Video: free trade vs protectionism

Ezra Levant on Jack Layton's funeral

I didn't watch the funeral and so I can't judge it for myself, but a NDP partisan hijacking of the funeral is pretty consistent with everything else that has happened since Jack Layton's funeral.

Why do men make more than women?

Another interpretation of the words of Liberal MP Jim Karygiannis

Liberal MP Jim Karygiannis is in hot water. He is being accused of making a racist slur against the former Conservative candidate in his riding, Harry Tsai. Mr. Tsai is president of the Taiwanese Canadian Association of Toronto, an organization that recently called for Mr. Karygiannis to be fired as multiculturalism critic.

Mr. Karygiannis’ response was to call Mr. Tsai and according to Mr. Tsai this is what he said:

“I don’t think he was very pleased,” Tsai said. “(Karygiannis) said, ‘ I don’t care what you guys write. It won’t affect me. And I’m glad you can write.’ He kept saying, ‘I’m glad you can write English,’” Tsai said.

Mr. Karygiannis denies having said this, but it seems like an odd thing for Mr. Tsai to make up so I am leaning towards it being true (or at least he said something close to that).

Now on the face of it this is clearly a racist slur, but I can provide a bit of context that allows for a different interpretation.

During the 2011 federal election I was living in the riding that these two men were contesting. I thus had the misfortune of becoming familiar with the campaign literature that Mr. Tsai released to the public.

It was awful, just plain awful.

It was like the pamphlets were written by someone who didn’t know what the red and green lines in a word document meant. Or maybe they thought it meant that the word was correct and so made sure that every word in the document had a line. Either way, if I was the absolute dictator of Canada I would force whoever wrote such crap to return to elementary school to review the basics. I wish I had kept one of the pamphlets so I could show you how absolutely truly bad the grammar and spelling was.

I am no perfectionist (as my long time readers know) but these pamphlets were all but unreadable.

In that context is looks like really Mr. Karygiannis was making fun of Mr. Tsai for his inexplicable inability to find a 6 year old to proof read his campaign literature during the election.

Or he could be a racist. I don’t really know, just throwing the idea out there.

(He is undoubtably an ass)

Top 3 Health Care Policy Proposals (for America)

Partisan Jack

Often when celebrities or well known business and political leaders pass away the family asks the public to honour the passing by giving a donation to a charity that was dear to the deceased’s heart. For Jack Layton the NDP (not sure how involved the family is with this) has asked that people give to a left-wing political organization that is being started by Ed Broadbent and appears to be modeled off the Manning Centre. The Broadbent Institute will be training activists and Parliamentary staff and, much like the Manning Centre, will have deep ties within the NDP party establishment.

This seems to me to be an odd choice for a way to honour the life of Jack Layton through charity. The most obvious choice would have been cancer research or some cancer patient support group. If they didn’t want to make it about the thing that killed him, there are plenty of other choices. Jack Layton was suppose to care about the downtrodden, so why not ask the public to give to a women’s shelter or an organization trying to help at risk teens?

Instead we are asked to give to what is essentially a partisan organization. To be fair the only people likely to give to it are actually NDP partisans, but that just makes it feel like a cynical ploy on the part of NDP fundraisers to capitalize on the death of their leader. Yes they are not asking money for the NDP directly, but it will be the NDP that will benefit from the activities of the Broadbent Institute.

This isn’t the only oddly partisan way that Jack Layton is being recalled or honoured. The City of Toronto plans on turning the CN Tower orange on Saturday. Orange in Canadian politics has been branded to identify the NDP. So to honour Jack Layton we are going to turn an iconic symbol of Toronto into a giant advert for the NDP? As a non-supporter of the NDP this leaves a rather bad taste in my mouth. (Especially when you consider that it isn’t like the City of Toronto isn’t doing anything else in memory of Jack Layton).

Now we can turn to the awkward conversation about Jack Layton’s “final note to Canadians.” Christie Blatchford has been dumped on a lot this week for having the guts to be critical of not just the letter but the reaction to his death in general. At the risk of exposing myself to similar ire, the letter reeks of partisanship.

