the Conservatives! You know it will be awful, but can they score higher than the NDP or Liberals? 

Filed under CMR, Ottawa, Politics, Totalitarian Democracy Tagged with , , , , , , , , , ,

Election 2015: How Bad Is the NDP?

August 26, 2015 4 Comments

In this series CMR will examine the policy proposals set forth by the top three parties in Canada’s 2015 federal election.

PART I: The NDP (current article)
PART II: The Liberals
PART III: The Conservatives

Obviously these parties are all terrible. So the question is simply this: which party will beat you with the biggest stick?

We will refer to the helpful National Post article “Everything you need to know about the parties’ platforms, from taxes to terrorism to the environment.”

In Part I, we will look at the NDP.

We know all the platforms are going to be bad, but intuitively any free market supporter will expect this one to be the worst. We shall see.

Economy

– Balance the budget in 2016.

This is meaningless unless we know how they will balance the budget. Cut spending? This would be good, but unlikely. Raise revenue by increasing taxation, fees, and other forms of plunder? This would be bad. Since it’s the NDP, we can safely assume the latter is more likely.

– Not raise personal income-tax rates.

Well that’s ‘nice’, but a personal income tax cut be better. Still, it’s a pleasant surprise that they don’t want to hike taxes on “the rich.”

– Cancel government’s income-splitting policy for families; says it helps only wealthiest 15 per cent.

This would increase the tax burden on any family to which it applies, and is therefore bad. That it applies mostly to the “wealthiest” is true depending on how you define “wealthy,” but it also applies only to those who have someone with whom they can split their income. So it is rather selective and narrow in its tax relief. This is an interesting matter on its own, and of course tax relief for everyone would be better. But regardless of the fairness issue, added tax relief for some is better than added tax relief for none.

– Reverse changes to TFSA contribution limits; says higher amount helps the wealthy and does little for middle-class Canadians.

The TFSA is one of the only good things the Harper Conservatives have ever done. Reducing the contribution limits means more taxable income and therefore this is an evil NDP policy.

– Increase income-tax rates on Canada’s largest corporations to about the levels that existed before the Conservatives took office.

After the income tax, the corporate tax is probably the dumbest tax possible. It should be eliminated, not raised. Shareholders own corporations. Shareholders are paying the tax. The NDP wants to increase taxes on shareholders of Canada’s largest corporations. Due to the way many people and pension plans invest, this applies to a huge portion of Canadians.

– Cut small-business tax rate to nine per cent from current 11 per cent.

Tax cuts are good. But let’s be serious here: going from 11 to 9 percent is extremely ungenerous. Why don’t they just say “no more corporate income tax on small businesses”? That would significantly change economic behavior and the economy would get a large boost of productivity and job growth.

This NDP proposal reveals a certain cluelessness about how the business world works, which is unsurprising when it comes to the NDP. Most small businesses (less than $500,000 income) having earnings less than $100,000 per year. Most have less than $100,000 in revenues each year. This tax cut amounts to peanuts for a lot of businesses and will rarely make or break hiring decisions.

Furthermore, accountants prepare tax returns with the objective of minimizing the tax of the corporation. Most small businesses companies are “flow-through entities”, meaning it is well understood by tax professionals and the tax collectors that the corporation will minimize its tax, and earnings will “flow through” to the private owner, who is taxed for personal income. So the businesses targeted by this tax cut don’t pay much tax anyway and it really wouldn’t make a whole lot of difference.

But a tax cut is a tax cut, so this is actually good.

– Honour the expanded Universal Child Care Benefit.

This benefit is a mixed bag. For families that are net taxpayers, it amounts to a reduction of tax burden and is therefore good. For families that are net taxconsumers, it amounts to a form of welfare where people with no children are forced to subsidize people with children. This is unfair.

– Create $15-a-day national child care program, and create or maintain one million affordable child care spaces across Canada.

This is really bad. This is a huge tax on people with no children and a huge subsidy to people with children. That is unfair. It is also a huge boon to the the crony capitalists of the child care industry.

A better way to deal with the high prices of child care services would be to remove all associated regulations, licensing, and taxation. Quality and supply of child care would soar.

And what exactly should this national child care program consist of? Because it’s a government program, this will be decided by those with the most political influence — and that will never be the average parent.

