Ignatieff proposes wrong solution to economic problems

Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff correctly identifies consumer debt as an ongoing problem in the Canadian economy. Sadly he seems to misunderstand why systemic debt is so dangerous. Consumer debt is not a problem because it will reduce consumption, which only matters if you buy into the nonsensical Keynesian idea of the paradox of thrift. The true danger is if consumers (also known as people) don’t reduce their personal debt.

The fact that debt levels are so high in Canada suggests that the current level of consumption is not sustainable. Borrowing to consume doesn’t increase spending power, it merely redistributes future spending power to the present. The value then of borrowing for consumption is nil. Actually it is worse than nil because interest will have to be paid on the loan.

This should be explained to Mr. Ignatieff as he touts further government spending as a way to increase consumption and avoid another economic downturn. Putting aside the fact that there is zero evidence to support his hunch that the recovery is not stable, Mr. Ignatieff is offering the worse possible solution. More government spending would increase government debt, and government debt is differed taxes from the perspective of the taxpayer/consumer/individual. Ultimately it would mean an increase to the tax burden, and, ironically, a resulting drop in consumption.

Mr. Ignatieff seems to be confused about how he would fund a future ‘stimulus package.’ He says that the government’s planned cuts in corporate taxes will reduce the capacity of the government to ‘respond’ to a recession. Yet at the same time he has already committed his hypothetical government to new spending predicated on those taxes not being cut. So wouldn’t that new spending also reduce the government’s ability to ‘stimulate?’ Where exactly would the Ignatieff government get the money?

All that new government spending will do is increase the amount of debt in Canada.

And as Michael Ignatieff himself says, it is the debt that we should be worried about.

Obviously you can't trust voluntary surveys

The Globe and Mail is reporting on a survey that shows that 76% of polled economists think that the long-form census should remain mandatory. An interesting number to be sure, but unfortunately the survey is completely unreliable.

You see, no one threatened anyone with fines or confinement to fill out this survey. If no one was under physical threat than how can we possibly trust the results?

I call upon the government to institute a mandatory survey of economists and their opinion on the census. It is only then that we will get to the truth of the matter.

Putting tyranny in perspective

Lots of people are talking today about the comments made by Joyce Murray. So I thought I would post this link to put the whole tyranny thing in perspective.

Affirmative Action is Racist

The government has announced a review of affirmative action in the Canadian government’s hiring practice. Minister Stockwell Day implies that hiring someone on the basis of their ethnic background is racist. This is one of the rare occasions when I can completely agree with Mr. Day. Affirmative action is fundamentally racist.

Unsurprisingly NDP MP Pat Martin disagrees. He seems to think that discriminatory practises are somehow not discriminatory:

“I don't think they can make a case that white, middle-class people are being denied access to public service jobs, or that there's any preference shown.”

I not only think that such a case can be made, I think that making it would be extremely simple. To do so I will use an example that has been recently provided by Blogging Tory Sara Landriault.

Ms. Landriault posted the requirements of a job for a position in the Federal government:

Applicants must meet at least the first requirement:

* Open to: Members of the following Employment Equity groups: Aboriginal persons, visible minorities

* Persons residing in Canada and Canadian citizens residing abroad.

It then went on to define what a ‘visible minority’ is:

A person in a visible minority group is someone (other than an Aboriginal person as defined above) who is non-white in colour/race, regardless of place of birth. The visible minority group includes: Black, Chinese, Filipino, Japanese, Korean, South Asian-East Indian (including Indian from India; Bangladeshi; Pakistani; East Indian from Guyana, Trinidad, East Africa; etc.), Southeast Asian (including Burmese; Cambodian; Laotian; Thai; Vietnamese; etc.) non-white West Asian, North African or Arab (including Egyptian; Libyan; Lebanese; etc.), non-white Latin American (including indigenous persons from Central and South America, etc.), person of mixed origin (with one parent in one of the visible minority groups listed above), other visible minority group.

This is a government job that is open to anyone except for someone of a particular ethnic background. Just because it doesn’t explicitly say “no whites need apply” doesn’t mean that this isn’t what the government is saying.

So Mr. Martin please explain to me how exactly white people aren’t being denied access to public service jobs?

Harper the Tyrant

Liberal MP Joyce Murray had an interesting take on the census debate:

A Liberal MP from Vancouver has said the Conservative government’s move to scrap the mandatory long-form census and make it voluntary is “definitely part of a pattern that is very bad for democracy and bad for Canada”.

