According to the AG, when the LCBO decides to stock a new product, it puts out a “needs letter” to suppliers. For each type of product, the needs letter tells suppliers the range of prices at which the LCBO would like to sell the product. That price is not based upon supply and demand. It is based on pure whim (which might explain, at least in part, why the Lagavulin I used to be able to buy for forty some odd dollars now costs well over $100 per bottle, only a few years later). Don’t stop reading: it gets worse. Much worse.

According to the AG, the LCBO has a “fixed markup structure”:

Markup rates vary by product category. However, within each category, the markup is the same for all products (examples are shown in Figure 3).

According to Figure three, the “vodka, whisky, rum” class of products has fixed markups of 141% (domestic products), 148.1% (imported products from the USA), and 148.0% (other imports). For “table wine” the markups are 65.5% (Ontario wines) and 71.5% (other domestic and imported wines).

Because the markups are fixed, the more a supplier charges the LCBO for its product, the higher the revenues of the LCBO for that product. For example, were a U.S. whisky company to sell a bottle of whisky to the LCBO for $15 (including federal excise tax, federal import duty, and freight), the LCBO markup would be $15 x 148.1= $22.212. However, if the LCBO has the same company charge $20 for the same bottle, the LCBO’s revenues from the sale of that bottle increase: $20 x 148.1 = $29.62. Those markups are not the total price charged to the consumer: they are the profits gained from the sale of a bottle of whisky.

According to the AG:

“If a supplier’s cost quote results in an amount that does not match the agreed-up retail price, the LCBO will ask it to raise or lower the wholesale cost of the product. We found examples both where the supllier’s intial cost quote had been raised and where it had been lowered…”

Get that? The LCBO literally has been telling its suppliers, in some cases, to charge the LCBO more for its product. The reason: the LCBO will reap a higher per bottle profit, as a result.

Hence the AG’s statement:

The LCBO’s fixed-pricing structure gives it no incentive to negotiate lower wholesale costs – doing so would result in lower retail prices and, in turn, lower profits…

The AG’s first recommendation is that the LCBO do a better job of telling the public how it sets prices:

“Although some of this information is disclosed on the LCBO website under the “Contact Us” section, it would not be easy for the public to find this information or use it to fully understand how beverage alcohol prices are set.”

That, most certainly, is to say the least. The public should be outraged that not only does the LCBO not seek the lowest price from suppliers, but that it actually colludes with them to raise the wholesale price, so that the LCBO can reap higher revenues. There is only one word for what the LCBO is doing: scandalous.

The implications for the AG’s findings in respect of LCBO pricing cannot be understated. No longer can public sector unions (see here) and academics (see here and here) oppose private liquor sales on the basis that the LCBO’s monopoly allows it to benefit from “economies of scale”. Clearly, it is utterly false that the LCBO is using its monopoly to get the lowest possible price from suppliers, so as to “pass the savings along to you, the consumer” (as the popular phrasing of that notion goes).

The finding also raises an important question. Specifically, there is no obvious reason why the LCBO must limit its margin by specifying a fixed margin (e.g., 148% on imported spirits). If the LCBO wants to sell a bottle for $42, it can do so whether it paid the producer $16.94 for the bottle, or paid the producer much less (e.g. $10.00 for the bottle). The only party that obviously benefits from fixing the margin is: suppliers. If the LCBO cannot raise a price without paying suppliers more for the product, this policy is essentially a gift to producers/suppliers. Now, ask yourself: what supplier would be opposed to a government monopoly that required suppliers to increase prices (hence profit margins)? What hooch-maker would not oppose competition for the LCBO? As ever, there is a corrupt private sector motive to oppose exposing the LCBO to private sector competition: private buyers would never pay suppliers the above-market prices that the LCBO pays suppliers.

In closing, I can only repeat what I, as Freedom Party of Ontario leader, proposed during the October 6, 2011 election: get rid of the pricing structures and make the LCBO compete with private sector stores.

[Paul McKeever can be reached for comment at 905-721-9772; or via e-mail: pmckeever@freedomparty.on.ca]

Did my predictions pan out? Judge for yourself: watch this video of my speech. To get to the meat of my argument, skip ahead to about 11mins, 30 seconds (Click here):

Hudak’s statements have been found on the web sites of two religious organizations: the Campaign Life Coalition (CLC), and the Association for Reformed Political Action (ARPA). On its web site, the CLC describes what it believes to be the role of government as follows:

The state’s main reason for existence, is to protect and promote the common good and the general welfare of its citizenry. The state is charged with protecting its citizens from harm, whether from foreign enemies, or from internal disorders that reduce the peace and security of its people. The state will impose civil laws and public policy which supports those ends, such as laws against murder which protect the innocent from being unjustly killed. A just government will treat all citizens equally, regardless of gender, age or size.

In the same discussion about the role of government, the CLC applies the above view to the issue of abortion:

Since science has proven that the unborn is fully human, therefore it is a person with rights, and the state has a moral obligation to protect them as citizens who are already in the world. Abortion is the intentional and direct killing of an innocent human being. No abstract argument (e.g. privacy), nor emotional appeal can change this reality. Even in the case of rape, the child is innocent, having himself committed no crime. In fact, the child is a second victim along with the mother, having been conceived out of violence rather than love.

The state must step in to protect innocent human life, regardless of the varied emotional appeals used by abortion-choicers. The pro-abortion stance is an anti-equality stance.

A month prior to the vote in the Ontario provincial election of 1995, the CLC requested that Tim Hudak state his position on abortion. Hudak was then seeking to become the MPP for the old riding of Niagara South. In a letter to the CLC dated May 23, 1995, Hudak replied: “I believe that it is the government’s role to promote the choice of life in childbearing decisions, to encourage women to carry the babies to term and, if the child is unwanted, to give them up for adoption.”

http://www.campaignlifecoalition.com/index.php?p=Provincial_Voting_Records&id=5251,
as it appeared as recently as July 4, 2011

That quotation appeared on the CLC website as recently as July 4, 2011. A cached version of it appears here. It is as though the twittering of the link to that page and quotation has led to a decision to hide the past: the page now says “The MP was not found”. The truth, apparently, can be rather inconvenient.

http://www.campaignlifecoalition.com/index.php?p=Provincial_Voting_Records&id=5251,
as it appears today.

The release of Tim Hudak’s position on abortion has clearly led to a panic in the Progressive Conservative camp. Rightly worried that the electorate might learn who Tim Hudak is, they have begun filling the comments sections of blogs with the usual sorts of excuses. For example, on Liberal war roomer Warren Kinsella’s blog entry about the CLC entry, a commenter writes:

1995. Yawn.
Weren’t most Liberals against Gay Marriage way back then, too?
1995.
Try campaigning 2011. Just what is the Ontario Liberal party offering in the here and now?

The commenter’s implication is that because Hudak wrote his letter to the CLC in 1995, Hudak no longer has the same views, so don’t worry. There’s a problem with that theory, however: just 26 months ago, Hudak confirmed those views during his successful bid to assume the position of leader of Ontario’s Progressive Conservative party.

ARPA describes itself as a group “…grounded by our faith in the truth and authority of the Bible, also as it is summarized in the Three Forms of Unity, and believe that the Lordship of Jesus Christ must apply to every sphere of life, including politics.” With respect to the issue of abortion, it is decidedly anti-choice, and seeks the election of politicians who will pass laws against abortion. During the 2009 Ontario Progressive Conservative leadership race, ARPA asked the four leadership contestants (Tim Hudak, Christine Elliott, Randy Hillier and Frank Klees) for their respective positions on the issue of abortion. ARPA apparently was unable to get any of the candidates to provide a response…except for one: Tim Hudak. Hudak was apparently eager to answer, with an e-mail to ARPA:

In an email to an ARPA Contact, Hudak made it clear that he is pro-life and has signed petitions calling for abortion defunding and conscience legislation.

I am unaware of any statement by Hudak that is contrary to those he made to the CLC and to ARPA. I must take the man at his word: he is anti-choice, and believes that it is the role of government (the role of government!) to “encourage” women not to have abortions. Anyone saying or implying that Hudak’s views on abortion and the role of government have changed owes it to the voter to demonstrate that Hudak’s views have changed.