Ms. Blatchford already pointed out the odd snipe at Harper in the words “We can restore our good name in the world.” As if we were one step away from Syria. But this is hardly the only bit of partisan hackery in the letter. Hell the letter starts off by trying to direct the conditions of the leadership race to replace him. The fact that Mr. Layton preferred in early leadership race to a later one is not really a message that all Canadians needed to hear.

The next section he encourages cancer patients to not give up hope, which is nice but then he moves on to talking directly to the intra-Parliamentary and extra-Parliamentary sections of the NDP. I suppose that is fine in principle, since it is with their support that he was able to accomplish his goals, but he managed to slip in there a resume of things that he claims as initiatives of the NDP. It just seems…well smooth.

If you think I’ve been harsh up until now, take a good look at the next two sections. He addresses messages to Quebec and youth.

Why Quebec and youth?

Seriously, why did he (and his wife and Chief of Staff) decide that those two groups deserved a specific message? Why not Toronto where he lived most his life? Why not to his own age group? Why not the West or the East or any other part of the country?

It is because Quebec and youth are recognized as being fundamental to the NDP if they want to form government. Read the letter and it not just clear but blatantly obvious that this is electioneering.

(emphasis mine)

To my fellow Quebecers: On May 2nd, you made an historic decision. You decided that the way to replace Canada’s Conservative federal government with something better was by working together in partnership with progressive-minded Canadians across the country. You made the right decision then; it is still the right decision today; and it will be the right decision right through to the next election, when we will succeed, together. You have elected a superb team of New Democrats to Parliament. They are going to be doing remarkable things in the years to come to make this country better for us all.

If you read that on a fundraising letter or heard it on a stump speech you wouldn’t bat an eye. But again, this is supposed to be a final message to all Canadians.

By the time I got to the end of the letter, the first time I read it, I felt so ripped off and cynical that I dismissed his rather nice sentiment about the importance of optimism as I would if I heard it come out of any politician’s mouth: shallow sentimentality.

I think what bothers me the most about all this is the picture that all this cynical partisanship is painting of Jack Layton. I now have in my head the picture of a man who was so thoroughly a partisan hack that he tried to use his own death as a way to advance his party’s electoral success. This picture is unfair because I’m not sure how much he actually had to do with the letter and he has had nothing to do with what has happened after he died. But I never knew Jack Layton and I never knew anyone well that knew him well, and so really I have nothing to judge him by except the public image. That public image has been very partisan, especially in the days after his death.

I suspect that he was more than that. I suspect that he was much more than Partisan Jack. He was a father, a husband, and a friend to some. He was more than a vehicle for political gains and it sickens me that he is being treated that way.

Failure of the electric car

Steve Lafleur talks to Ezra Levant on the failure of the electric car to take off.

We are losing the war of ideas

Last Friday I wrote a post that argued that the Conservative Party has damaged the conservative movement when it comes to the debate between fiscal restraint and “stimulus” spending. By advocating for deficit spending in the 2009/2010 budget and then claiming that this budget was fundamental in saving the economy, the Conservatives have left themselves no room (or at the most a very little bit of room) to argue any other position when the next recession hits. Why not more stimulus spending if it worked so well last time (although it didn’t)? I concluded by saying that Keynesian economics now dominates the fiscal policy debate in Canada because of the actions of the Conservative Party.

Evidence has come out today that the damage has been done not just among policy wonks but the general population as well. A survey conducted by Abacus Data showed that most people would support further “stimulus” spending in the event of a recession.

The federal government has promised to balance the federal budget by 2015 without raising taxes or cutting transfers to persons, including those for seniors, children and the unemployed, or cutting transfers to other levels of government that support health care and other social programs.

Which of the following statements, if either, come closest to your view? [rotate statements]

The federal government should continue with its plan to reduce the federal deficit even if the economy enters another recession: 33%

The federal government should reconsider its deficit reduction plans and focus instead on job creation and stimulating the economy if the economy enters another recession. 58%

Neither: 11%

I had never heard of Abacus Data before but I lack the technical knowledge to judge the methodology and so I will give the benefit of the doubt and assume that this survey is reasonably accurate. You can see all the details here.