“This is also part of the pattern of trying to control the independent agencies and offices of Parliament that are the oversight to government and are a very important part of our democracy,” Joyce Murray, the MP for Vancouver Quadra, told the Straight by phone today (July 22). “Having those neutral agencies and voices to be able to speak to Canadians is a very important [part of] governance. And that is what separates a government from a tyranny.”

Independent agencies are what fundamentally separate a good government from a tyrannical government, really? It isn’t civil liberties, free speech, or property rights. The most important feature of good government is independent agencies? Are you kidding me?

Oh don’t get me wrong, there is certainly merit to having certain functions of government out of reach of a politician’s control. Offices of Parliament are also most important when they are able to operate independently of any influence of a political party. Yet to say that these are features that distinguish Canada from a North Korea is an exaggeration that does nothing but make Ms. Murray look absurd.

Ms. Murray looks even more ridiculous when you consider that Stats Canada is not an independent agency of Parliament or any other government body. It is part of the portfolio of Minister Tony Clement and the Minister has responsibility for the actions and policy of Stats Canada. Mr. Clement made a policy decision that was completely within his rights to make. To argue that the census reform is undue interference with Stats Canada would be like arguing that ordering a deployment is undue interference with the military.

The very basis of Westminster democracy is Ministerial responsibility, but apparently for Joyce Murray this is tyranny.

In support of giving Louis Riel a pardon

The National Post yesterday accused Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff of historical revisionism when it comes to Louis Riel. Mr. Ignatieff has recently announced that he is a supporter of the movement to give the 19th century western rebel a pardon for his conviction of treason. The Post thinks that this is mere pandering and that Mr. Ignatieff is either ignorant or intellectually dishonest. The Post’s article, on the other hand, reads like a propaganda speech by Dalton McCarthy, the anti-Catholic politician and contemporary of Louis Riel. There is a complete lack of balance displayed in the historical perspective of the National Post.

The grossest mischaracterization of Louis Riel and his rebellions came in this sentence:

Riel had also attempted to unfairly distort the land-claims process in order that his own Métis people might receive the majority of land being offered by Ottawa to native people.

No one was trying to distort anything, except for the federal government. The Métis people had settled the land in what is modern day Saskatchewan. They had cleared it with their own hands and they relied on the food that it produced for their survival. Then the federal government came to ‘survey’ the land and assign block allotments to settlers.

That is to say, the government was stealing their land.

And this is not just an abstract idea of the value of property rights. The federal government was threatening the survival of the community and causing starvation. The North-West Rebellion was a desperate act of self defence.

No one can claim that the Métis and other natives didn’t try other means than violence to resist the government. Native leader Chief Big Bear and others spent a decade petitioning the government and peacefully protesting their treatment. They were completely ignored by the political establishment in Ottawa. What choice was left them?

As much as we all deplore violence, we must remember the context of that violence.

The National Post also brings up the murder of Thomas Scott. This murder took place during the Red River Rebellion, and all participants in that rebellion received an amnesty. This amnesty included killing Thomas Scott. So as much as the National Post would like to resurrect the ghost of the dubious Thomas Scott, it is unjust to offer amnesty one year and then execution the next. If he was executed for the murder of Thomas Scott, it was an unjust conviction.

The primary issue of Riel’s trial, however, was not Thomas Scott but the more recent history of the North-West Rebellion. It was certainly a crime for Reil and his followers to take up arms against the government, but it was a crime against tyranny. Usually Canadians, as a freedom loving people, celebrate such a crime.

I will conclude with the words of Wilfrid Laurier:

His whole crime and the crime of his friends, was that they wanted to be treated like British subjects and not to be bartered away like common cattle. If that be an act of rebellion, where is the one amongst us who if he had happened to have been with them would not have been rebels as they were?

Jedi Knights for force in the census

The Western Standard is reporting that the Jedi Church of Canada has mobilized to defend the use of force. Personally I agree with the Western Standard, the force is not justified in the census. It doesn't matter if the force is of the light side or the dark side, it has no place with the census.

One month hiatus

July is going to be a busy month for me. All my energy is going to be used up working on my MSc dissertation. So that I don't allow myself to be distracted, I'm announcing the hiatus of this blog for the month of July.

Please check back again in August.