Another tactic being used by the panicky PCs is to claim that the Liberals are releasing the statements, and that they are doing it because the Liberals are low in the polls. That is clearly a red herring. There is nothing uniquely “Liberal” about pointing out a man’s convictions. A man’s convictions are simply a man’s convictions. And, when that man seeks to have what – in our Parliamentary system – is nigh equivalent to the power of a dictator (a Premier with a majority can be stopped only by the judiciary and, even then, only to a limited extent), it is only fitting that the voters and the general public know what he believes should be the “role of government”.

Saying “I believe the government’s role is” is not the same as saying “I promise to”. A belief is not a campaign promise. A belief transcends campaign promises and elections. It colours all promises and elections. Promising to take the HST off of electricity, but to otherwise leave the HST in place, tells you something about the PCs at this point in time (mostly, that they are all bark and no bite when it comes to promises to cut taxes and spending, and that they are entirely unprincipled). In contrast, saying “I believe” tells you something about Tim Hudak, the man who wants to be the CEO of Ontario.

Moreover, this is not just any belief. It is a belief he has about “the role of government”. Hudak’s not merely talking about his personal moral position. He’s talking about how the power of government should be used and directed. That is clearly a material consideration for any voter.

There is a third argument being put out there by the fearful PCs: that Hudak was only talking about encouraging, not forcing. When we are talking about “the role of government”, the encourage/force distinction is a false one. Government does nothing without the money it takes from us in taxes, fees etc.. It does not merely “encourage” us to fund a campaign against abortion. It holds us, ultimately, at gunpoint (try not paying your taxes, and refusing arrest), requiring us to fund whatever it desires to promote or discourage. It gives us no option but to pay for the bureaucrats, police, and marketing firms it decides to use for the purpose of “encouraging” someone to do or refrain from doing something.

Moreover, there are a host of “encouragements” Tim Hudak could engage in his quietly pending jihad against choice. For example, Hudak could make ones medical license dependent upon not providing abortions. He could impose massive fees for various made-mandatory services (e.g., environmental fees for disposal of the foetus); he could make the having of an abortion a basis for denying property distribution upon the breakdown of a marriage; he could require all sorts of procedures to be followed, and permissions to be obtained, before having an abortion. For example, consider the regulations, procedures, fees, and approvals that are usually imposed on such things as chopping down a flipping tree. The “he’s only talking about encouraging” argument is dead in the water.

Finally, some PC clean-up crewmen are actually asserting that the abortion debate is a “decades old culture war“, and are implying that the culture war is being brought-on by the provincial Liberals to make up for their unpopularity. Again, that’s a red herring. Yes, the Liberals are currently very unpopular, and yes Liberals are among those who are revealing Hudak’s convictions to the public. But to suggest that the Liberals are somehow starting a culture war is ridiculous. Look around you. We’ve gone from the summer of 2003 to an era of bizarre governmental pot fetishes, the glorification of sacrifice, the building of prisons, prayer in our public schools. We’ve gone in reverse: from 2003′s growth into adulthood and personal responsibility, to a father-knows-best paternalism, spawned in no small measure from a primarily conservative desire to merge religious commandments with the laws of man. If we’re in a culture war – and I believe we are – it is a war being brought on by the conservatives, seeking to make government their daddy or their god, delivering them, as increasingly child-like people, from “evil” such as the temptation having sex with someone of the same sex, the temptation of smoking pot, the temptation of not “dying for ones country” etc. It’s a war brought on by children, against adulthood. It is only fitting, therefore, that the adults do not spare the rod, in this case.

The sheer volume of comments posted by Progressive Conservatives in defence of Tim Hudak make another thing clear: they don’t want the media touching this issue. That, alone, should tell the media just how important it is for them to ensure that Hudak states his position clearly, and currently. Specifically, it is now incumbent on the media to ask Mr. Hudak to state whether or not he has changed his views on abortion and the role of government, since he made them during his campaigns for office and leadership.

END NOTE: Full disclosure: I believe that it is *not* the role of government to promote the choice of life (or the choice of abortion) in childbearing decisions. I believe it is *not* the government’s role to encourage or discourage women to carry their babies to term. I believe it is *not* the government’s role to encourage or discourage women to give up unwanted children for adoption. The government’s only role in the matter of abortion is to defend the woman’s life, liberty, and property as she makes and carries out her own choice in the matter. And, for those who might wrongly conclude that I am somehow defending the Liberal government: no, I think it’s time for the Liberals to go, and I lead the only political party fit to replace them: Freedom Party of Ontario.

For those still reeling from, and disgusted by, PC leader Tim Hudak’s attempt to offer up an election platform promising to maintain the status quo on the very taxes and measures for which he is simultaneously condemning Liberal premier Dalton McGuinty (e.g., HST, health tax, out of control health and education spending, etc.), the release today of a gasoline plank by the Ontario NDP of Andrea Horwath is sure to make one wonder if we are living not in Ontario, but in Orwell’s Oceania. Fifteen days ago, the Ontario New Democratic Party of Andrea Horwath announced that an Ontario NDP government, if elected, would regulate gasoline prices at the pump. Today, Horwath promised a phased-in elimination of the HST: 1% per annum over the next four years, leaving Ontario drivers paying a 4% HST on fuel by the election of 2015. Horwath reportedly said that the HST cut would be in the amount of $500M, but that that lost revenue would be made up by taxing businesses (she did not say exactly how).

I submit that, just as Hudak is falsely implying that he is opposed to the taxes for which he condemns McGuinty, Horwath is trying to appear car-and-driver friendly while, in reality, preparing to conduct an all-out-war on the automobile, sufficient to force us all onto Soviet-style, creaky old “red rocket” style mass transit over the next four years. Here’s the deal. Horwath has already made it clear that an NDP government would impose other changes to ensure that her 1% per annum HST cut on gasoline will be revenue neutral. Given the NDP’s openly socialist nature, we can certainly expect an NDP government to be hostile to individual transportation, and to introduce measures to force Ontarians out of their cars and into tax-funded/subsidized mass transit.

The most likely step to be taken by an NDP government: increasing fuel prices (via the regulatory powers the NDP has already promised), such that a reduced HST rate on those fuel prices will be revenue-neutral. There will be no drop in the total price at the pump (including taxes). To the contrary, the per litre price at the pump will increase. Here’s a breakdown:

Year one: Provincial Portion of HST on Gasoline Dropped to 7%

Let us assume a regulated gasoline price, on day one of and NDP mandate, equal to the current price of about $1.29/litre. Of that price:

Ontario’s Portion of the HST = $0.0913272
Federal Portion of the HST = $0.0570795
Provincial Gasoline Tax = $0.147; and
Price of the Gasoline Itself = $0.9945933

To make up for the revenue lost from a 1% drop in HST, fuel prices would probably be increased, in year one, by 13.27367%. Using the current pump price of about $1.29 per liter as an example, the 8% Ontario portion of the HST is $1.29 / 113 x 8 = $0.0913272 per litre. To keep the per litre revenues from a 7% HST at $0.0913272, Horwath could (and probably would) increase the regulated price of gasoline from $1.290 to $/l = $0.0913272 / 7 x 112 = $1.4612304/litre. In other words, the price at the pump would actually jump so as to keep HST revenues from gasoline revenue-neutral despite the 1% HST rate reduction. Of course, there is no way that the NDP would simply hand over the $1.4612304 – $1.29 = $0.1712304 fuel price increase to the gasoline producers or retailers, so expect their taxes to be increased sufficiently to allow the provincial government to snatch the full $0.1712304. No doubt, they’ll say they are earmarking that money for a mass-transit infrastructure fund.

Year 2: Provincial Portion of HST on Gasoline Dropped to 6%

To make up for the revenue lost from a 2% provincial reduction in the HST, Horwath’s NDP government would probably increase fuel prices, in year two, by 15.62537%. Again using the current pump price of about $1.29 per liter as an example, to keep the per litre revenues from a 6% HST at $0.0913272, Horwath could (and probably would) increase the regulated price of gasoline from the year one price of $1.4612304/litre to $/l = $0.0913272 / 6 x 111 = $1.6895532/litre. Expect the year two $1.6895532 – $1.4612304 = $0.2283228 / litre increase to be funneled into the government coffers – probably announced as “increased” transit funding – via an increase in the taxation of gasoline producers and retailers.

