Ezra Levant on Sun TV

Oh wow...interesting intro...



I love his expressions

A better Liberal advert

This is a much better advert than the first one I watched. It pulls the heartstrings in a way that I think is disgusting but would likely appeal to a lot of people.



My girlfriend's comment was "I would like to see Ayn Rand through a fit after seeing that." And in that spirit I would like to ask, your government should be there at the cost of who?

Liberal advert is a mistake

This Liberal Advert is a strategic error. You should never address your oponents arguments in this way. You communicate your own ideas and hope that you can talk louder than the other person. That may not sound like a proper debate (it isn't) but it is the way that mass communication works.

NDP Policy: no more corporate welfare...ugh wait a minute

In a move that has completely startled me, Jack Layton leader of the NDP has come out against corporate welfare. He has vowed to end the billions of corporate handouts and subsidies that make a mockery of the market system. If there is a NDP government, no more will the leaching rent seeking monopolists use the state to steal away money that they could not earn honestly.

Or so I assumed from reading this quote:

“As prime minister, I wouldn’t use your hard earned tax dollars to reward companies that ship jobs to the States or overseas,”

After reading the rest of the article it slowly dawned on me that Mr. Layton wasn’t talking about corporate welfare he was talking about tax cuts. A tax cut is not an award it is less of a punishment. On the other hand auto-industry bailouts were clearly an award for screwing up.

So why don’t the NDP go after the real handouts instead of complaining about lower taxes?

The answer is that in the collective mind of the NDP (they would be collective wouldn’t they?) state=good. Any policy that involves more state activity is good. Any policy that involves less state activity is bad. It doesn’t matter if the policy helps the big evil banks and corporations or if they help anybody else. A good policy is defined as how much bigger it makes government.

Forfeiture Funds: Truth and Justice versus Georgia State

Elizabeth May does not belong in the leader's debate

The Broadcast Consortium that organizes leader’s debates during elections have decided to exclude the Green Party but just as last time Elizabeth May (Green Party leader) is vigorously lobbying for a reversal. She criticizes the Consortium for having a lack of standards and making arbitrary decisions. Though I disagree that the Green Party should be in the debate, I think that this critique of the Consortium is a fair one. They need an objective measure on which to base their decisions. The goal of any objective measure would be to only include the parties that are relevant to law making in the Federal Parliament.

To justify the goal of relevance I will cite the 2008 leader’s debate. It was generally suspected that Ms. May was unlikely to have an impact on policy in the next election. As a result she was a distraction. There is a limited amount of time for leaders to make their arguments and including Ms. May meant that there was even less time for them to do it. That would have been fine if Ms. May’s thoughts on public policy were likely to influence legislation, but they weren’t so it wasn’t.

By the way, the goal of relevance justifies the BQ being in the English debate. As the third largest party (and likely to be the third largest party again) the opinion of the BQ can have an important influence on legislation and so the BQ leader’s opinion could affect our lives. Anglophone voters in Quebec need to hear what the BQ has to offer and Canadians in the rest of Canada should be paying attention as well.

Of course a criticism of my goal of relevance would be that parties like the Green Party will never have a chance to be relevant if they are not included in the leader’s debate. This is simply historically not true. The BQ and the Reform Party were not included in the debate before their breakthrough, yet they were able to win a considerable amount of seats. The leader’s debate is not the sole venue for political parties to engage the public or other parties. The fact that Elizabeth May is able to get coverage without having ever been elected is evidence of that.

So how do we measure the likelihood that a political party would be relevant?

A minimum percentage of support in the polls is not adequate. Polling data is not always accurate, the numbers are constantly changing, and some polls are contradictory. Even if an average of polls were used as a deciding factor it would be difficult to pick when exactly the average should be taken. Should it be an average of all the polls in the election or an average of the polls released the week before the debate?

An alternative, if you want to use popular support as the criteria, would be to use the previous election result. However, popular support does not equate legislative clout in our electoral system and so popular support is not a good indicator of relevance.

The other criterion that is commonly proposed is: if the party has a seat in the House. This fits the relevance goal much better, but still it is faulty. Should a single seat be enough? One MP (or Senator) is not really enough to have an impact on debate in Parliament. Besides if that was the only criteria than Helena Guergis should be allowed in the debate (and wouldn’t that be fun). So the question arises, how many MPs or Senators must a party have before they are considered to have clout in Parliament?

Fortunately that questioned is already answered. The Parliament of Canada has set a threshold on the number of MPs required before they would be recognized as a political party by Parliament (last time I looked that number was 12). This can easily and logically serve as the criteria for the leader’s debate:

Any leader of a political party that is recognized within the Parliament of Canada should be invited to participate in the leader’s debate.

NDP Policy: the fatal conceit in interest rates

So far in this election I have been critical of both the Conservative’s and the Liberal’s first policy planks. The NDP, however, win the worst first policy award. Congratulations to the NDP!

The NDP are proposing that the federal government introduces a price control on credit card loans. More specifically the NDP want a cap on the interest rates that credit cards can charge. They also want to empower government employees to decide when banks are charging “excessive” interest. I am left wondering on what basis the government can make a judgment on what is the appropriate interest rate.

To those that are unfamiliar with F.A. Hayek’s Fatal Conceit, allow me to briefly explain the importance of price signals. In society we as individuals cannot possible know enough to always make the right economic decision, even if we are perfectly rational. A lot of the needed knowledge is too dispersed or difficult to communicate to reach the average individual. Price signals make up for this problem by making an incentive for people to behave as if they had the needed knowledge.

