Monday, May 23, 2011

Not so good counsel from prominent Canadians

In today's Ottawa Citizen page A3 there was a full-page spread with advice "prominent" Canadians have for Prime Minister Harper Counsel from prominent Canadians.  Apparently Postmedia News did not think to consult anyone other than socialists since all seven of the interviewees provided only recommendations to increase the invasiveness of government in our lives. 

The head of the Canadian Medical Association applauded the current health care monopoly, as if physicians left free to practice their profession without government force could not built better practices, and patients left free to choose their health care could not do better than legions of bureaucrats.  He erred when he said "for tha last century, medicare has been an important contributor to our country's economy, productivity and quality of life."  Maybe he does not realize that the government only took control of a large part of health care a few decades ago and that ever since then cost of health care and its availability to citizens has been decreasing. 

A professor of climate modelling says Harper should consult past politicians and all the socialists who were not elected to lead the government when formulating environmental policy.  He conveniently ignores the fact that all climate models have failed to predict the actual climate going forward.  Anyone willing to torture the equations hard enough can build a model to replicate past data.  However, when models have been tested in the unknown future data they have been spectacularly wrong.  Consider that every single model used in the IPCC reports of the past has predicted steeply rising temperatures but the actual satellite data has shown level to decreasing tempteratures.  The modelers have ignored the proper effect of clouds in modulating temperature and failed to account for solar output cycles. By avoiding the two most important variables in climate cycles, no wonder the models based on atmospheric carbon dioxide have been so far off base.

A doctoral student in sociology advises the Prime minister to remain true to the values on which this country was founded.  Apparently she thinks those values include major portions of the communist manifesto instead of individual rights and freedoms as documented in the Magna Carta, Bill of Rights, Constitution Act, the Canadian Bill of Rights etc. 

The vice-president of CARP provides mostly a prescription for more government intervention but does have the one reference to individual freedom in the whole page: the elimination of a mandatory retirement age.

A playwright says that a majority government mandate does not mean Harper is actually allowed to change anything important, as if the hundreds of thousands of controls over our lives put in place over the last hundred years cannot be removed without another vote.  He wants Harper to leave Canada in its original condition, ignoring that when Canada was founded, individuals were responsible for their own lives, accountable for not violating the rights of others and largely left to make their own way in life as they saw fit, without a massive central government to tell them how to build their house, grow their food, travel, work, live and die.  In fact, in many ways the original Canada is the opposite of the one we have today.  We still have a great country, but this is despite the pervasive force used by government, not because of it.

The mayor of Calgary wants billions of dollars for "cities", meaning for another layer of state controls.  One level of government is to tax citizens and give the money to another layer of government.  How's that for freedom and accountability?

The leader of an advocacy group makes nice-sounding but meaningless suggestions for "growing inequality", "listening to the Canadians who did not vote for him" and "finding a common path forward".

Not one of these prominent people made reference to the right of individuals to peacefully purse their own happiness in life, free of interference from the state.  Except for the reference to removing mandatory retirement, none of them spoke about removing the giant burden of government from the backs of citizens who simply wish to make their own way in life.  Further, they only tended to make fatal errors in knowledge of the history of Canada and the freedoms our Country was founded upon - the freedoms responsible for the great scientific, technological and economic progress that comes when individual rights are protected instead of suppressed. 

Maybe it is time we tried capitalism for a change, instead of socialism or the mixed economy.  Unfortunately, the prominent Canadians chosen by Postmedia News wouldn't even recognize capitalism if it was laid out on the table in front of them, so there is no help there!

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