Year 3: Provincial Portion of HST on Gasoline Dropped to 5%

To make up for the revenue lost from a 3% provincial reduction in the HST, Horwath’s NDP government would probably increase fuel prices, in year three, by 18.91865%. Again using the current pump price of about $1.29 per liter as an example, to keep the per litre revenues from a 5% HST at $0.0913272, Horwath could (and probably would) increase the regulated price of gasoline from the year two price of $1.6895532/litre to $/l = $0.0913272 / 5 x 110 = $2.009194/litre. Expect the year three $2.009194 – $1.6895532 = $0.3196408 / litre increase to be funneled into the government coffers – probably announced as “increased” transit funding – via an increase in the taxation of gasoline producers and retailers.

Year 4: Provincial Portion of HST on Gasoline Dropped to 4%

To make up for the revenue lost from a 4% provincial reduction in the HST, Horwath’s NDP government would probably increase fuel prices, in year four, by 23.8639%. Again using the current pump price of about $1.29 per liter as an example, to keep the per litre revenues from a 4% HST at $0.0913272, Horwath could (and probably would) increase the regulated price of gasoline from the year three price of $2.009194/litre to $/l = $0.0913272 / 4 * 109 = $2.4886662/litre. Expect the year three $2.4886662 – $2.009194 = $0.4794722 / litre increase to be funneled into the government coffers – probably announced as “increased” transit funding – via an increase in the taxation of gasoline producers and retailers.

The upshot: by the time of the next election, drivers would be paying $2.49 per litre for gasoline (an almost 93% increase in the price at the pump), HST revenues from gasoline sales would remain unchanged. Gasoline producers and retailers would experience no increase in revenues, as the huge increases in the regulated price of gasoline would be funneled into provincial coffers, destined – at least in part – for increasingly universalized transportion costs. Put another way: from each according to his reclining leather bucket, to each according to his stained seat or greasy poll on the TTC.

Addressing the Critics, in Advance

Some will argue that the above analysis is based upon assumptions for which I have no evidence: especially the assumption that a Horwath NDP government would use its promised gasoline price regulatory powers to ensure that HST revenues from gasoline sales remain unchanged. Fine: let Ms Horwath deny it. Let her dispel that notion by promising voters that she will actually decrease HST revenues from gasoline sales, such that drivers will benefit from that decrease, but non-drivers (such as many of her probable supporters) will not. Demand that she promise not to increase the regulated pump price of gasoline above the average pump price in place on October 6th, 2011, so that she can prove she won’t increase prices to maintain or increase tax revenues from gasoline sales. Demand that she promise not to increase government spending on mass transit. Demand that she promise not to increase taxes on gasoline producers and retailers. Demand…and expect no such promises. Then ask yourself why she won’t make them.

And, consider the smell test. In Britain today, gasoline is reportedly selling for about $2.20CAN per litre. We can dislike current gasoline prices (I do) all we like, but the fact of the matter is that a relatively free market for gasoline in Ontario is yielding much lower prices than in Britain. Why the NDP promise to interfere with a market-based system that is yielding lower prices? The most plausible answer: to increase prices to above-market levels. If you do not think it plausible for NDP-regulated Ontario gasoline prices to be hovering around the $2/litre mark in 2014, ask yourself if you are familiar with such concepts as socialism, collectivism, central planning, race-and-sex based hiring quotas, and the Ontario NDP government of 1990-1995 in general.

Dear reader, one thing’s for sure: this is your grandfather’s NDP. In any guise, socialism “ain’t pretty, she just looks that way”. So it is for any tax cut dangled in front of voters by Ms Horwath’s NDP. Consider yourself warned.

=============

UPDATE: 2011-August-10

Today, the NDP launched a new “anti-smear” website, http://stopthesmears.ca/. The site quotes Ms Horwath as saying: “We’ve set up this website to help you fight back against smears and misinformation.”

The site currently lists six alleged “smears”. The sixth: “The NDP will raise the price of gasoline.” That’s interesting, because, apart from me, I know of nobody else who has been making that speculation. Imaging my interest: “Hmmm”, I thought, “I never thought Horwath would deny that…guess I was wrong”.

Then I read the site’s response to the allegation. Nope, I wasn’t wrong.

Here’s the NDP’s reply to the allegation (my allegation?) that an NDP government would regulate higher prices:

Gas gouging by big oil and gas companies costs consumers in a big way. According to a study by the independent Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, gas prices of about $1.30 per litre mean excess profits of 25 cents per litre – or over $9 billion a year!

That’s why Ontario’s New Democrats will task the Ontario Energy Board with setting a weekly cap on gas prices to ensure stability, predictability, and fairness. We can’t affect the international price of oil, but it can prevent the day-to-day spiking that hurts consumers and leads to excess profits.

After all, Ontario makes sure prices for electricity, natural gas, and even beer are predictable and fair. Why not gasoline?

To find out how much you’re being gouged at http://gasgouge.ca/

Notice anything missing from that response? That’s right: there’s no denial of the allegation that the NDP would raise the pump price of gasoline!

Note to Ms Horwath: the correct way to deal with a false allegation is to…deny it. Telling everyone to consider some other point entirely is not an answer, and your non-denial only gives more credibility to the allegation made…the one you’re calling a “smear”.

We’re still waiting for that clear denial: a promise that you will not increase the pump price to above-market prices.

Faith-based Budgeting: Pennies from Heaven

Ontario is currently borrowing about $16.7B more every year to pay for its spending habit. Hudak’s ChangeBook promises additional health care spending of $6.1B; $1.2B in lost revenues resulting from exempting electricity bills from the HST; undisclosed lost revenues resulting from the introduction of spousal income splitting; undisclosed costs resulting from deliberately breaching Ontario’s contract with Samsung; undisclosed lost revenues resulting from reducing business taxes; an expenditure of $35B largely for transportation; the purchase of nuclear power units (the most recent quote for such units is $26B per unit); and more. How does it propose to pay for the PCs proposed orgy of increased spending?: “Outside of our priority public services of health and education that will grow, we will find savings of two cents on the dollar, every year on government spending.” However, two percent is lower than the annual rate of inflation, and represents only about $2B per year. In other words, Hudak’s ChangeBook implicitly promises that the budget will not be balanced with spending cuts.

Hudak’s ChangeBook nonetheless promises that “We will set priorities – and stick to them – to balance the budget no later than 2017-18″. Having essentially promised not to cut spending to balance the budget, the only other possibility is an increase in government tax revenues.

In that respect, it is important to note that Hudak’s ChangeBook has at least one glaring and shocking omission (one that, again, neither the Liberals nor the mainstream media have yet noticed): it nowhere promises that a Hudak government would not increase taxes, and it nowhere promises that new taxes would not be introduced. It does promise that “We will make it the law that the provincial government cannot raise taxes without a clear mandate”, but it does not say that a PC government would not seek such a mandate, and it does not say what would make a mandate “clear”.

More to the point, if we give Hudak the unwarranted credit that a PC government would not raise taxes or introduce new ones, we are left with the most disturbing conclusion of all: that Hudak and his PCs expect you simply to have faith that tax revenues will increase. Indeed, since releasing the ChangeBook, Hudak has repeatedly told the media that – despite promising little over $2B in annual spending cuts while promising much more than that in spending increases – he would be able to balance the budget by 2017-2018 because (he claims) the economy will grow and cause tax revenues to grow (by $21B over the course of the next four years alone). The claim is contrary to budget precedents.

Have a look at the Ontario budgets from 1996 through to 2011 (i.e., the ones available online…or see my summary of the revenue and expense data – from 1992 to present – at the end of this article). On average, for the period 1998 to present, revenues in a given year have indeed been an average of 39.4% higher than they were six years prior. If we charitably ignore the economic turmoil facing North America in the coming years (the collapse of the U.S. dollar, probable runaway inflation, a reduction of Ontario exports to the U.S.A., etc.), budget history informs us that revenues should be expected to be 39.4% higher in 2017-18 than they are right now: $108.453B** x 1.394 = $151.183B (**see 2011 Budget, Table 24).