For example, if I go to a grocery store and notice that apples are suddenly much more expensive I will consume fewer apples. I don’t need to know that apples have become scarcer because of a draught somewhere. All I need to know is that apples are more expensive and I will consume less of the suddenly scarce apples.

Imagine then that the government (in its conceited way) decided to fix the price of apples at a certain rate. I as an individual then would not bother to eat fewer apples because I am unlikely to be aware that they have become scarcer. The inevitable result is a crisis in the apple supply.

Now apply that same model to credit. Banks increase interest rates not for a laugh but because for whatever reason credit has become more scarce. With a cap on interest rates consumers would not know if credit is scarce and thus there will be an inevitable crisis in the supply of credit.

Government is just as incapable of knowing all the relevant economic information as an individual. The price that governments set will then inevitably be wrong. It is only a matter of degrees on how wrong they are. The kind of policy that the NDP are proposing can only lead to more economic difficulty.

I would say one good thing about Jack Layton. The disturbing increase in household debt is something that we should think seriously about. This is just exactly the wrong approach. We should be looking instead at the core of the problem:

Is government policy already making credit cheaper than the market price?

Liberal Policy: Destroying the value of education

The Liberal Party has announced that it will bring down the cost of post-secondary education by offering a tax free grant of $4 000 to every student that wants to attend University, College, or CEGEP. The Liberals will also give $1 500 or $6 000 a year for four years to students from low income families. The concept I suppose is to ensure income mobility and create a more skilled labour force. But the ultimate result of this policy would be to destroy the value of education.

Consider the basic economics of this education policy. Education is a product that students purchase from teachers or institutions. Like any product, if you artificially reduce the price you will increase the demand to unnatural heights. The over-demand will create shortages. In the case of educational institutions, they would have to respond by either raising the minimum entry requirements or take on more students than their facilities can handle. That is, they will either restrict supply or reduce quality.

Considering that governments give extra incentives for post-secondary educational institutions to take on more students, I suspect that most will respond by reducing the quality of education. Access to libraries, professors, and other facilities would become a lot more limited, thus diminishing the value of the education.

Now let us look at it from a slightly different angle. At least part of what students purchase is a certification that they have a certain set of skills. This certification allows them to market themselves to potential employers.

An employer might justly doubt the certification if he realizes that there has been a decline in the quality of the education. Even if the employer isn’t aware of any quality issues he will still be inundated with an abundance of applicants with the exact same qualifications.

The oversupply of educated workers would mean that many people would be forced to take jobs that are beneath their skill level. Suddenly getting a post-secondary education is not a pathway to getting a good job. It does not help with either income mobility or creating the skilled labour that the economy needs.

There is a reason that education is priced so high, it is because it is valuable. By artificially lowing the price you will ultimately destroy its value.

Conservative Policy: if you are single you will pay higher taxes

This morning the Conservatives announced their first policy proposal of the campaign. Billed as a “Family Tax Cut” the Conservative Party wants to introduce income splitting to federal income taxes but hold off implementation until there is a balanced budget. The Globe & Mail gives an adequate description of what exactly income splitting is:

Income splitting allows the spouse in higher tax bracket to shift income to their partner with a lower level of earnings so that the overall rate of taxation is reduced. This means, for instance, a working spouse could transfer income for tax reporting purposes with a stay-at-home partner in a lower tax bracket.

Income splitting may seem helpful to thousands of families but there is a fundamental unfairness involved. It shifts the tax burden to disproportionately disadvantage single people in favour of married couples. It basically acts as a subsidy for people who are married.

A single person who makes the exact same income as a married person would be facing a significantly higher tax liability just because he/she is not married. It is even worse if the spouse does not have an income (the classic example would be a stay at home mom). This is just another example of the government trying to encourage approved of lifestyles through the tax code. It is at its core an attempt at social engineering.

Imagine for a moment that the government forces someone to pay more taxes because of a life style choice that is fundamental to their identity or circumstance. To draw upon a historic example, what if you had to pay higher taxes based on your religion? Surely you would not think that is fair. Then why would you think it is fair to pay higher taxes because you are not married?

Unfortunately the Liberal Party is not attacking the Conservatives on what is bad about income splitting. Instead the Liberals are focusing on the one positive of this particular proposal: the “once we are out of deficit” caveat.

Even though I do not like income splitting I take heart in the caveat that the Conservatives have attached. It shows that the Conservative Party is seriously viewing deficit fighting as the priority. I sincerely hope that any other proposals, that are not cost saving, from any party would share the same caveat.

What is behind the red door?

The Liberal Party has a history of saying they will govern one way during an election and then governing another way once elected. If you study the Liberal Party platform in 1993 you won't see much that eventually became the legacy of the Chretien Government.



Actually considering some of the promises that they've made, I am kind of hoping that the Liberals are lying.

Stephen Harper is not a libertarian

I feel silly that I have to write the words “Stephen Harper is not a libertarian” but I feel compelled to by an opinion piece written by John Ibbitson. In his article, Mr. Ibbitson tries to convince people that there is a fundamental ideological difference between Stephen Harper and Michael Ignatieff. He claims that Stephen Harper believes in a “night-watchman state” and that Michael Ignatieff believes that “government is about mediation.” What he says might be true about Dr. Ignatieff but it certainly is not true regarding Mr. Harper.

To be fair to Mr. Ibbitson he gives an adequate description of what a libertarian is:

The term refers to those who believe that the duty of government is to guard the borders, patrol the streets and enforce contracts. In all other matters, the individual should be free to pursue his own ends, unfettered by government restraint.