– Cancel Conservative decision to increase OAS eligibility age to 67.

Evaluating this is a little more complicated than most proposals. On the one hand, OAS is welfare for old folks. This involves subsidizing old folks (who tend to have more accumulated wealth) by taxing younger people (who tend to have less accumulated wealth). Taking money from poorer people and giving it to wealthier people is a weird policy. On the other hand, old folks who are/were net taxpayers deserve to get all their money back, so the OAS could be considered on the same terms as taking a tax credit. Overall, the OAS is bad and should just be eliminated, and with that in mind increasing the age limit is probably better because the best result would be increasing the age limit to 1000 so no one could get it.

– Increase Canada Pension Plan contributions and benefits for Canadians.

The NDP makes these increased contributions sound compulsory, so that is bad. People should be able to opt out of CPP if they want.

Terrorism, War, and National Security

– End the bombing campaign and pull out all military personnel from Iraq and Syria; boost humanitarian aid to help refugees affected by ISIL as well as investigate and prosecute war crimes.

This is mostly good, as Canada’s role in the war against the Islamic State / ISIL / ISIS should end at immediately. No bombs, no troops, no military support for other countries participating in the conflict. It is a regional conflict between bitter enemies and all outside intervention is merely aggrandizing the situation. ISIS is no threat to our national security. It is certainly no “existential threat” as Harper says, and it is just delusional paranoia to think otherwise. ISIS is a small ragtag army with a few hardcore jihadi veterans and the rest is a bunch of losers. They have no navy, no air force, and they probably can’t even fix their sweet new Toyotas if they break down. This isn’t Nazi Germany or Soviet Russia, people.

However, the federal government should not provide humanitarian aid or help refugees or prosecute war crimes in other countries. It should not prevent Canadians from aiding in any way they see fit, whether that means letting refugees into their homes, sending aid overseas, or traveling to conflict zones to help directly. The government has no business bringing foreigners into the country and giving them welfare.

– Repeal Bill C-51, the anti-terrorism act.

This is a good policy. Bill C-51 is a dangerous law representing an aggressive attack on free speech, habeas corpus, privacy, and other features of the rule of law and civil liberties. All in the name of “security”, of course. It is premised on the bogus “War on Terror” so that automatically makes it awful. Realistically, the government doesn’t need more laws to catch bad guys, and C-51 just removes restrictions that make it harder for the government to punish innocent people.

– Provide more independent review of Canada’s national security agencies.

Independent review is meaningless, because anything in which the government is involved is political. The only way to limit the power of national security agencies is to cut their budgets or simply eliminate them. These proposals about having “better oversight” are useless.

– Support a counter-radicalization program.

I have been unable to find any clarity about that this means, but it is probably something stupid. Does it mean the government interfering with certain religious institutions, or institutions with unsavory political views, or crazy websites?

Actually, it probably involves more welfare to certain people, because there is a silly leftist-liberal notion that if you give people enough money and help from the government they won’t want to become terrorists.

Despite lack of details, it seems impossible that this policy wouldn’t be dumb,

The Environment

– Continue opposing the Northern Gateway pipeline; it initially supported concept of west-east pipeline, but says Energy East can’t be approved without more stringent environmental review process; opposes Keystone XL pipeline.

Why does the NDP have to be so full of jerks? The Northern Gateway pipeline issue can be settled entirely between BC and Alberta — you know, the provinces actually touched by the pipeline route. There is no reason for Ottawa to have a say in the process at all.

Likewise for Energy East. The route touches six provinces and it can be sorted out between those provinces. There is no justification for Ottawa to impose more stringent environmental regulations when the provinces affected can handle that themselves.

One might contend that the Keystone XL pipeline is different because it goes to another country, but international borders are economically arbitrary and there is no justification for Ottawa to interfere here either. The Keystone XL pipeline really has nothing to do with Ottawa at all. It’s Alberta’s oil and the route only touches Alberta and a handful of American states. It should be an issue settled between Albertan and American property owners and the pipeline company.

Ottawa has no business either supporting or opposing any of these pipeline projects. The right choice is simply to decentralize the whole issue. The NDP is terrible on this issue.

– Create a cap-and-trade system with a market price on carbon emissions; revenue from cap-and-trade would be invested in a greener energy sector in regions where dollars are generated.