I’m not surprised that the majority of people would be supportive of something where there is no strong national voice arguing against it. Organizations such as the Fraser Institute and the Canadian Taxpayers Federation are the only ones speaking out against deficit spending in Canada. But the Conservative Party has a far greater reach and pull than either of these organizations. Without the Conservative Party to make the case the debate has become entirely one sided with most of the population.

Conservatives, libertarians, or whatever…we are losing the war of ideas on this issue.

Government grants are bad for art in Canada

Incentives matter, always. This includes the Canadian music industry. What incentives are created by an industry completely dominated by government grants?

Find out the answer by checking out this article written by my Volunteer colleague Peter Jaworski.

And support a new voluntary way of contributing to the art by taking a look at the crowd sourcing method of the always wonderful Lindy.

Note to CMA: the Canada Health Act is part of the problem

Canadian Medical Association Jeff Thurnbull has recently suggested that user fees for medical care should be discussed:

All options should be on the table for financing an overhaul of Canada's health system - including the possibility of user fees, the outgoing head of the nation's largest doctors' group says.

"We support the Canada Health Act. ... We believe that nobody should be denied access to meaningful health services because of their inability to pay," Dr. Jeff Turnbull, president of the Canadian Medical Association said Monday at the organization's annual general council meeting in St. John's. "Those are essential tenets." But, "I think the public would expect us to look at all options," the Ottawa doctor said.

This is interesting because, although the CMA has talked about user fees in the past, Dr. Thurnbull has always backed away from any such suggestions and I had always gotten the impression that he was solidly opposed. So it is heartening to see that he is at least open to a dialogue and is willing to “look at all options.”

The problem is that any debate or discussion on user fees would be completely abstract. Provinces are forbidden by the Canada Health Act to initiate any experiments that would allow us to find out how user fees would work in Canada. The Canada Health Act is like a cage shutting provinces off from potential policy solutions that could make universal health care sustainable in Canada.

If we really want to be serious and take a look at new funding structures for the health care system then we need to first: remove, reform, or suspend the Canada Health Act.

A patient health charter would not fix health care

A new survey says that the vast majority of Canadians support a notion of a “patient health charter.” Such a charter would promise services, set out “rights” and “responsibilities” of the patient, and possibly create a complaint mechanism. Basically it would amount to another promise to deliver health care services faster and better.

The problem being that such a charter does not say how these services are to be delivered. It is frustrating as hell to see proposals like this brandied around as if they were solutions. We have already been promised better service. Putting it in a new document and calling it a charter would do nothing to accomplish the underlining goals of a universal and sustainable health care system.

Health care policy makers and the public in general have to stop goofing around and face the realities of the current system’s failings. It is not an administrative problem that can be fixed if we just become more committed to the issue or pour more money into it. The system is fundamentally unsustainable and structurally unsound.

We need to look at what works in other major industrial countries and accept the lessons of what has not worked here.

Government running out of money

Every time I see the government in deficit I feel like I just got mugged by a gang of senior citizens.

The Conservative Party has screwed itself and the movement

The early days of 2009 were crucial in Canadian financial, economic, and political history. Most people will remember the attempt by the opposition parties to form a coalition government at the end of 2008, but really it was the decision to return to deficit spending that is and will have a longer lasting effect. We can see the ripples of that decision not just in the fact that we are still in deficit but in the way that government spending is currently being debated.

As you may recall, the Conservatives ran in the 2008 election promising to continue a balanced budget. Shortly after the election, even while the world was in a global economic meltdown, the Conservatives still rightly and bravely refused to return to deficit. The economic update that Jim Flaherty brought in a month or so after the election confirmed the government’s commitment to a balanced budget.

Included with that economic update was a change to the party subsidy system that opposition MPs perceived would disadvantage them. They rebelled not so much against the idea of balanced budgets but to save their party coffers.

What happened next was fantastic for the Conservatives.

The public by in large despised the new coalition. Partly it was because of the inclusion of the separatists in a supporting role and partly it was the erroneous idea that Mr. Dion wanted to steal the election. For whatever the reason, the public were not behind the coalition and the Conservatives were enjoying polling numbers that they have never seen since. Mr. Dion was shortly thrown out and the coalition collapsed.