His argument that Mr. Harper fits this description doesn’t past the sniffing test. All his circumstantial evidence that Mr. Harper is a libertarian is based on what he used to be:

But Mr. Harper is, in his bones, a libertarian: educated at the University of Calgary, where those minimalist principles are warmly viewed; first elected to Parliament as a Reformer; once the head of the National Citizens’ Coalition. He comes as close as any prime minister ever has to embracing the concept of the night-watchman state.

First of all, I can name a number of Prime Ministers that are much closer to believing in the “night-watchman state” (pretty much any Prime Minister before Deifenbaker). Second of all, a resume is pretty unconvincing, especially when you consider the actions he has taken as Prime Minister.

Mr. Ibbitson’s case becomes even weaker when he admits himself that Mr. Harper is not actually a libertarian:

Mr. Harper does not believe those are the only priorities of government, but he does believe they should be its first priorities.

So if Mr. Ibbitson is defining a libertarian as someone who believes that defence, justice, and contract enforcement are the only justified activities of the state, and then he saying that Mr. Harper believes that there are more justified activities. Then logically Mr. Ibitson is admitting that Mr. Harper does not in fact believe in the “night-watchman state” and that he is not a libertarian. This leaves me somewhat puzzled about what exactly Mr. Ibbitson is trying to say.

Mr. Ibbitson tries to clarify his point:

There are many other elements to this government, which betrays the night-watchman-state principle more often than it enforces it. But the emotional bond to the idea resides within the Prime Minister, and all of us recognize this.

Okay so if Mr. Harper has an “emotional bond” to libertarianism then why did he publicly denounce libertarian ideas as leading directly to the recession?

Mr. Ibbitson seems to be desperately trying to show that there is a real difference between the Conservatives and the Liberals. At the same time he is honest enough that he cannot avoid admitting that there is no difference. Neither party offers a radically different vision of government. Both parties believe in a state that interferes in the peaceful lives of individuals.

There is a limit to American military power

Last Saturday I published a post that mentioned Preble’s “The Power Problem: How military dominance makes us less safe, less prosperous, and less free.” I regard it as a must read for anyone interested in American foreign policy. If you don’t have the time to read a whole book then take a look at this recently published article that sums up some of the points that he makes. It is not in the U.S.’s interest or capability to police the world:

But there is nothing smart about paying to underwrite the security of the entire world while the true source of our power — our vibrant and dynamic economy — is steadily eroding. The crushing burden of our debt is, in the words of the Joint Chiefs Chairman Adm. Michael Mullen, "The most significant threat to our national security." Closing the gap between what the government spends and what it takes in from citizens in taxes is imperative. Pentagon spending, which has nearly doubled in the past decades, must be on the table in the search for savings. We can responsibly reduce the size and cost of our military without undermining U.S. security, if we commit to rethinking its purpose. But it would be a mistake to downsize the Department of Defense without adopting a more modest strategy, otherwise we would just be overburdening the military without improving security.

Think of this in the context of the broad bi-partisan consensus that America has a “moral duty” to launch attacks against countries that do not pose a threat to the United States. Considering that the treasury is running dry, it is time for the foreign policy establishment to reconsider their priorities.

Stop complaining about the cost of an election

In 2008 there was a common complaint that the election cost taxpayers $300 million and this is something I have repeatedly heard for the likely 2011 election. In 2008 I responded by pointing out that democracy costs money. The cost of having an election is minuscule when compared to the federal budget as a whole, and the benefits of a democratic system are such that the occasional extra cost is well worth it:

The reply I gave to the man on the street was, “democracy costs money.” And that is about as truthful of an explanation as I can think of. Was this election purely about one man trying to get more power? Maybe, but that’s the reality of politics. Politic under any political system is about the collection and the loss of power and politicians will always play that game. From the earliest tribal cultures to the most sophisticated democracies, it is simply human nature.

Consider how lucky we are to have the system that we have. This season of political warfare was battled without a single person being killed. There was no gunfire or explosions. No death and very little misery. Everything that was done was done to seek the grant of power from the electorate. We enjoy a political system that allows the competition of political elites to be fought in an essentially harmless way.

Also my colleague William Joseph argued that the extra cost of having an early election is not actually $300 million:

The election would have happened next year if it didn't happen last week, so it would have just delayed the spending of $300M. There won't be an election in October 2009, so that takes away a $300M expense there, but it does mean that the next scheduled election is in 20012 instead of 2013. The actual increase in moving an election up one year is $75M. ($300M/4 years = $75M/year for elections under a normal cycle. However, when you make it $300M/3 years you get $100M/year. So the increase is 3 years*($100M - $75M) = $75M nominal cost. I'm not counting present value obviously, but I am lazy and want to do the math in my head, plus I don't want to think of a discount rate.)

Both of these arguments can easily be applied to those who complain that a 2011 election would be an unnecessary cost.

Upon reflection I realized that the whole cost argument is mostly an excuse. Anyone who makes that argument simply does not want an election for a reason other than the $300 million. It may be that they don’t want to be bothered by an election or maybe they don’t think it is in their personal interest. Either way, someone who opposes an election should come up with a better argument than cost.

An election would not harm the economy

A Conservative Party talking point is that an election would put the economic recovery at risk. The theory behind it is that the markets do not like policy instability and it is a sound theory. Would you like to make an investment if you didn’t know if the government would rip your investment away from you? Political stability in general is a key component to a market economy.

Except that market fear of instability doesn’t really apply to a Canadian election.

Consider the two most likely outcomes of this election, a Conservative minority or a Liberal minority. From a businessman’s perspective what is the policy uncertainty? If the Liberals win there will be a few extra billion dollars of entitlements and slightly higher corporate taxes. Both may be bad policy but the differences in the scheme of things are minuet.