However, look at the expense figures for the same period – 1998 to present – and you will find that expenses in a given year have, similarly, been an average of 39.5% higher than they were six years prior. If we charitably ignore the explosive growth in health care and home care costs that will accompany the aging of our baby-boomer generation, expenses should be expected to be 39.5% higher in 2017-18 than they are right now: $124.0682B*** x 1.395 = $173.0751 (***see 2011 Budget, Table 25)

See what I mean? Even if we make ridiculously rosy assumptions about the economy and about revenues and expenses over the next 6 years, Ontario’s budget history indicates that increases in revenues will be eaten up entirely by corresponding increases in expenditures, leaving a 2017-18 deficit of $173.0751B – $151.183B = $21.892B. That’s $5.592B more borrowing, each year, than Ontario is doing right now (i.e., $16.3B per year).

Observable historical fact demonstrates that without a deliberate and large cut to the few major expenses in Ontario’s budget – health, education and/or welfare – economic growth will not allow Hudak or anyone else to balance the budget by 2017-18. To believe otherwise requires the faith of a Heaven’s Gate cultist (may they all rest in peace). Mr. Hudak and his PC team, apparently, believe the voter has that very ill-fated kind of faith, and he wants to found the government’s budget, and Ontario’s economic future, on said faith. No thanks, Reverend Applewhite.

Oh, the Irony: ChangeBook’s Faith-based Fight Against Climate Change

Hudak’s Progressive Conservatives are on the record as being even more radically committed to fighting climate change than the Ontario Liberals (judging by their words…which is all anyone can judge by, given the absence, among all parties, of demonstrably effective climate-fighting deeds). However, Hudak has managed to keep his own mouth shut about climate change since 2007. Remaining silent has allowed him to mislead those who are opposed to using taxpayer dollars to fight climate change: it has given many such people false hope that Hudak is on their side.

Perhaps sensing that duplicity on the issue of climate change would allow the Liberals to accuse the PCs of having a secret “denier” agenda, the writers of Hudak’s ChangeBook clearly decided that it would be best for Hudak to actually take an unequivocal stand on the climate change issue. Here, from ChangeBook, is Hudak’s key 2011 election promise relating to the world’s most threatening fiscal black-hole, fighting climate change:

We will do our share in the climate change battle. Climate change is by definition a global challenge. Our efforts will be meaningful and practical. We will close Ontario’s coal plants by 2014. We will take steps to make government buildings more energy efficient. And we will work with other provincial governments, the federal government, and our international partners to ensure Ontario is doing its part to combat climate change. (emphasis added)

For those cynical (or deliriously hopeful) enough to believe that, by “our share”, Hudak means “zero”, Hudak has issued some bad news. Hudak’s commitment to using taxpayer dollars – and energy policy – to fight climate change was made even more clear last Tuesday, when Ontario’s Environment Commissioner, Gord Miller, issued his annual report. Miller said that Ontario has little chance to meet its greenhouse gas reduction targets by 2014, and he proposed that Ontario impose road tolls and carbon pricing to meet those targets. Tim Hudak’s response? According to the Toronto Sun (May 31, 2011):

Progressive Conservative Leader Tim Hudak said he “absolutely” believes in the science behind climate change concerns and the environmental danger it poses.

“The question is what do you do about it,” Hudak said. His party isn’t proposing any road tolls and would oppose a carbon tax but is open to working with the federal government on continent-wide cap and trade plan.

There you have it: not only an unequivocal reiteration that Hudak buys into the idea that human activity will cause catastrophic climate change, but also a promise to implement cap-and-trade.

In essence, cap-and-trade involves – arguably, is intended to cause – wealth redistribution. Under a cap and trade scheme, those who create little or nothing – hence, who create little or no CO2 – are nonetheless given an equal share of licenses to produce CO2…which are, essentially, licenses to produce things of value, because the production of things of value generally involves the release of CO2. Once a company has produced a certain maximum amount of CO2 (i.e., a certain maximum amount of wealth), it has to give some of that wealth to those who have produced little or nothing for it, or else it must stop producing wealth. In short, carbon trading is a system designed to force wealth-producing winners into making a lose-lose decision: either pay underproductive losers a share of the wealth that the winners produce, or stop being wealth-producing winners. Cap and trade is welfare for the moochers and looters of industry, made politically viable only by the popularity and propagation of the belief that human-released CO2 – human wealth creation – will cause catastrophic climate change, and that human beings must therefore prevent the climate from changing.

There is no question that the climate changes. It always has, and it always will. To deny that is to deny the Ice Age. However, there is no conclusive scientific evidence that CO2 (a gas you exhale) released as a result of human productive activity will cause the climate to change in a way that will cause humans to suffer an unavoidable loss of life, liberty, property, or happiness. Likewise, there is no evidence that human beings have the means of stopping the climate from changing. Most certainly of all, there is no scientific evidence that humans will not be able to adapt to changes in climate that inevitably we will experience in the coming centuries and millennia. Those who think otherwise have apparently never been to Las Vegas…or to Hornepayne, for that matter (Oh, the cold! The snow!! The summertime blackflies and leeches of Nagagamisis!!! [bring deet, cigarettes and salt, brave Ontario traveller]).

Computer models of ones assumptions, based on an extremely limited understanding of the millions or billions of factors influencing climate, are not, themselves, evidence. Nor is it possible to know that such models have predictive validity, even if they can perfectly mimic past climactic changes. Scientists who actually use computer models – I used to program neural nets and build computer models when my goal was to have a career in artificial intelligence – should know this. The various predictions made by climate change alarmists are based not on data from the future (i.e., data that does not yet exist) but upon data about the past, entered into computer models founded implicitly or explicitly upon assumptions about how yesterday’s data predict tomorrow’s data.

Let me give you a concrete, easy to understand example concerning predictive validity. During my undergraduate years, I built a neural network that memorized all of the previous sets of winning numbers from the Lotto 6/49 draws. I could enter the winning numbers from any 10 consecutive draws, and the computer model would – 100% of the time – give me the set of numbers that happened on the following (i.e., the 11th) draw. However, the model had no predictive validity. If I entered the most recent 10 sets of winning numbers, the computer model could not predict tomorrow’s winning numbers. Similarly, one can use a computer model to account for climate changes of the past, using climate data from further in the past, but that ability does not necessarily imply that ones computer model has the ability to predict future climate data (i.e., data about climate changes that have not yet happened). It is only by waiting and continuing to take climactic measurements – perhaps for hundreds or thousands of years, because we are modeling climate, not weather – that we will be able to determine whether or not today’s computer models have predictive validity. Right now, believing our climate models have predictive validity is a matter not of science, but of…faith.

Hudak’s expressed “absolute” belief that man-made CO2 will cause us to suffer catastrophic loss is founded, ultimately, upon the public’s faith in the predictive validity of computer models. Such faith is not a rational basis for determining government policy. If Hudak is committed to fighting faith-based climate change – especially when he can have nothing except faith that the Ontario government can fight climate change by spending billions of taxpayer dollars, redistributing wealth, and discouraging every productive business in the world from setting up in Ontario – a Hudak PC government would necessarily continue to engage in the very faith-based folly that has given us 80 cent solar power contracts (which he has promised to honour), power conservation measures at a time of surplus energy (see the bulk of the Green Energy Act), and a soaring deficit.

Faith-based Schools: the PCs’ Secret Religious Public School Strategy

And now, the dilly you’ve been waiting for. The PCs famously lost the Ontario election of 2007 because they promised to give taxpayer dollars to privately-owned and operated religious schools. What many do not realize is that Tim Hudak was one of the main proponents of tax-funded religious schools. Prior to the election of 2007, Hudak wrote on his web site:

“Support for parents who choose to send their children to independent faith-based schools has been a long-standing cause for me” (Source -www.timhudakmpp.com/node/83…but don’t look for it, because Mr. Hudak is covering his tracks: he has removed the article from his website).

