Questions:
A. The Ottawa River Action Plan has been partially implemented. Phase III remains to be completed. This Phase will see the construction of large holding tanks that will prevent sewage overflows into the Ottawa River. The cost of this Phase is estimated to be approximately $150 million. The funding for this Phase of the project will be supplied by all three levels of government on an equal basis, as with the first two phases.
1. Do you personally agree that the Province of Ontario should provide its 1/3 share of the funding to complete the ORAP project? No
2. Does your political party support the funding? The Freedom Party does not have an official position on this specific business question.
Additional Comments: The question contains false premises that need to be addressed. In a free society, the treatment of water, like any other economic activity, is morally the role of individual entrepreneurs and the businesses they build, who compete on a free market for business from customers and are therefore driven by competition to provide the desired service or else go out of business. Instead of using the force of government to create monopoly powers, if government would instead fulfill its proper and only moral role and act to protect rights, especially property rights in this case, the polluters of water would be subject to legal action if it is proven to harm anyone’s property. I believe the provision of clean water and the treatment of sewage are businesses that should be divested by the City in order to protect the rights of citizens and improve the quality of service. In this case, government is both the self-appointed polluter and properly the rights protector, so any solution it comes up with is wrong and necessitates the violation of rights of citizens and the owners of potential water companies.
B. Light Rail Transit (LRT) is a project that is vital to the future transportation needs of the City of Ottawa. LRT is a shared-cost program with all three levels of government participating. The provincial share will be $600 million.
1. Do you personally agree that the Province of Ontario should provide this $600 million to help finance the LRT project? No
2. Does your political party support the funding? The Freedom Party does not have an official position on this specific business question.
Additional Comments: Again, the question contains false premises that indicate the incorrect moral position of collectivism. In a free society, the business of transportation is conducted by entrepreneurs and the businesses they create. They are driven by the requirements of competition to constantly improve their service or else their more efficient competitors will take over their market share. The moral role of government is to protect the rights of citizens to act in their peaceful pursuit of values so long as they do not initiate force against others. This is accomplished by enforcing objective law through the police and court systems.
Light rail transit is not vital to anything. The ability of citizens to move freely and efficiently is what is vital. A government monopoly transit system will always have, by its very nature, a large lack of efficiency, a shortage of innovation and large numbers of dissatisfied citizens. By removing the provision of transportation from the free economy, government eliminated the individual consumer’s right to vote with their pocketbook for the most desirable competitors. Instead, pressure groups vie to take control of politically driven transit decisions, fighting for control of the levers of monopoly power that never ends. The rights of people wanting transit are violated, the rights of taxpayers who are forced to pay for the transit of others is violated, the rights of all possible competitors is violated – yet you expect this to be a good system and think it is moral? I am in favour of ending the transit monopoly and requiring government to protect the rights of citizens.
C. The Federal Government and the Provinces announced the $1.4 billion Affordable Housing Framework 2011-2014 on July 4, 2011. This will be a shared cost program and it is expected that the City of Ottawa will derive approximately $25 million over the next 3 years from this program.
1. Do you personally agree that the Province of Ontario should provide these funds necessary? No
2. Does your political party support the funding? The Freedom Party does not have an official position on this specific business question.Additional Comments: Once again, the question assumes that collectivism is the moral way to organize society. In a free society there are no barriers to affordable housing. All the existing barriers have been created by the immoral action and involvement of government in the economy. We have zoning laws, building codes, labour laws, material standards laws and myriad other interventions that greatly raise the cost of everything. When applied to the vital goal of individuals to have affordable housing, the complex of regulations effectively makes it illegal to have affordable housing. Consequently, to make it affordable again, still more interventions are undertaken and still more rights are violated: the tax system is used to force hard-earned money from the people who exchanged part of their life to earn it and give it to those who did not earn it. When the rights of both the productive and the unproductive are constantly violated, how can we expect to work within such a system to create any long-term solutions?
3. Would you support a longer term affordable housing strategy be delivered after these funds expire? Yes
Additional Comments: Absolutely. The only truly moral and also the most efficient and practical way to enable affordable housing is to protect the rights of citizens to build, buy and own any building they choose. By removing the use of government compulsion from the housing industry and replacing it with only the mutually agreeable and cooperative business agreements (capitalism) that are inherent in a free society, no one’s rights are violated and all parties benefit from every single transaction. Government intervention in housing and the economy has created the shortage of affordable housing and only the removal of it will fully solve the shortage.
D. The Province of Ontario began “uploading” approximately $1.5 billion in social service costs in 2008. This program has been partially implemented and saved the City of Ottawa $25 million in this year alone. The program of “uploading” will not be fully completed until 2018 and will also include the uploading of certain police service costs.
City of Ottawa long-range budget planning encompasses annual additional anticipated uploaded dollars of approximately $2.765 million in 2012; $5.205 million in 2013; $5.155 million in 2014; $5.340 million in 2015; $5.545 million in 2016; $6.150 million in 2017; and $6.065 in 2018. This does not include additional funds of approximately $5 million for police services, which provide a final annual total savings of $40- $41 million by 2018.
- Do you personally agree that the Province of Ontario should complete the implementation of this uploading as planned? No
Additional Comments: In a free society all citizens are responsible for their own lives and the consequences of their decisions. Free individuals neither sacrifice their values for others, nor ask others to sacrifice for them. They certainly do not use the power of government to violate the rights of others. In a free society all transactions are voluntary and mutually beneficial. In a free society the law prohibits the use of government force against innocent citizens who simply wish to peacefully pursue their goals in life and are not harming others. The existence of social services by government is a clear breach of the moral role of government and violates the rights of individual citizens. Such programs rest on the philosophy of collectivism, well expressed by Karl Marx and others, that treats individuals as their brothers keepers and thus disposable parts of a larger whole known as “society”. But society is not in fact a living entity and is only a group of living individuals. In a society where justice is the rule and rights are protected by the state, any men may voluntarily pool their efforts for any cause they choose, but they cannot be forced to do so. In a free society, the minuscule percentage of citizens that are truly unable to care for themselves can easily be helped through voluntary charity.
E. The City of Ottawa has formally requested the province permit approximately 20 gaming tables for the Rideau Carleton Raceway Slots on a two year pilot project.
1. Do you support proceeding with this pilot project later this fall? No
2. Does your political party support the funding? No official position on this specific business question.
Additional Comments: There can be no moral answer because so many false moral premises are implicit in this question that I find it ridiculous. For example, it assumes that:
a) gambling is immoral if conducted among consenting individuals;
b) gambling becomes moral if conducted using the force of government to create a monopoly and then exploit citizens;
c) the specific type of gambling makes any difference to the issue;
d) money should be taken by force from citizens for government purposes;
e) this money should be used to support monopoly gambling establishments;
f) a “pilot project” on this subject will provide any intelligible data;
g) it is proper for any group of voters to lobby for political power to affect any decisions related to the business of gambling.
Riding: Ottawa-Orleans
Political Party: The Freedom Party of Ontario
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