Both the Liberals and the Conservatives are generally committed to free trade, both are generally open to foreign investment, both want to keep corporate taxes relatively low compared to other G7 countries, and both at least have a nominal commitment to balancing the budget. There is no debate about curtailing property rights or nationalizing industries. Corporate welfare levels would likely remain the same under either government and neither seems interested in significantly increasing regulatory burdens.

In short there is no instability and there is no real danger that the market would react badly to an election. As evidence, even though an election is almost certain the TSX has remained stable and there are no reports of foreign investors pulling out their capital.

The Conservative Party is free to argue that a Liberal government would be bad for the economy, but there is simply no truth to the claim that an election itself would be detrimental to the recovery.

Biden would impeach Obama

At least he would in a hypocritical free world.



The power of the executive has grown considerably in the United States, to the detriment of the country. The modern ability for a President to wage war without a Congressional vote is perhaps the most dangerous executive overreach.

Election 2011: A referendum on Parliament

In a statement to the press Leader of the Opposition Michael Ignatieff claimed that this is the first time that a committee has ever produced a report of the government being in contempt of Parliament. I would not claim to be an expert on Canadian political history, but as far as I know he is right. We are treading on an unprecedented path.

The next step is for the House of Commons to debate and then vote on a motion of contempt. If the House finds the government in contempt then the issue will be put to the people of Canada in a general election. It will be up to the Canadian people to decide how much they care. In a way, if the motion passes the resulting election would be a referendum on Parliament itself.

Conservative MPs were quick to blame partisan politics for the report produced by a committee dominated by the opposition. There may be an element of truth to that, there may be a lot of truth to that, and there may be no truth to that. It is impossible to be certain really; it is not easy to guess the motives of strangers. But at the end of the day if this was merely a matter of partisan politics it wouldn’t have gotten this far.

Parliament as an institution has been in decline for generations. The most obvious culprit is the Prime Minister’s Office. There has not been a Prime Minister in decades that has not increased the power of the PMO at the expense of Parliament (and Cabinet). I have my own theories about why the public and Parliamentarians have allowed the Prime Minister to become so powerful, but that is a topic for another post. The more pressing issue now is if Parliament is relevant enough for the public to want to save it.

If the government is returned with roughly equal strength then any illusion that Parliament can hold the government to account will be vanquished. It will be demonstrated once and for all that even a minority government can flaunt the rules of Parliament without any consequences. Parliamentarians will be proven to be impotent and pointless, mere functionaries of the political party apparatus.

I don’t really want the Liberals to win the next election and any of my regular readers won’t be surprised if I say I don’t want the Conservatives to win either. I want Parliament to win though, because Parliament is still an institution worth saving. It is the primary vehicle in which we check the power of the executive and put a restraint on the accesses of government. Without a Parliament that can stand up for it self, our very liberties will become vulnerable.

Randy Hillier on Property Rights and the Nanny State

Congestion Pricing

I am not yet convinced that congestion pricing is good policy, but I am starting to come around.

Moving Beyond the Automobile: Congestion Pricing from Streetfilms on Vimeo.

Ignatieff wants to spend like a drunken sailor

Liberal Party leader Michael Ignatieff accuses the Conservative government of "spending like a drunken sailor." It is certainly a strong criticism and the government needs to be held accountable for bringing the country into deficit. Unfortunately Dr. Ignatieff lacks all credibility on this issue. He threw away his opportunity to accuse the government of being fiscally irresponsible the moment that he announced that he would fund NHL arenas and new entitlements.

Maybe Andrew Coyne is right that we need a new party. Maybe we can call it the Responsibility Party.

Libya and the Power Problem

Watching the international response to the uprising in Libya I can’t help but think of Christopher Preble’s “The Power Problem: How military dominance makes us less safe, less prosperous, and less free.” One of the many themes of that book is that the Americans are constantly facing international pressure to intervene in places that have little or no connection to the security of the United States. He argues that America’s allies free ride off its power by cutting their defence budget and expecting America to fight for their interests.

In the case of Libya you have to wonder why it is in America’s interest to enter into a third war. Libya is nowhere near the USA. Any violence or spill over from the Libyan conflict is not going to touch the United States. There is some concern that there will be a disruption to the global supply of oil, but this is hardly a reason to fight a war. Most likely the disruption will be short term because whoever wins will want to sell oil. If the disruption does become long term then we can rely on international markets to adjust.

If general regional stability is the goal, the better bet would be to fight on the side of Gaddafi. No one knows what sort of government will come out of the rebel forces. There appears to a sibilance of unity and organization, but once the war is won this could easily fall apart. I know very little about the Libyan people or politics, but you don’t have to look far to find historic examples of uprisings leading to decades of tyranny, war, and despair. At least with Gaddafi we know what we are getting (fortunately no one is arguing that we fight on Gaddafi’s side).

The only argument that I could find in favour of American military intervention in Libya is a moral argument. The United States has the power and therefore it has the responsibility. As Mr. Preble points out in his book, this is an extremely dangerous argument. There is no end to the wars that America must fight if we accept that it has a moral responsibility to act as the world’s police or vengeful angel. Blood and treasury is draining out of the United States and at some point America’s leaders are going to have to face the fact that though they have the technical ability, they can no longer afford to fight multiple foreign wars at once.

The problem is that no one else really has the technical ability. If you are wondering why the Arab League and European powers, who are both pushing for the no fly zone, are not taking the lead the answer is simple. They just do not have the capacity to get the job done. In Europe at least, this is because they are too reliant on America’s guarantee of protection to maintain an adequate military. If France wants a no fly zone, then the French should invest the resources needed to enforce the no fly zone, but they don’t because they know they can pressure the United States into doing it for them.