Before the coalition collapsed though, they had scrambled for an excuse to take the reigns of government that didn’t look completely self serving. They came up with the idea that the “real issue” was the government’s lack of action on the economy. Not many people really bought this, but once the coalition crisis was over the opposition parties held on to their assertion that “stimulus” was required.

It was at this point that the Conservatives had a choice. Really they had three choices:

1. They could have refused to go back into deficit and possibly fight an election (although I personally think the disorganized Liberals would have backed down).
2. They could have made the case for a balanced budget but be willing to compromise and bring in a small deficit.
3. They could have taken ownership of the “stimulus” concept and outspend the opposition’s wildest dreams.

The key difference between the third option and the other two is that it concedes that deficit spending is beneficial to the economy. Stephan Harper would not have had to look far to find arguments against this; he could have referenced his own Master’s thesis. Yet he decided to ignore his own intellectual history and embrace ideas that he would have once spat at.

We can speculate on why he did this. My personal feeling is that the coalition crisis scared the hell out of him. He simply did not want to lose power. But such speculation is beside the point. The result was that there were no federal politicians in Canada arguing against the failed Keynesian theory of “stimulating” the economy.

Flash forward to this week.

Once again Canada’s economic outlook is not so good. It isn’t nearly as bad as 2008 or 2009 but it is bad enough that Jim Flaherty is under pressure to introduce more stimulus spending. Now that they are secure with a majority government it looks as if the Conservatives are preparing to resist that pressure, but they lack any real strong arguments against the opposition.

Mr. Flaherty has said that it is more important to balance the budget and really the economy isn’t all that bad anyway. So the natural response is, “well how bad does it have to get before you stimulate?” The Conservatives want to say never, but they can’t. They have already conceded that there are times that “stimulation” is needed.

So instead of being able to debate with conservative ideas, the Conservative Party is stuck pussy footing around the issue and vaguely assuring that maybe they would stimulate if things were very bad, but well maybe not, it depends, you see, on conditions and we don’t really know what is going on, so we have to wait and see, and really we don’t want to leave the deficit for our children to pay for so we need to be very careful about more spending and…so on.

This is how the Conservatives have screwed the conservative movement and themselves. They have made it impossible for them to put forth a genuinely conservative response to the likely coming recession. They may be able to resist the pressure to spend more but they have to do so while at least pretending that it is a viable option. Thus fiscal conservatism is completely thrown out the window.

This problem will persist for years if not for decades. Every time there is an economic downturn there will be pressure to spend money trying to “stimulate.” Every time, whether in opposition or government, it will be impossible for the Conservatives to convincingly argue against it without renouncing the actions of Stephan Harper and Jim Flaherty.

So thanks to the Conservative Party of Canada, Keynes and his big spending admirers now have a death grip on Canadian fiscal policy.

We are screwed.

Tim Hudak is bad because drugs are bad (mmkay)

PC Party leader Tim Hudak hits the nail on the head. When asked today if he had ever used marijuana he responded:

"I lived a pretty normal life as a kid growing up so yes, I have. It's been some time."

He lived a normal life and so of course he smoked up as a young man. It is normal…IT IS NORMAL…for people to consume this illicit drug.

This drug has been banned since 1923 and yet almost 80 years later it is still considered normal to consume it. Hell I will wager that it is far more normal than it was in the 1920s. Talk about a failure of government policy.

It also begs the question of what is the point of trying to stop people from smoking cannabis in the first place.

Watch out kids! If you smoke up that weed stick you might end up being some loser, like the leader of a major political party in Canada’s largest province (or like the President of the United States for that matter).

The pointlessness of marijuana prohibition is mind boggling.

Libertarian islands: as explained by Peter Jaworski

I agree with Peter. This is a real movement with a real chance of coming to reality, and I find it to be personally exciting.



Check out the Seasteading Institute.

A new way to fund the arts without government

As much as I approve of it on a theoretical basis, in practice I hate having to work for a living. If I didn’t have to spend my work hours actually doing my job, from time to time, I wouldn’t be a week behind Peter Jaworski at the Volunteer in encouraging all of you to help with Lindy Vopnfjord’s next album.