Horrible. Tax industries the NDP doesn’t like and subsidize politically-connected cronies in industries that the NDP does like. It would encourage people to shift resources out of productive sectors that are being taxed into nonproductive sectors that are being subsidized. This is one of the NDP’s worst policies so far.

– Work with provinces to create a new fund to help Canadians retrofit their homes and offices to save energy and money.

This is a subsidy to people who own homes and office buildings, which tend to be wealthier people. This would be paid for by people who don’t own homes or office buildings. This is a pathetic transfer of wealth from poorer people to wealthier people. Stupid and evil.

– Redirect $1 billion a year from fossil fuel subsidies to investment in the clean energy sector.

The government should not subsidize fossil fuels and it should not subsidize the clean energy sector. The government should simply eliminate the subsidies and let different forms of energy production be determined on their own merits.

– Invest in Sustainable Development Technology Canada – including wind, hydro, solar and geothermal technologies – to create thousands of new jobs for Canadians.

This is truly awful. What does “invest in Sustainable Development Technology Canada” mean? It means subsidizing what the government considers be worthy, so crony capitalism.

And here is a critical point: this doesn’t create jobs! The government has no resources of its own. To spend money to generate jobs in one sector, the government must take money from another sector, thus destroying jobs. This policy would actually leave the country poorer, giving us fewer real productive jobs, and more unproductive jobs. Again, this would encourage people to shift resources out of productive sectors that are being taxed into nonproductive sectors that are being subsidized. Just awful.

Infrastructure and Transport

– Dedicate an additional one cent of the existing 10-cents-per-litre federal gas tax to roads, bridges and other core infrastructure, reaching an additional $1.5-billion annually by the end of an NDP government’s first mandate, on top of almost $2.2 billion in existing annual gas tax transfers to municipalities.

This is a slight improvement all in all. It is better for the province to keep a bit of the money rather than having it all go to Ottawa. If the NDP were serious about their desire to help communities fix their infrastructure, they would just eliminate the federal gas tax completely and have that money stay in those communities. There is no reason why drivers in Nova Scotia should subsidize bridges in British Columbia or vice versa.

– Develop a better transit plan with the provinces and territories and invest $1.3 billion annually over next 20 years for predictable and stable public transit funding for municipalities.

A subsidy to public transit, which only benefits places with public transit. Why should people in rural Saskatchewan subsidize Toronto’s subway system, with Ottawa taking a big cut? Only a real jerk would support this.

Foreign Affairs and Defense

– Increase Canada’s foreign aid to 0.7 per cent of gross national income, or GNI (Canada currently spends 0.24 per cent of GNI on foreign aid).

Foreign aid? FOREIGN AID!? This tends to be the most unpopular form of government spending across the political spectrum, and the NDP wants to increase it? Nay, nearly triple it! Let’s not forget that foreign aid takes money from people in this country, and gives it to corrupt foreign governments that use the money to enrich themselves and their friends. Maybe the lowly people who need help will get a few pennies on the dollar, if they’re lucky. Also, foreign aid frequently comes with the stipulation it be spent on Canadian products, which amounts to a roundabout subsidy to certain politically favored big business.

This proposal is unbelievably stupid. The NDP should be embarrassed over how stupid this policy is.

– Reopen the nine Veterans Affairs regional offices closed by the Conservative government.

The Cons merely shifted resources around. It’s six of one thing or half a dozen of another. This is a non-issue. Veteran Affairs Canada should just be closed down completely, and veterans should automatically be exempt from all forms of taxation.

Social Issues

– Restore the six-per-cent annual increase to health-care transfers to the provinces.

The health care budget should be reduced every year, so this is a step in the wrong direction.

– Restore door-to-door home mail delivery by Canada Post for households that lost it under Conservative government.

This is a social issue? But no, the government should not decide how mail should be delivered. Canada Post should be privatized, all legal restrictions for private mail carriers should be eliminated, and the market should decide how mail will be delivered.

– Reinstate the mandatory long-form census, which the government replaced with the voluntary National Household Survey.

In other words, the government should force people to waste their time providing information that helps the government control their lives better — at gunpoint, if necessary. The long-form census is a disgrace to humanity and should never be reinstated. The short-form census should be completely voluntary.