It is difficult for me to oppose US military intervention in this case. The good guys and the bad guys are rarely this clear in a military conflict. My heart is with the Libyan rebels fighting for a better future, but ultimately the United States of American must draw a line. American military might cannot be expected to solve all of the world’s problems.

Breaking News: Ignatieff has a father and he loves Canada

I hate this sort of advert. I don't care about Michael Ignatieff's family and I don't care about Stephen Harper's family. I care about what policy they are promoting and if I trust them to actually do what they say.



I suppose that this is his way of countering the whole "just visiting" attack from the Conservatives. For that purpose I guess it is a good advert. I just really hope that Dr. Ignatieff's patronism is not a major theme of the next election.

Justice and Markets Explained from the Desert

Note on the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant: be calm

There is a lot of worry in the media and the public in general over the consequences of the potential meltdown of the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant. The problem is that no one knows what the consequences are because no one really knows what is happening and they absolutely do not know what is going to happen. On CNN this morning there was even confusion on the level of immediate health risk to the engineers trying to fix the problem. Governments are unlikely to make good policy decisions with such a lack of data so I urge policy makers to wait and see what happens. There may be lessons to learn from this incident but guessing what the lessons are before hand is counterproductive.

As if to underline my point, various governments are giving contradictory advice on how far people should stay from the plant. The Japanese are evacuating within 20km, the Americans are evacuating within 50km, Canadians are evacuating within 80km, and the Australians are leaving the country completely. The reality is that none of these governments actually know what the safe distance is; it all depends on too many incalculable factors. If it is too early to definitely say how far back you should stand, it is much to early to get into a real discussion about nuclear safety.

Governments all over the world have begun a process of reviewing their own nuclear safety regulations and conditions. This is a good thing. All government policies should be reviewed on a regular basis. I sincerely hope that these reviews will be sober reflections rather than a panicked response to a danger that may be exaggerated.

Canadian Taxpayer Federation video: the debt clock in Saskatchewan

Drew Carey Saves Cleveland

With some help from Reason:



Cleveland could rock again.

Note to Ignatieff: Get serious

Earlier today I criticized the Conservative government (or am I suppose to call it the Harper Government now?) for picking symbolism over substance on the budget. I admit that the budget isn’t released yet, but there are unlikely to be many surprises. The government has projected that it plans on waiting for revenue growth to balance the budget, a plan I might add that has never worked in the past.

Just to show that I am fair minded, I thought that I would point out that the government’s pretense of a plan to balance the budget is at least better than the Liberal opposition.

Michael Ignatieff has zero credibility on balancing the budget. Whilst the Conservatives hope that the budget will magically balance itself, the Liberals are proposing plans that ensure that it never will. At a time of backbreaking deficits no serious politician should be proposing new programs with new spending. The money that Dr. Ignatieff wants to spend on arenas and education simply does not exist.

A responsible opposition should tell the people what they would do if they were government. This opposition party, if they were in government, would drive us even faster off the cliff than the current government.

Michael Ignatieff, if you want to be taken seriously by the Canadian people you have to make serious proposals.

Note to Flaherty: no more empty symbolism please

The Toronto Star is reporting that the government is not providing the traditional free coffee to journalists who are in budget lock-down. By not giving coffee to the selected journalists who will be getting a preview of this years federal budget the government is saving $4 000, and it makes me sick to my stomach.

It makes me sick because it is a sign of what the budget is going to be: nothing but symbolism and a complete lack of a viable plan. The federal budgetary game plan so far has been to cross your fingers and hope that revenue growth outpaces spending growth. This way they can avoid all the responsibility of making tough decisions. In the place of tough decisions we get gestures like no more coffee for journalists.

The Conservatives have moved us out of structural surpluses and has moved us into structural deficits. The Conservatives are ramping up debt and putting our economic future at risk. The Conservatives are increasing the size of government to a level that would make Pierre Trudeau blush. The Conservatives are doing exactly nothing but closing their eyes and praying that it all goes away.

Oh yes this government loves symbolism, but the problem is that we need more than that. We need real leadership and we need someone who can actually stomach the idea that he/she might lose the next election. We need someone who can take a risk on doing the right thing. We need someone other than Stephen Harper or Jim Flaherty.

Libertarians do not belong with either conservatives or liberals

A couple of days ago Peter Jaworski published a post explaining why he felt that libertarians should abandon the “old fusionism” and alliance with conservatives and embrace a “new fusionism” with liberals. I agree with the first part but I disagree with the second part. A fusion with what statist-liberals would not work any better than a fusion with conservatives.

My experience with writing at the Western Standard was very similar to Peter’s. It got to the point that I hesitated to post because it was not worth the hassle of hostility that would fill my in-box. I have also noticed that at many political events or parties the room automatically splits between libertarians and conservatives. There is a hostility that stem from having antagonistic values and the last decade has shown that it is impossible to adequately bridge that difference.

Peter goes on to say that the values espoused by liberals are basically the same as his values. Peter Jaworski is a liberal and for most purposes so am I. But we belong to one side of two warring tribes of liberals. I think we can broadly define the two sides as market-liberals and statist-liberals.

It would seem that reuniting the liberal family would be a much easier alliance than the declining fusionism between libertarians and conservatives. Peter suggests that the main difference is an empirical one. Which is better at achieving the desired results? Is it the market or is it the state?