Lindy is trying out a fantastic new funding model that allows fans to help fund his music. This is as opposed to the government forcing us to fund music that we don’t like. Check out this video of Lindy talking about this concept with Ezra Levant.



Please go to this website and help Lindy to create music. Don’t do it because Ezra told you to, and don’t do it because I told you to. Do it because Lindy rocks!

Here are some examples of said rocking:

Don't privatize the CBC because it sucks?

Kate Taylor takes a moment to look at the arguments for what should be done with the soon to be 75 year old CBC. She dismisses proposals to privatize the CBC because it is such an inefficient money losing company that it couldn’t possibly survive in the market place. You know the market, that place where consumers not government officials decide what will be a successful product.

According to Ms. Taylor the consumers couldn’t possibly ever want what the CBC is selling and so they need the government to force consumers to pay for it with tax dollars. Her defense of a government owned broadcaster comes down to: we need to keep it because it sucks.

Ms. Taylor points out later that “Becoming Erica” is highly successful on iTunes. This may be so, I don’t really know. The only reason I’ve heard of the show is because I’ve seen posters for it on the side of busses. I have no idea what the show is about and I don’t know of anyone who watches it, but hey I just described about 90% of television.

Still if we are going to hold up one show as a success story I have to point something out. It is only one show and one show does not make a worthwhile network.

Ms. Taylor’s case for why the CBC is sanctified and must be protected is implied in her snide comment about other networks broadcasting American shows. Canadian programming must be protected and only the CBC can do that.

This ignores two truths:

1. The extent that CBC programming is dominated by British and, yes, American shows.
2. The fact that the other networks broadcast many successful Canadian shows, especially CTV.

I am not sure what essential Canadian culture is being protected by broadcasting Arrested Development throughout the day (does the CBC still do that?).

The reality is that the CBC is not inherently special, it is just crummy.

Ron Paul advert: the one

Maybe this is the reason he shouldn't be ignored by the media.

The Cost of the War on Drugs

These numbers are almost too big to comprehend.

Ron Paul, fuck that guy right?

Jon Stewart takes a moment to examine the media's reaction to Ron Paul's strong result in the straw poll.

Pay your bills B

Stop messing around Obama

Standard & Poor has lowered the USA federal government`s credit rating. This was more than predictable. It is exactly what they said would happen if the US government doesn`t come forth with a real plan to bring the country out of red. Despite the antics around the debt ceiling. The United States is in no better position today than it was on July 31st.

Barrick Obama must wake up to the steady decline of America`s finances and the inevitible consequances. Stop the smoke and mirrows and actually cut spending.

The Liberal Party`s biggest ASSet

The Liberal Party`s greatest strength is the depth of experience from its front benches. Just take a look at the interim (?) leader Bob Rae. It is only a man like Bob Rae, with his background and his experience as Premier of Ontario, that could come down and give Stephen Harper brilliant advice like this.

Because you know, it isn’t like things didn’t turn out badly when he was fighting a deficit and declining economy in Ontario.

Note to John Ibbitson: try paying attention to history

John Ibbitson is clearly a man who is ignorant of history. Hell, I don’t think he even reads his own column. He must not because otherwise he would never claim that conservative leaning provincial governments would automatically get along with a conservative leaning federal government as he does in today’s column.

Mr. Ibbitson makes the case that conservatives are poised to win most of the provincial elections that will be taking place this fall. Fine, but he then concludes that this means that “the federal Conservatives have no reason to fear a united front of premiers opposing their agenda.” As if a conservative in a provincial capital would automatically be best of friends with his/her “federal cousin.”

Canadian history is ripe with examples of interparty warfare across federal-provincial boundaries. The classic example would be the constant conflict between Ontario Liberal Premier Mitchell Hepburn and Mackenzie-King, but that is merely one of the most dramatic cases. Generally provincial interests have trumped political or ideological connectivity.

At the same time there are examples of first ministers from supposedly opposing parties working together. Bill Davis was famously cooperative with Pierre Trudeau on constitutional issues. More than in any country in the world, party loyalty does not travel well across levels of government in Canada.