Hudak explained that the purpose of extending taxpayer funding to religious private schools was “to end discrimination against non-Catholic faith-based schools” (Welland Tribune, July 27, 2007)

Even after that plank caused the PCs to lose the 2007 election, Hudak expressed a commitment to extending taxpayer dollars to religious schools. On November 1, 2007, just weeks after the PCs went down to defeat in the provincial election, the CBC reported that:

Progressive Conservative MPP Tim Hudak says his party shouldn’t give up on trying to financially help families who send their children to private religious schools.

Hudak, who represents Niagara West-Glanbrook, said the faith-based funding policy of leader John Tory was not the best approach.
[...]
Hudak said the policy wasn’t developed at the grassroots level or shown to Conservatives before it appeared in the platform. (emphasis added)

So, after the election of 2007, Hudak was distancing himself and the PCs not from taxpayer funding for faith-based schools per se, but from John Tory’s idea of extending taxpayer funding to privately-owned faith-based schools.

In 2009, on the day he tossed his hat into the PC leadership ring, conservative vlogger Stephen Taylor had the following discussion with Hudak:

Taylor: “Do you think Ontario went down a road, when it was moving toward – at least under the Conservatives – vouchers for private schools and faith based schools? Do you think that’s a path that Ontario should not go down again, at least under the next few years?”

Hudak: “Well, you know, I’ve always been a supporter of parental choice in education. I believe that parents make the best decisions for their children. And that’s why I supported, for example, the tax credit we had for independent schools. But, very clearly, in the 2007 election, voters rendered a clear verdict, that they didn’t support the party’s policy of faith-based school support. And, as leader of the Ontario PC Party, I won’t be opening that door again. It has been closed by the voters. I’ll look forward to working with our grass roots policy process – the members of our party who are involved, and the PC caucus colleagues – to look for ways to innovate and create competition and choice, but within our public school system. I think that’s where the debate should be focused.” (emphasis added)

So Hudak’s position, in fact, is that the door is closed to giving taxpayer funding to privately-owned faith-based schools, but that there is still a “debate” about creating “choice…within our public school system” because, according to Hudak, the Progressive Conservatives “shouldn’t give up on trying to financially help families who send their children to private religious schools”.

“Choice” – a word Hudak chose to use in the context of a discussion about faith-based schools – was a reference to the ability to choose to send your children to a faith-based school within the already taxpayer-funded public school system. At present, Ontario’s laws allow public school boards to set up “alternative” schools, such as Toronto’s Africentric elementary school (and the more recently proposed Africentric secondary school). Significantly, while Dalton McGuinty in 2008 was expressing his objections to the opening of a race-based “Africentric” school in Toronto (though unwilling to do anything to prevent its opening), Tim Hudak’s PCs remained deliberately and deafeningly silent about the issue. Had the PCs objected to the opening of a race-based Africentric alternative school within the public school system, they would have rendered themselves unable later to advocate a faith-based alternative school within the public school system.

In the language of “choice”, Hudak is telling those parents who currently pay private tuitions to private faith-based schools that a PC government will create faith-based alternative schools within the public system. A deliberately vague reference to that proposal made its way into the ChangeBook:

We will ensure the education system puts students first…Ontario’s education system is not one-size-fits-all. Schools in different parts of Ontario have different and unique needs. We will ensure the funding formula meets the needs of single school communities and effectively supports special education for families that rely on it. We will give principals more flexibility to meet the individual needs of their communities and students. (emphasis added)

It remains only to be seen whether the media will require Hudak and the PCs to declare whether or not they, if elected, would be willing to consider opening a faith-based alternative school within the public school system. If Hudak will not vow not to open a faith-based alternative school within the taxpayer-funded public school system, you can certainly be forgiven for having faith that Hudak will indeed open faith-based schools in our public system if he is handed the reins of power.

Conclusion:

Beliefs based upon faith – being beliefs that lack any evidentiary foundation – cannot be known to be true or to be false. Such beliefs fall into a third category: the arbitrary. Hudak’s ChangeBook makes the assumption that some or all of its most important arbitrary assumptions – about increases in revenues, about climate change, and even about the PCs willingness or unwillingness to open tax-funded religious schools – will be accepted by the public on faith.

With ChangeBook, Hudak is not attempting to convince his audience of anything. The complete lack of any attempt, in the ChangeBook, to provide any evidence of Hudak’s assumptions, or of the feasibility of his planks, demonstrates that he is playing a different game altogether. He is trying to win support not by dealing in truths and falsehoods, but by playing upon the already-existing faith that his audience puts in such arbitrary beliefs as the ability of governments to change the climate. The ChangeBook’s strategy in this regard is founded upon a belief that it is more advantageous to deal in the arbitrary than to attempt to sell the voter truths and lies. In the famous words of professor Harry G. Frankfurt:

“In fact, people tend to be more tolerant of bullshit than of lies, perhaps because we are less inclined to take the former as a personal affront. We may seek to distance ourselves from bullshit, but we are more likely to turn away from it with an impatient or irritated shrug than with the sense of violation or outrage that lies often inspire.
[...]
What bullshit essentially misrepresents is neither the state of affairs to which it refers nor the beliefs of the speaker concerning that state of affairs. Those are what lies misrepresent, by virtue of being false. Since bullshit need not be false, it differs from lies in its misrepresentational intent. The bullshitter may not deceive us, or even intend to do so, either about the facts or about what he takes the facts to be. What he does necessarily attempt to deceive us about is his enterprise. His only indispensably distinctive characteristic is that in a certain way he misrepresents what he is up to.
[...]
The fact about himself, that the bullshitter hides, on the other hand, is that the truth-values of his statements are of no central interest to him; what we are not to understand is that his intention is neither to report the truth nor to conceal it. This does not mean that his speech is anarchically impulsive, but that the motive guiding and controlling it is unconcerned with how the things about which he speaks truly are.

It is impossible for someone to lie unless he thinks he knows the truth. Producing bullshit requires no such conviction. A person who lies is thereby responding to the truth, and he is to that extent respectful of it. When an honest man speaks, he says only what he believes to be true; and for the liar, it is correspondingly indispensible that he considers his statements to be false. For the bullshitter, however, all these bets are off: he is neither on the side of the true nor on the side of the false. His eye is not on the facts at all, as the eyes of the honest man and of the liar are, except insofar as they may be pertinent to his interest in getting away with what he says. He does not care whether the things he says describe reality correctly. He just picks them out, or makes them up, to suit his purpose.” – (emphasis added, 2005, “On Bullshit”, Princeton University Press

The planks in Tim Hudak’s ChangeBook are founded on faith – upon arbitrary beliefs for which there is no evidence – because faith-based beliefs fall outside of the realm of the true and the false; outside of the reach of scrutiny and accountability for those inclined to take Hudak on faith (perhaps due to an intense – and warranted – disappointment with Dalton McGuinty). Hudak clearly is not all that concerned with whether or not the assumptions and proposals made in the ChangeBook would improve the province. His goal is not to achieve any particular change in the budget or in governance. “What he’s up to” is simple: he wants the power of premiership, period. Hudak’s ChangeBook – his de facto FaithBook – is, in short, the calculating handiwork of a bullshitter taking advantage of his intended flock’s willingness to take even fundamentally flawed assumptions on faith. It remains only to be seen whether their faith is strong enough to lead them to the Kool-Aid pitcher on October 6th.