There are problems inherent in bridging an empirical gap. For one thing, evidence offered by the social sciences is never completely concrete and is almost always open to interpretation. Some say that the recent “stimulus” packages have debunked the concept of a government stimulus. Others say that there merely wasn’t enough of a stimulus or that the economy would have suffered more without it. You can spend years of your life having this debate without ever being able to convince even the most reasonable critic. (Look here and here for a discussion on the problems with bridging the empirical gap).

Unfortunately the difference between market-liberals and statist-liberals goes beyond the empirical debate. I agree and admit that they have the same values but they clearly order them differently. A market-liberal puts more importance on individuality than a statist-liberal even though they both value it. This difference means that often they frame a policy question differently. A market-liberal would ask, “Is the state effective at achieving this goal (demanding proof that state interference is justified)?” and a statist-liberal would ask, “Is the market effective at achieving this goal (demanding proof that state interference is not needed)?” The goal may be the same but the burden of proof is shifted the other way around.

The outcome of this burden shift is that statist-liberals will interpret empirical data with a fundamentally different value assumption. They will look at the results of the “stimulus” spending and assume that things would have been worse without it. A market-liberal will look at the exact same data and assume the opposite. An empirical argument alone is not enough to convince either side.

The reality is that market-liberals (or libertarians) would be wiser to avoid entangling alliances with either conservatives or statist-liberals. On particular issues we may find common ground with either but cooperation should be more ad hoc. There is no reason why libertarians should be forced to sacrifice some of our goals to work with ideological groups that are bound to be hostile to us.

Conrad Black and the rights of the convicted

Conrad Black has been a strong critic of the federal government’s criminal justice reforms. He makes several good points in this National Post op-ed, but the most important point is found in these two paragraphs:

I believe in the exercise of liberty by apparently responsible people up to the limit that their exercise of liberty does not compromise the right of others to the same liberty. In a statutory framework, such a principle argues that judges must have reasonable discretion to assess guilt and balance punishment with the desire to encourage, where practical, the swiftest possible successful return to normal life of convicted people who are judged to be a threat neither to society nor the physical safety of anyone.

In the case of all but the most dangerous, repulsive and sociopathic criminal acts, places of detention should aspire, if they are not just transitory holding tanks, to be repair shops and not garbage dumps. Accused people must genuinely be presumed to be innocent, and convicted people who have served their sentences must genuinely be presumed to have paid for their misconduct.

I can sum up his point by saying that in a free society both the accused and the convicted still have rights. True justice is not merely the punishment of someone who has done wrong. Justice is a balancing act between compensating for the victim’s rights that have been violated and the guilty party’s rights.

To recognize that someone has rights is to recognize their basic humanity. For all those that think I am merely being a “bleeding hear libertarian,” consider the estrangement from society that a convicted man would feel if we deny his humanity. Do you think that this will cause him to have a greater respect for others once he has served his time? Society will not be safer by mistreating convicts.

Of course at the same time a convict should be penalized for the harm that he or she has done. A proper legal system would ensure that the punishment is appropriate for the amount of harm that has been done. We have two basic mechanisms to ensure that competing rights are balanced in a criminal case. The first is precedent and the second is the person of the judge.

Mr. Black correctly claims that a judge is generally more able to make just sentencing decisions than a distant legislator:

The roadmap’s ambition to take sentencing latitude away from judges (which already has been partly enacted) is a usurpation by the legislators of the judicial function. The judge administers the evidence and monitors the case and knows the facts.

Of course, the intelligence and fair-mindedness of judges vary widely, and some are hopelessly miscast (I know something about that, too, in both the United States and Canada). But they are virtually all better qualified to try a case and bring down a sentence than uninvolved legislators shooting arbitrarily from the hip before the fact.

Legislators may establish a range of sentencing that faithfully reflects an enlightened public level of concern at certain offenses, and these fluctuate over time. But it is not the role of the legislator to impose an iron-clad prejudgment of penalty of every convicted person, regardless of the detailed facts and of considerations of tempering justice with mercy.

As Mr. Black points out putting trust in judges is not a perfect solution. The degree of justice received can greatly depend on the capabilities of a particular judge, thus creating an imbalance of justice in the system. Still the one size fits all sort of solutions that can be offered by Parliament would do nothing to help this problem. If anything it creates even more injustice by not being tempered by the particulars of a case.

There are plenty of ways to improve our justice system, I am sure. But taking sentencing out of the hands of judges is most certainly not one of them.

Interesting statistics and cool graphs

And here is another shorter one.

PETA is insane

Just as soon as you think that PETA couldn't get any more nutty:

PETA is calling on owners of Mazda vehicles affected by the recent spider infestation to donate their cars instead of handing them over for the recall.

As previously reported, 2009-2010 Mazda6 vehicles developed a strange fuelling problem when a certain species of spider was found in the fuel vent lines. Mazda recalled the vehicles, so mechanics could murder the poor spiders - or so PETA would have you believe.

Without a hint of self-interest, PETA kindly offered to accept the vehicles as donations. They volunteered to gently remove the spiders and set them free before commandeering the vehicles for their own purposes.

I mean seriously, in what world do they exist that they think anyone would actually do this? As a great man once said, "PETA is Bullshit!"

Flavoured cigarillos should not be banned

MP Megan Leslie wants to ban all types of flavoured cigarillos. This is an expansion on an earlier law that banned some flavoured cigarillos but not all. I am not a closed minded sort of person. My bias lies firmly with allowing people to produce and purchase any product that they want, but if you give me a compelling argument I am willing to reconsider specific cases. So Ms. Leslie, the floor is yours, convince me:

"It should be a crime," Leslie said in an interview Tuesday from Ottawa.

"There are direct links between these types of tobacco products and the uptake of smoking by kids. Because kids start (by) using these products — they look like lip gloss, they look like markers. It’s easy to slip by your parents."