Democratic Reform and Governance

– Replace the current first-past-the-post electoral system with a mixed member proportional system, which combines proportional representation of parties in House of Commons with direct election of MP in each riding.

Pointless fiddling with the broken system called democracy, and arguably this makes things worse by rewarding more populous provinces with more political influences.

– Abolish the Senate (which requires constitutional talks with the provinces).

Sure, everyone wants to abolish the Senate (except the senators). I don’t think this is a serious proposal, however.

– Strengthen the mandate and independence of the Parliamentary Budget Officer and make the position an Officer of Parliament.

This is pointless and no one cares.

Justice

– Immediately decriminalize marijuana, where users aren’t criminally prosecuted so nobody goes to jail for smoking a joint; party is open to considering legalization, but is calling for a commission to consult Canadians and instruct Parliament on how to carefully regulate non-medical use.

Decriminalizing drug use is an improvement, but it preserves the black market and seemingly all laws about selling drugs. The war on drugs is a stupid failure and there is no reason to continue it.

Setting up a commission is a waste of time that will produce a giant report that no one will ever read. Marijuana should just be legalized without a fuss, along with every other drug, and no regulation or taxation at all.

– Introduce legislation demanding Supreme Court of Canada justices be bilingual.

Bilingualism is a bad government policy and this is a dumb proposal. Basically they are saying all the Supreme Court of Canada justices should be from Eastern Canada.

– Strengthen laws to keep drunk drivers off of streets.

They actually don’t need to strengthen any laws or create any new laws for this. They just need to enforce laws about injuring people or killing people or destroying property. As any drunk driving lawyer will tell you, the current system entails a perverse situation where the best way to kill someone and get a light punishment is to get drunk and hit them with your car.  Therefore, this is a bad proposal.

Aboriginal Issues

– Call a national inquiry into murdered and missing aboriginal women, and act on other recommendations from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

The high rate of homicide against Aboriginal women is awful (4.5x higher than other Canadian women), but a national inquiry doesn’t help the situation at all. It’s just a big waste of time and money.

Crimes should be investigated and evildoers should be prosecuted and punished. That’s it. The problem is that the RCMP apparently does a lousy job investigating crimes. What else is new? A national inquiry into the “social context”of murdered Aboriginal women doesn’t help that situation at all, because the RCMP is inherently inefficient.

If you really want “social context” regarding Aboriginal women and homicide, consider this: the government has done incredible damage to the indigenous people of Canada with its bureaucratic, Soviet-style rulership of this political sub-class. Aboriginals are subject to the most socialistic treatment of any Canadians, and unsurprisingly the consequences have been social dysfunction. We actually saw the same pattern in Soviet Russia. When you deny people their most basic, fundamental rights to property and make the state in charge of taking care of them, the result tends to be greater levels of dysfunction such as alcoholism and drug abuse, vagrancy, idleness, illegitimacy, promiscuity, criminal behavior, suicide, and wife-murdering or girlfriend-murdering. Maybe if the government gave some respect to aboriginal property rights their situation would start to turn around. Instead, it is content to maintain the status quo where the Crown owns all native land, and it is administered through a huge, inept bureaucracy and Soviet-like band councils.

– Reduce poverty, improve educational outcomes and increase opportunities for First Nations, Inuit and Métis communities across Canada.

If the NDP really wanted to do this they would abolish the Department of Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development. We know they aren’t going to do that. Instead, this implies spending more money on a failed system and hurting First Nations, Inuit, and Métis even more. Hasn’t the government done enough to these people? Why does the NDP hate them so much?

– Create a cabinet committee, chaired by the prime minister, to ensure federal government decisions respect treaty rights and Canada’s international obligations.

No. Just… no. Abolish Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development.  Let aboriginals actually own their land and homestead land currently owned by the Canadian state. Recognize the property rights of aboriginals. Anything else is a waste of time.

One can only infer that the NDP hates the aboriginal people of Canada.

Conclusion

The NDP platform is mostly full of dreadful policies that will make Canada worse. However, to their credit, they have a few policies that are relatively good.

Overal score:

D-

Next time: CMR will look at the Liberal Party’s platform. 

Filed under CMR, Economics, Politics Tagged with , , , , , ,

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