Appendix: Revenues and Expenses: 1992 through 2010

Revenues
*increase over 6 years prior

1992-93          1993-94           1994-95            1995-96            1996-97
41,807             43,674             46,039               49,473              49,450

1997-98            1998-99            1999-00            2000-01            2001-02
52,110               55,786              62,900              66,044               66,249
                        *(33.4%)          *(44.0%)          *(43.5%)          *(33.9%)

2002-03            2003-04            2004-05            2005-06            2006-07
68,891              68,400               77,841              84,225               90,397
*(39.3%)          *(31.3%)          *(39.5%)          *(33.9%)          *(36.9%)

2007-08           2008-09            2009-10                       
103,579            96,933              95,793
*(56.7%)          *(40.7%)         *(40.0%)           

Mean 39.4% increase in revenues over 6 years prior (approx. 6.6% per year)

==================================================

Expenses
*increase over 6 years prior

1992-93            1993-94            1994-95            1995-96            1996-97
45,350              44,293               44,653               46,163              56,355

1997-98            1998-99            1999-00            2000-01            2001-02
56,484               57,788              61,909              61,940               63,442
                        *(27.4%)           *(39.8%)         *(38.7%)            *(42.1%)

2002-03            2003-04            2004-05            2005-06            2006-07
68,774               73,883              79,396              83,927               88,128
*(22.0%)           *(30.1%)         *(37.3%)         *(35.6%)           *(42.3%)

2007-08            2008-09            2009-10           
96,522              103,342            115,055
*(52.1%)          *(50.3%)         *(55.7%)

Mean 39.5% increase in revenues over 6 years prior (approximately 6.6% per year)

It is common knowledge, among conservative strategists, that there is a small block of voters who never believe that prisoners – ever – are truly paying for their crimes. That block will always approve of just about any additional punishment that any politician proposes. Yesterday, Hudak and his Progressive Conservatives thought they’d try to buy-off those voters by promising that a Hudak government would make convicts in provincial detention centres do up to 40 hours of work each week. On the surface, it sounds like a get-tough-on-prisoners program. Scratch the surface though, and you will quickly discover that it is just the opposite. It is an easy-on-serious-criminals program that will raid the taxpayer’s wallet yet again, and endanger children and others in communities across Ontario.

First of all, it’s not as though these convicts will be pounding boulders with iron mallets. They’ll be picking up litter. Writing as a person who worked through his undergraduate years by taking on a summer job in which I sometimes had to load two full two-man truckloads of trash into a garbage truck each day – I can tell you: picking up a few bits of paper and plastic to clean up a park hardly qualifies as “hard labour”. Heck, the local Scout troop – including members of my own family – does that voluntarily, early in the morning, after nights in which the local fair causes the town park to be covered in paper cups and tins. Truth be told, the litter pick-up is kind of fun, and personally rewarding.

Second, it is not as though the convicts in question are a collection of jaywalkers who refused to pay their fines. Ontario’s provincial detention centres are generally the place to which convicts are sent when they are sentenced to “two years, less a day” or less. Those sentenced to longer periods are sent to federal penitentiaries. You might think that those getting two years less a day (or less) are only those people who do non-violent, relatively innocuous things like failing to pay fine. Not so. The list of people who are sentenced to serve two years less a day (or less) include child sexual predators, thieves, rapists, and other violent offenders.

Third, Ontario already has a voluntary program for some convicts in provincial detention centres, but it is not available to dangerous criminals. It is available only to a small group of non-violent offenders (e.g., white collar criminals). It gives disgraced former paper-pushers a chance to get out of their cells for a while. The rest of the inmates are kept securely behind bars for the duration of their stay. Tim Hudak is proposing to alter that program. He somehow thinks it’s a good idea to put all offenders – violent or non-violent, child molesters and rapists, etc. – into your neighbourhood to pick up litter and remove graffiti. He wants to make it mandatory for all convicts to get out and stretch their legs and catch a few rays in your neighbourhood. That’s about 8,488 convicts roaming Ontario’s neighbourhoods every day.

Fourth, as a special bonus – lucky you! – Hudak is going to charge you additional taxpayer dollars to release these criminal offenders into your neighbourhood. In 2006 dollars, the annual cost of a convict housed in a provincial detention centre was approximately $52,000.00. Inflation (at 3% or higher per annum) brings the 2011 figure to about $60,000 per annum. Hudak yesterday said that his give-convicts-a-walk-in-the-park plan would cost as much as an extra $20M per year: a 5% increase in the cost of corrections. That means that, under the Tim Hudak Progressive Conservative proposal, putting these creeps into your neighbourhood will cost you almost $3,000.00 more, per creep, every year, than it would cost you to keep them locked up safely behind bars, far away from you, your children, and your property.

It is too easy to let ones dislike of Dalton McGuinty cloud ones perception of exactly what Tim Hudak is proposing. Let us put a human face to this, so that you can really understand just how stupid Hudak’s proposal is:

• If you choose to fill vacant Liberal seats with Tim Hudak’s PCs, Tim Hudak will charge you just $3,000.00 extra to put a disgraced priest such as Donald Grecco into your neighbourhood: Grecco “would offer the altar boys odd jobs or take them on trips. Once alone with them, he would initiate “play-fights” that would escalate into the parish priest sexually grinding against the victim”.
• If you choose to fill vacant Liberal seats with Tim Hudak’s PCs, Hudak will charge you just $3,000.00 extra to put a violent offender like Darrell Wayne Connell into your neighbourhood: Connell struck Ken Gottfried, who lost consciousness and fell to the sidewalk where he struck his head, and suffered a brain injury that has left him partially paralyzed and confined to a wheelchair or walking short distances with a cane.
• If you choose to fill vacant Liberal seats with Tim Hudak’s PCs, Tim Hudak’s Progressive Conservatives will charge you just $3,000.00 more to have Michael Alexander Wood pick up litter and accompany you or your female partner during her jog through your local park: his victim awoke to find him having sex with her.

Are these really the kinds of people you want to allow out of their cells and into your neighbourhood? If you still think “maybe”, consider this: Hudak also explained, yesterday, that he does not envision that these criminals will be chained while they work. How comforting. And should we expect bullets to fly when one of these model citizens decides to make a run for it and hide in our children’s tree houses?

If Tim Hudak’s announced proposal today buys him any votes at all it’s a sad day for Ontario. Political power should never be obtained by making over-taxed taxpayers pay even more, and by increasing the risk that they or their loved ones will be exposed to harm. Ontario deserves a focus on reducing taxes, not increasing them; a focus on increasing safety, not on needlessly exposing our neighbourhoods to violent or sexual offenders.

None of this is to suggest that the Liberals deserve to keep their seats. They don’t. But the last thing Ontario needs is to replace a red set of out-of-touch, spendthrift, interest-group pandering, political opportunists with a blue set.

Paul McKeever is the Leader of the Freedom Party of Ontario, and is the 2011 Freedom Party candidate in the provincial riding of Elgin-Middlesex-London.

Last December, as Ontario’s Liberal and PC MPPs began a 10 week winter vacation, they each proposed spending cuts to “fight” the deficit. They proposed essentially the same thing: reviewing Ontario’s agencies, boards, and commissions (the so called “ABCs” of government), looking for inefficiencies, and then deciding what to do to reduce them (e.g., cuts, mergers of agencies, etc). In the case of the Liberals, they proposed an actual target: a 5% cut. Tim Hudak’s PCs did not even say how much they would cut, never mind disclosing what they would cut from ABCs.

Just last week, Hudak lifted a plank from Andrea Horwath’s openly socialist New Democratic Party (NDP): he announced that, were he handed the reins of power in October, he would not charge the 8% provincial portion of the HST on electricity bills. When asked on London, Ontario’s biggest morning radio talk show how he would make up for those lost revenues, he replied that he would eliminate “waste in the system”, and he (as per usual) cited the example of ehealth (two years ago, an Ontario auditor’s report said that, despite about $1B having been spent by successive PC and Liberal governments, there was little yet to be shown for it, in terms of having an operational electronic database of patients’ health records). Noting that actual waste (e.g., excessive bonuses, etc., as opposed to the obvious front-loading of the costs of developing software and supportive hardware) in Ontario’s ehealth system (which, incidentally, is now operational to some extent) is only a small fraction of the $1.2B cost of exempting electricity from the 8% provincial portion of the HST, the hosts asked where the rest of the $1.2B would come from. Like a talking doll that has just had the string in its back pulled, Hudak robotically delivered the same canned answer he gives whenever he lacks any real answer, but needs to create the impression that there are billions of dollars wasted in the ABCs of government. The script of his answer is this:

“Let’s look at these Agencies, Boards, and Commissions. ‘Cause, honest to God, you could take any three letters of the alphabet, put them in any order you want to, and your going to get some agency, board and commission you’ve never heard of, but you’re paying millions of dollars a year to sustain. And, you put an “e” in front of it, it’s into the billions.”