Ah yeah, I am not convinced. First of all the so called “links” is pretty tenuous. According to statistics on the Health Canada website, 40% of youth between grade 5 and 9 that have tried smoking have tried cigarillos. Between grades 10 and 12 the percentage was 60. There is no indication, however, that a significant number of youth would not have tried smoking if cigarillos were not available. Considering that the vast majority of youth get their tobacco products from friends and family, it seems likely that they would be satisfied with whatever they can get.

Secondly, there is no uptake in smoking by kids. The same website I linked above shows that there is no increase in youth smoking. In fact the Lung Association says that smoking has declined in teenagers over the past decade. Ms. Leslie wants to infringe on our freedom to fight a scourge that does not exist.

As for the last part, the whole “it looks like markers and lip gloss” idea, I can either conclude that she has either never seen a cigarillo or she is a complete idiot (or she thinks that all parents are complete idiots).

I admit that even if there was a strong tangible connection between cigarillos and a real rise in teenage smoking, I would remain unconvinced. You need a stronger case to interfere with an individual’s freedom than the fact that you don’t like how they exercise that freedom. I don’t like that people smoke, but ultimately it is their decision and I should not force my preferences on them.

Government picks corporate welfare over taxpayers - again

British officials have recently proposed the idea that Canada and the UK cooperates in above surface naval procurements. Of course the devil is in the details but in principle the advantages appear obvious. The greater economies of scale would make expanding and modernizing both the Canadian and British fleets cheaper. Considering that the UK is a historic and current military ally, having similar equipment would simplify joint operations.

At the same time there are plenty of reasons why Canada might decline. It is entirely plausible that Canada has different strategic needs. It is also true that Canada has already put considerable resources into modernizing its air force. Perhaps then Canada would simply not be interested in naval procurements and thus would have no reason to pool resources.

Canada has rejected the British offer, but not for any of the reasons that I just suggested. The Ministry of Defense refused to cooperate with Canada’s ally to protect its corporate welfare program:

"This government is fully committed to getting the right equipment for the Canadian Forces at the right price for Canadians, with the right benefits for Canadian industry — in this case building new ships in Canada," [Minister of Defense’s spokesman] said. [Emphasis added]

Military procurement should not be a jobs program. The goal of any procurement should be getting the best available product for the cheapest price. If South Africa can make ships better and cheaper then that is where Ministry of Defense contracts should go. The government is essentially arbitrarily picking the losers and winners in the market place.

I have to doubt the federal government’s commitment to free trade when they reject a proposal that could potential safe money because of industrial interests.

A reasonable limit on property rights

Randy Hillier and Scott Reid’s proposed amendment to include property rights in the constitution has led to a torrent of posts on property rights at the Volunteer. Given that this is likely going to be an ongoing theme, I thought it would be constructive to clarify my own position on what I believe is a reasonable limit on property rights. I would not presume to speak for all the Volunteer’s contributors, but I suspect that most of them would agree with this post. If any do not, I expect that they will happily tear me apart in the comments section.

The reasonable limit on property rights is the same limit on all our rights; that is you have the right to do what you will with your own property except when it interferes with the rights of others. The way that this is applied to your right to free speech, as an example, is that you cannot spread lies about someone that harms their livelihood and you cannot threaten someone with violence. This is hardly controversial. I have never heard of a libertarian, conservative, welfare liberal, or socialist that would disagree (at least in principle). This concept, which enjoys such a broad consensus, when applied to property rights would appease most of the concerns voiced by opponents to the Hillier/Reid amendment.

To give you an example to how this would work, I will draw upon a scenario that came out of a discussion in a previous post. A commenter who objected to the Hillier/Reid amendment invented this plausible scenario: someone buys a substantial amount of land at a cheap cost. They then agree, for a fee, to allow individuals, companies, and governments to dump toxic waste on that land. Given that toxic waste has to go somewhere this is not necessarily a bad thing but under the commenter’s understanding of property rights there would be no way for the government to enforce environmental regulation.

The reality is that a properly constructed property rights regime would make any environmental regulation redundant. Consider if the owner of the land makes no attempt to prevent toxins from getting into the water supply and the air. This would make the surrounding properties uninhabitable for living and most commercial uses. The landowner is effectively damaging other landowner’s rights to using their property. The owner of the toxic dump would be forced to pay compensation for the value of the damage land, possible future gains that has been lost, and any damage done to their bodies. The cost would be so inhibitive (more so than some regulatory fines) that a wise entrepreneur would take steps to prevent environmental damage.

It is admittedly not always easy to judge when someone’s rights are interfered with. One interpretation of legal history suggests that jurisprudence was invented to find a way to mediate competing rights. Ensuring that everyone’s rights is acknowledged and respected is at the core of what most people consider fairness and justice. Ensuring property rights would therefore not lead to the wild anarchy of independent landowners, but instead would bound society closer together in a mutual recognition of rights.

Are we running out of resources?

How dare lenders ask for repayment!

UK lenders should pay close attention to a recent court ruling where the judge “reprimanded” a credit card company and a debt collection firm for ‘torturing’ a man who owed 20 000 pounds. The form that this ‘torture’ took was repeated phone calls demanding repayment. The man explained that he couldn’t pay back the money, and for some reason they were not satisfied by that.

The mental anguish that this man felt for being repeatedly asked to live up to his contractual responsibilities gained him the sympathy of the judge. How dare these evil capitalists try to get their money back!

The debt collection firm was accused by the judge of not listening to the debtor’s needs and unfairly increasing interest rates on someone who was refusing to pay back money. The company harassed this man by calling him over and over and over again. The frequency that this man was called can only be compared to water boarding or pulling out fingernails.