I suppose I can forgive Mr. Ibbitson for not knowing his history (even though he was alive in 1982 and I was not), but I don’t understand how he could have forgotten the most recent dramatic example. Throughout Conservative Stephen Harper’s first mandate he was in a constant pissing contest with Progressive Conservative Danny Williams over equalization.

How do I know this? Because I read Mr. Ibbitson’s column!

Nov 26th 2010

If Mr. Williams were to run federally, it would likely be under the banner of Stephen Harper’s Conservatives, the party he campaigned so vociferously against in 2008 when he was at war with Ottawa over equalization.

No, it won’t matter much for federal-provincial harmony that “conservatives” will be in power in many or most of Canada’s provincial governments. In the long term a more harmonious federalism can be achieved by the federal government stepping out of federal concerns and stop pitching province against province with transfer payments.

Lemonade Freedom Day

Please don't tell me that I have to write more than this sentence explaining why the government stopping children from selling lemonade is absurd.

Jerry Agnar on harm reduction and the drug war

Jerry Agnar argues that the Canadian Harm Reduction Network cannot say that the drug war has failed and that harm reduction has worked. He claims that if you make the case that the drug war has failed due to the continued prevalence of drugs then the same reasoning must mean that harm reduction has also failed. After all harm reduction has been around for thirty years at least and drug use is still rampant.

This of course is idiotic.

Harm reduction strategies has never been a society wide policy the way that prohibition has been. It has always been in isolated areas and so there is still an open question on what would happen if there was a shift in policy from prohibition to harm reduction. Most of the research of the programs that have existed shows that there are benefits, but there can’t be certainty until it is tried out on a larger scale. Still to say that harm reduction has failed is kind of like taking one bite out of a sandwich and declaring that because you are not full the sandwich couldn’t possibly fill you up.

Besides the primary objective of harm reduction isn’t to stop drug abuse but to reduce the harm that it causes. As Mr. Agnar himself says:

Insite's web page reads, "Insite operates on a harm-reduction model, which means it strives to decrease the adverse health, social and economic consequences of drug use without requiring abstinence from drug use."

So if abstinence is not the goal than how could harm reduction possibly be blamed for there not being more abstinence? I will change my earlier metaphor. It is more like someone taking a bite out of a sandwich and complaining that they are still thirsty.

What is more baffling is that Mr. Agnar doesn’t seem to be disputing that harm reduction actually reduces harm. He comes close to even acknowledging that it does reduce harm:

Cavalieri says it is in overdoses prevented. Fair enough.

So now Mr. Agnar is taking a bite out of the sandwich and then complaining that although he feels fuller he is still thirsty, thus the sandwich is a clear failure.

As silly as his attack on harm reduction is, Mr. Agnar’s defense of the drug war is even more…well ignorant would be the best word for it:

But the war on drugs prevents more drugs on the street than would otherwise be there. And the illegality of hard drugs keeps many people from experimenting with them in the first place, as many -- perhaps most -- people will not participate in illegal activity.

This would have been fine theory in the 1970s (well not really given the experience of alcohol prohibition but whatever), but since then there has been loads of empirical data that shows that Mr. Agnar is clearly wrong. It is as if he is making an argument with zero knowledge about the issue.

Jerry Agnar you are just making yourself look absurd by clinging to the zombielike corpse of this utterly destructive and failed policy of drug prohibition.

Obama and jobs

President Obama says that he wants to focus on job creation. Where have I heard that before?



If he really wants to create jobs he should start his own business instead of creating government programs.

Liberty Summer Seminar lives on this weekend

Check out this piece in the Huffington Post by LSS host Peter Jaworski. A year ago it looked like municipal officials would shut down the yearly celebration of liberty but LSS lives on and will take place this weekend.

I plan to attend so if you ever felt the urge to either shake my hand or punch me in the nose this is your chance!

US Budget Plan: fake spending cuts

So after all that the various branches and houses of the US government has come up with a deal to avert disaster, right? Nope.

At best all they have done is slow down disaster just tiny little bit. For as the Cato Institute points out, under this new budgetary plan spending will actually continue to increase. There are no cuts.