Sometimes, when he chirps out that statement, Hudak will conclude that he would require each of the over 600 ABCs to “justify their existence and, if they can’t, they’re gone”. He never says what would make the existence of an agency, board, or commission “justified”. He never explains how he would balance the budget were all or most of those agencies, boards and commissions to justify their existence. In fact, the only particular ABCs he names for elimination are the Local Health Integration Networks (a.k.a., the “LHINs”) and the Ontario Power Authority (each of which is essentially a ministerial delegate that serves primarily as a political firewall, so that bad decisions and health care spending cuts can be blamed on the delegates, instead of upon the Minister responsible). Perhaps that is because the idea of eliminating ABCs becomes much less politically feasible when one actually identifies the fact that they include ten Boards of Management for Homes for the Aged and Rest Homes; Councils for dozens of professional Colleges (Nurses, Chiropractors, Pharmacists, Veterinarians, etc); the Fire Marshal’s Public Fire Safety Council; twenty five Health Unit Boards; Ontario’s Human Rights Commission and Human Rights Tribunal; et cetera.

That, dear reader, is the extent of the Hudak PCs’ plan to balance the budget, or to pay for his $1.2 HST exemption, or to pay for the $6.1B of increased health care spending that he announced on May 24th, 2011. Instead of telling Ontario what he would cut, and by how much, he offers up only canned, ambiguous answers. Worse: when face to face with a journalist (e.g., Sean Mallen, former host of Global TV’s “Focus Ontario”) asking him how he will balance the budget or pay for his election promises, Hudak will routinely offer up his canned script, pretending that it is an impromptu answer. To see what I mean, watch this little collection of video and audio snippets in which Hudak uses his “ABCs” script in TV interviews, at speeches, and on radio interviews. After watching it, I’m sure you’ll agree that Hudak’s whole canned-answer tactic drips with cynicism and contempt for the interviewers and audiences.

Now, it is important to realize that, though neither the Liberals nor the PCs have given the public sufficient particulars to know what they would cut as “waste”, or which Agencies, Boards, and Commissions they would shrink or eliminate, one does not need such particulars to conclude that it is impossible to balance the budget by such methods unless one is willing to make cuts to health care, education, or welfare. To see what I mean, consider the 2010-2011 interim figures set out in Table 28 to the 2011 Provincial Budget.

Total Revenues: $106.185 B

Total Expense: $122.8712 B

Deficit: $16.686 B

Now, subtract from Total Expense (see Table 25) all of the Expense for the various third-rail / untouchable / politically-explosive ministries and unavoidables:

- Health and Long Term Care ($44.9495 B)
- Health Promotion and Sport ($0.3941 B)
- Training, Colleges and Universities ($6.8266 B)
- Education ($22.2086 B)
- Community and Social Services ($9.2345 B)
- Interest on Debt ($9.5270 B)

Total expense for those 6 items: $93.1403B.

Therefore, after removing those six items from the budget, Total Expense for all other ministries *combined* is: $122.8712 B minus $93.1403 B = $29.7312 B. The deficit in the same period is represented, in the budget, to be: $16.686 B. Therefore, $16.686 B / $29.7312B x 100 = 56.1% of Ontario’s 24 other ministries included in the budget (i.e., all ministries other than the health, education, and welfare ministries listed above), are paid for with entirely borrowed money. Put another way, to balance the budget without touching health, education, or welfare, the government would have to close down entirely an average of 24 x 56.1% = 13.5 Ministries altogether. Put yet another way, 13.5 / 24 x 100% = 56.25% of the government’s other ministries would have to be closed just to balance the budget. Gone would be such government functions as justice, children’s services, finance, revenue, tourism, transportation, aboriginal affairs, citizenship/immigration, energy, environment, etc..

Now reconsider Hudak’s line about balancing the budget by eliminating some Agencies, Boards, and Commissions. The vast majority of Ontario’s ABCs have budgets so small that they do not need to be reported in Ontario’s Public Accounts. More to the point: the funds extended to the Agencies, Boards, and Commissions are not paid out separately from money paid to the Ministries. Rather, the ABCs are funded by the Ministries to which they report (for example, the operating budgets of the Assessment Review Board, the Ontario Municipal Board, the Ontario Human Rights Commission, the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario, the Human Rights Legal Support Centre, and the Law Commission of Ontario totaled approximately $43M for the year ending March 31, 2010, and all of that money was paid by the Ministry of the Attorney General out of its own budget). So, no matter which criteria Hudak was to use to determine whether or not an ABC’s existence is “justified”, and no matter how many ABCs he reduced or eliminated, he would either be making reductions to health care, education, and welfare, or he would be left trying to find $24B (i.e., $16.7B deficit, plus $1.2B HST exemption, plus $6.1B health care spending increase) worth of waste out of total government expenditures (not including health, education, welfare, or interest) of $29.7312B. In other words, it would have to be the case that $24 B / $29.7312 B x 100% = 80.72% of all of the money spent by all government ministries (other than health care, education, and welfare ministries) is pure waste.

Without increased revenues – and even Hudak claims that tax increases are not an option – there is simply no way to balance the Ontario provincial budget unless (a) health care, education, and/or welfare ministries are subjected to major spending reductions, or (b) health and/or education cease to be tax funded. Yet there are no increased revenues on the horizon, and health, education and welfare expenditures are the very expenditures that Hudak says he refuses to cut if his PCs form the next government. So, if Hudak were to keep his promise, and to actually increase spending for things like health care, education and welfare, he would have to run deficits, just like the Liberals whose vacant seats he wants his party to fill; he would have to keep burying Ontario in debt; he would have to govern as a Liberal.

Conclusion: Hudak’s claims that the budget can be balanced by “eliminating waste in the system” or by making ABCs “justify their existence” is either self-delusion or deliberate misinformation. Either Hudak lacks the knowledge needed to govern, or he is play acting, and intends to make you believe that he has actual plans to balance Ontario’s books when, in fact, he has no plan for balancing the budget, and no intention to balance the budget by making cuts. In short: he suffers either from ignorance or from dishonesty. Each of these traits rightly disqualifies one from assuming the office of Premier.

According to reports, at the PC’s annual convention this coming weekend, Hudak will be getting into greater detail about how he would balance the books. My bet: a major chunk of his explanation will assume huge increases in revenue due to a hoped-for economic recovery. Did I mention that budgeting according to blind faith also rightly disqualifies one from assuming the office of Premier?

Though the media has not noticed it – or, at least, they have not mentioned it – Hudak’s pattern has been to eke out a musing or a plank only as a means of diverting the media away from reporting stories that would harm his party’s standing in the polls. In chronological order, here’s a brief account of the three main Hudak diversions to date:

On Thursday, February 3, 2011, Liberal Health Minister Deb Matthews gave a speech to a nurses group, in which she asserted that the PCs would scrap the Ontario Health Premium. The response from PC MPP Sylvia Jones was rapid and unequivocal, as she called various media outlets to deny Matthews’ assertion. She told the Globe and Mail: “Getting rid of the health-care premium is not an option…We have no intention of getting rid of the health-care premium”.

That was a Thursday. Now, imagine, if you will, the earful that PC leader Tim Hudak must have received over the weekend from PC members and supporters. Of all of the many violations imposed upon Ontario by Liberal Premier Dalton McGuinty, the health premium constitutes arguably the biggest and most passionately symbolic lie of all. It was imposed very shortly after the 2003 election campaign in which McGuinty had promised not to raise taxes “one penny”, yet the PCs now were taking the position that “cutting the health-care premium is not [even] an option”)!?

Naturally, Hudak went into damage control mode first thing Monday morning (February 7). He told the media that, no, no, Joyce’s calls to the media – together with the reported February 3rd Hudak media release titled “Minister of Health Lies to Nurses” which called Matthews a “liar” – were somehow incorrect: “all options” are on the table, he explained. The “liar” wasn’t a liar at all, apparently, though no apology was forthcoming from Hudak.

The result: the online mainstream media immediately began printing news reports that Hudak has “flip-flopped” (even the PC-loyal Toronto Sun got in on calling Hudak a flip-flopper: see here). In short, things were bad.