A spokesman said: 'We attempted to contact Mr Harrison 18 times over a period of 12 months, as Mr Harrison acknowledges himself through his own records.

Wait…18 times over 12 months? That seems…that seems…reasonable and moderate. I wish that the Conservative Party would call me this infrequently. How in the name of all that is good does calling someone an average of 1.5 times a month constitute torture?

'Although all those calls were unanswered, answerphone messages were left with a polite invitation to call us together with a contact telephone number.

'Mr Harrison declined to do so.'

So this man wasn’t returning his phone calls and avoiding the debt he owed, and it was the freaking collection company that got reprimanded.

UK lenders should pay close attention to this court ruling and swear never to lend a dime in the UK ever again.

Huffington Post and irony

Huffington Post has published an article so bad that I had to check to make sure that it wasn’t a parody. Turns out it isn’t a joke and the author is the son of the ill fated Bobby Kennedy. The article is full of falsehoods, misinformation, and overly combative rhetoric. This would be fine (well not fine but normal) if the article wasn’t an attack on Fox News for publishing falsehoods, misinformation, and combative rhetoric.

Honestly this article is so full of irony and pure wrongness that I laughed several times while reading it. The actual premise of the article is factually wrong. Bobby states that Fox News couldn’t possibly enter Canada because of our strict laws forbidding lying on broadcast news. This completely ignores that Fox News is already available in Canada.

Just try and read this with a straight face I challenge you.

Here is the article with my comments inserted:

Regulators Reject Proposal That Would Bring Fox-Style News to Canada

As America's middle class battles for its survival on the Wisconsin barricades [Nice way to open with a hyperbole. How exactly are public sector unions the whole of the middle class?] -- against various Koch Oil surrogates [how dare rich people have opinions] and the corporate toadies at Fox News [Says the union toady. See I can call people names too.] -- fans of enlightenment, democracy and justice [I like all those things!] can take comfort from a significant victory north of Wisconsin border. Fox News will not be moving into Canada after all [CRTC approved Fox News in 2004. If only Bobby knew how to use Wikipedia]! The reason: Canada regulators announced last week they would reject efforts by Canada's right wing Prime Minister [see funny eh], Stephen Harper, to repeal a law that forbids lying on broadcast news. [Actually Harper had nothing or little to do with the proposal to soften the draconian laws. The proposal came out of a Parliamentary committee that was made up of mostly opposition MPs. Also the proposal was to amend the law not repeal it.]

Canada's Radio Act requires that "a licenser may not broadcast....any false or misleading news." The provision has kept Fox News and right wing talk radio out of Canada [there are no right wing talk radio in Canada?] and helped make Canada a model for liberal democracy and freedom [well Canada does do better then the USA on the Economic Freedom of the World index]. As a result of that law, Canadians enjoy high quality news coverage including the kind of foreign affairs and investigative journalism [this may be merely a personal preference but I go to US news outlets for my international news and I find they have much better investigative journalists] that flourished in this country before Ronald Reagan abolished the "Fairness Doctrine" in 1987 [like everything else, it is Reagan’s fault]. Political dialogue in Canada is marked by civility, modesty, honesty, collegiality, and idealism [yes Canada is the media utopia, give me a break] that have pretty much disappeared on the U.S. airwaves. When Stephen Harper moved to abolish anti-lying provision of the Radio Act [to be fair if he read the Toronto Star I understand why he might think this is true], Canadians rose up to oppose him [did I miss a general uprising? Damn it I always wanted to participate in one of those.] fearing that their tradition of honest non partisan news [*cough* Toronto Star *cough*] would be replaced by the toxic, overtly partisan, biased and dishonest news coverage familiar to American citizens who listen to Fox News and talk radio [or MSNBC and Huffington Post]. Harper's proposal was timed to facilitate the launch of a new right wing network, "Sun TV News" which Canadians call "Fox News North." [Actually Canadians call it Sun TV News because that is what it is called. Only certain cranky media personalities and their supporters call it Fox News North. But go on thinking that Canada is a homogeneous society]

Harper, often referred to as "George W. Bush's Mini Me," [I don’t remember anyone serious ever calling him that] is known for having mounted a Bush like war on government scientists [well…], data collectors [umm…], transparency [okay…], and enlightenment in general [not sure exactly what that last one means but he may have a point with the rest]. He is a wizard [OMG did he go to Hogwarts?] of all the familiar tools of demagoguery [not really]; false patriotism [how does he know it is false?], bigotry [what bigotry?], fear [maybe a little but every party does that], selfishness [not sure what he means by that] and belligerent religiosity [I bet you the average Democrat references God a lot more than Harper].

Harper's attempts to make lying legal on Canadian television [sigh] is a stark admission that right wing political ideology can only dominate national debate through dishonest propaganda [do you see the irony yet?]. Since corporate profit-taking [profit-taking? Does he mean productivity and wealth creation?] is not an attractive vessel for populism, a political party or broadcast network that makes itself the tool of corporate and financial elites must lie to make its agenda popular with the public. In the Unites States, Fox News and talk radio, the sock puppets of billionaires [who bought the Huffington Post recently?] and corporate robber barons [yes he actually used “corporate robber barons” in a sentence without sarcasm] have become the masters of propaganda and distortion on the public airwaves [or the blogsophere, much like yourself Bobby]. Fox News's notoriously biased and dishonest coverage of the Wisconsin's protests is a prime example of the brand of news coverage Canada has smartly avoided. [Oh right, because people must never hear contrary perspectives]