Star gets it wrong

A couple of days ago, James Travers of the Toronto Star wrote a column suggesting the Ontario Progressive Conservatives had erred in selecting a conservative like Tim Hudak to lead them.

The Tories were looking backward said Travers.

I wrote a letter to the editor to set the record straight. It was published today:

"Star columnist Jim Travers has got it all wrong.

Leftists, not conservatives, are the ones nostalgic for the past.

It's leftists who are eagerly embracing and promoting the failed socialist policies of the 1960s and '70s – bigger government, massive deficits and industrial planning.

Clearly, they have forgotten how such policies led to only thing: economic stagnation.

That's why we need conservative leaders who will stick by their principles.

Somebody has to be there to pick up the pieces."

Gag law hypocrisy

There are two things I really despise: election gag laws and hypocrisy.

And the two usually go together.

For those not familiar with the term "gag law", that's what I call federal election legislation which imposes severe restrictions how much money citizens or groups can spend on "political advertising" during elections.

During my time at the National Citizens Coalition, I battled these laws in both the court of law and in the court of public opinion.

I believed then, and still believe now, that gag laws infringe on every Canadian's right to free expression.

Yet one of the pro-gag law arguments I kept coming up against was the following: "It's only fair to deny Canadian citizens the right to free political speech. After all, political parties face expenditure limits. Gag laws level the playing field."

In other words, gag law defenders -- usually politicians -- see spending money as an evil influence on our democratic process. That's why both citizens and politicians need limits as to how much they can spend to express opinions.

And this is where the hypocrisy comes in.

The fact is politicians routinely spend money without any limit to buy votes. What's worse is they don't even spend their own money. They spend our money.

Case in point, is the flagrant way in which the Conservative Party is making political hay out of all that stimulus spending from their recent budget.

As a story in the Toronto Star notes, the Tories are handing out "huge blue cheques emblazoned with the maple leaf logo of the Canadian government, the signature of a benevolent MP and, in some cases, Conservative sloganeering."

If that's not buying votes, I don't know what is. And believe me, the amount of money the Tories will spend this summer on this stuff will dwarf anything citizens or groups would ever spend on election advertising.

So maybe our politicians should either repeal the gag law or refrain from using our taxes for their political propaganda ploys.

It would be the fair thing to do.

Friedman Defending Capitalism

This clip from the Phil Donahue may be ancient but it's still relevant.



H/T Rolph

Founding debates

This being Canada Day and all I thought it would be appropriate to mention that I am currently reading Canada's Founding Debates, a book edited by my friend William Gairdner.

This book provides a fascinating glimpse at some of the debates over the pros and cons of Confederation which took place in the parliaments and assemblies of British North America from 1864 to 1873.

It's a wonderful intellectual history of the ideas which were to shape Canada in its early days.

What struck me immediately was how our elected representatives at that time employed sophisticated rhetoric and reasoning to support their cases. It's a sad contrast to the juvenile sound bites and taunts which pass for "debate" these days in our legislatures.

And leftists might be surprised to learn that nobody in the founding debates mentioned anything about socialized medicine, peace keeping or the CBC.

Rather the legislators talked about concepts such as "liberty". Liberty, now there's a word you don't hear much mentioned in the House of Commons anymore.

Here's what Richard Cartwright, a legislator from what was later called Ontario, declared in 1865:

"I think that every true reformer, every real friend of liberty, will agree with me in saying that if we must erect safeguards, they should be rather for the security of the individual than of the mass, and that our chiefest care must be to train the majority to respect the rights of the minority, to prevent claims of the few from being trampled under foot by the caprice or passion of the many. For myself, sir, I own frankly I prefer British liberty to American equality."

Bet this isn't reproduced in many Canadian history textbooks.

Capitalists must stop being defensive

Here's my latest column from Report Magazine; I make the case that the people who must start defending capitalism are capitalists.

Police should do their job

What is it about strikes which make the police suddenly forget to do their job?

For instance, it's the duty of a police officer to ensure citizens can travel freely without fear of harassment or intimidation.

Yet, for some reason the police typically do nothing to stop such harassment and intimidation from taking place on a picket line.

A case in point is the current city-worker strike in Toronto. Strikers are hindering citizens from entering public spaces and the police won't do a thing about it except watch.

Police Const. Tony Vella says the cops are there to "keep the peace. They have to stay neutral."

Neutral?

By doing nothing to stop union-bullying the police are far from neutral. They are actually aiding and abetting union bosses who wish to hold taxpayers hostage.

That's wrong.

Winning the war of ideas

Non-Michael Jackson related news: I have a column in today's National Post based on a speech I gave yesterday at a Fraser Institute event.

It's about why Canadian conservatives must focus on asking themselves one simple question: Is it right?