In response, later that day, Hudak attempted to ensure that the physical newspapers and the radio talk shows weren’t full, the next day, with reports that Hudak is a flip-flopper on the very issue upon which McGuinty flip-flopped. Specifically, to divert attention from his health premium flip-flop, he openly mused that “Many folks, myself included, look forward to that $24 two-four on the May 24 weekend…That is now something that has passed under Dalton McGuinty.” Of course, he did not promise to do anything about beer prices, but hopeful media everywhere dutifully drew the unnecessary inference that Hudak fully expected they would carelessly draw: that Hudak would make buck-a-beer possible.

The next day (February 8, 2011), the textual news and talk radio were talking about buck-a-beer Hudak, not flip-flop Hudak. (An aside: Freedom Party, which I lead, had released a similar “Eliminate Beer and Wine Taxes” plank on December 20, 2010…we didn’t just muse about it, we promised to knock as much as $5.76 off of the price of a case of beer…which would not be achieved, incidentally, by lowering the minimum price of beer because most beers are already priced above the minimum price). Hudak’s media diversion worked: Hudak promised nothing, the mainstream media got played by the PCs, and the PCs minimized the impact of the discovery that Hudak is a health premium flip-flopper of McGuinty proportions.

During the 2009 Ontario Progressive Conservative Party leadership race (to replace the outgoing John Tory), Randy Hillier promised that, if he were chosen to be the next PC leader, a PC government would eliminate the Human Rights “Commission” (NOTE: he was referring, in fact, to the Human Rights Tribunal…the Commission never was a trier of human rights cases: until the summer of 2008, it acted as a party to human rights complaints, but its role since the summer of 2008 has been largely educational and complainant-support oriented). Hillier’s opposition to the HRC/T was founded upon an erroneous belief that the Ontario Human Rights Code contained a provision like section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act: a federal Act that, in effect, violates ones freedom to speak even the truth when the truth is deemed sufficiently hurtful (NOTE: the federal provision, and a similar provision in the Alberta human rights regime, had been widely criticized because complaints had been made about Mclean’s Magazine – which published excerpts from Mark Steyn’s book “America Alone”, and (then) Ezra Levant’s Western Standard magazine – which published the famous Danish Muhammad cartoons).

With the majority of the PC membership in fact being red (i.e., socialist) Tories, a libertarian like Hillier never had a chance of winning the leadership. Seeing that, Hudak decided to scoop Hillier’s supporters by assuming Hillier’s position on Ontario’s Human Rights Tribunal. Like Hillier, he vowed to scrap it. That vow was considered, by many, to be widely responsible for his winning of the PC leadership.

Fast forward, now, to May 5, 2011. That day, the Globe and Mail’s Adam Radwanski wrote a column titled “Hudak backtracks on pledge to axe human-rights tribunal“. Radwanski reported that, “in the midst of an otherwise unremarkable stump speech” to the Nepean Chamber of Commerce, Hudak “…jettisoned his past pledge to rely only on the courts system to enforce the province’s human-rights code”.

The story immediately grew legs. One day later (Friday, May 6), Ezra Levant himself – on his new SunTV show, The Source – grilled his guest, Randy Hillier, about the Hudak human rights flip-flop. (The video is still available on-line [see below], and is a must-see event for anyone who considers him/herself politically aware in this province). Levant had asked Hudak to appear, he explained, but Hudak had been too cowardly to come on the show, so sent Hillier to do the dirty work of somehow explaining Hudak’s flip-flop. It was bloody. Hillier flailed. There was only one word fitting for the effect of that interview upon Hudak and the PCs: devastating.

The beating continued, however, the following Tuesday. On May 10, 2011, a Toronto Star headline read “McGuinty calls Hudak on human rights flip-flop”. Hudak’s response, again, was to create a media diversion. That same day, Hudak suddenly announced that he would kill the “$7B sweetheart deal” (a phrase that falsely implies that the cost to the taxpayer is $7B…$7B is what Samsung will invest, whereas the deal involves an “adder” of a bit over $400M). The “deal” was one the Ontario government has with Samsung for the construction of wind and solar power generation facilities. Hudak added that he would end the Feed-in Tariff program…but would not cancel existing FIT contracts with the thousands of farmers who are being paid up to 80 cents for electricity worth about 4 cents on the free market: unlike Samsung, farmers vote, and they naturally tend to live in rural – read PC-friendly – ridings.

Of course, Hudak hasn’t even read the contract he was vowing to scrap. Like everyone else except the McGuinty government, he has no idea what financial penalties might be left in the taxpayer’s lap for canning the deal and, apparently, he does not care (or worse: cannot foresee) that a government that dishonours contracts tends to lose its ability to find companies foolish enough to enter into future contracts. Breaking the contract with Samsung while honouring FIT contracts with Ontario voters would be not only hypocritical, but also reckless and destructive of the Ontario government’s credibility going forward. However, that didn’t matter to Hudak because his announcement had had its desired effect: all talk of Hudak’s Human Rights flip-flop had been displaced by reports about Hudak’s Samsung plank. He had successfully pwned the mainstream media again…even after having walked away from them while they asked him for details about his announcement. Specifically, the Toronto Sun’s Christina Blizzard reported:

Hudak also failed to shine.

He walked away from reporters as they pressed him about the message this would send to international investors.

Two days ago, the Ottawa Citizen’s Lee Greenberg broke the news that Citizen columnist Randall Denley would seek the PC nomination for the riding of Ottawa West – Nepean. Later that day, the Toronto Star reported that an angry Ade Olumide – another candidate for Ottawa West—Nepean PC nomination – complained that PC party brass had contacted him in an effort to get him to rescind his candidacy for the nomination. Yesterday, another Star report quoted Olumide as saying that “I was informed (Tuesday) night by the president of the Ontario PC Party in writing that I will not be allowed to contest the party nomination in Ottawa West Nepean”. It quoted one PC member as referring to the PC’s sidelining of member-chosen candidates as a “reign of terror”. The same thing has played itself out in other ridings, including Ancaster-Dundas-Flamborough-Westdale, where Hudak gave CHCH TV’s Donna Skelly the nod (PC members resigned as a result).

Hudak’s response to damaging criticism over the candidate flap followed his demonstrated modus operandi: yesterday afternoon, it was announced that Hudak would release a major election plank on the morning of May 19, 2011 (i.e., today). He did so. The plank had two parts, each being planks already released by other Ontario political parties, without public outrage or rejection. Specifically, lifting a plank released October 12, 2010 by Freedom Party, Hudak announced that the Debt Retirement Charge (imposed by the Progressive Conservatives under Mike Harris and Ernie Eves, while Hudak was a PC MPP) would be removed from hydro bills. Lifting a plank released September 27, 2010 by the provincial NDP, Hudak said he’d not charge the 8% provincial portion of the HST on electricity bills. Time will tell, but I put my money on the next few days being consumed by columns not about candidate selection, but about the wisdom (or, rather, the lack thereof) of exempting electricity from the HST, rather than, say, reducing taxes on production instead (e.g., the health premium, income taxes). In other words: watch, as the media get played yet again.

Should all of Hudak’s media manipulation and victimization of colleagues matter to the Ontario voter? Absolutely. In fact, his character with respect to these manipulations is far more important – and has far more wide-reaching implications – than any particular little plank he might put out between now and election day. The main implications of his conduct are:

• Tim Hudak is – on key issues – every bit as much of a flip-flopper as Liberal Premier Dalton McGuinty. However, unlike McGuinty, he is too cowardly to face the public and justify his flip-flops. McGuinty, it will be remembered, actually put out a commercial in an attempt to justify his 2003 flip-flop on the health premium. In contrast, Hudak preferred to divert the public’s attention from his own health premium flip-flop by musing openly (but promising nothing) about buck-a-beer, and he sent Randy Hillier out to take a beating for him with respect to his (Hudak’s) broken promise on the Human Rights Tribunal.
• Tim Hudak has no intention of governing on principle should the public be lured into filling the inevitable Liberal vacancies with PC MPPs. Is it right or is it wrong to impose a health premium? Is it right or wrong to keep the Ontario Human Rights Tribunals in service? Is it right or wrong to trump the will of ones own party members in the candidate nomination process? Rather than giving the public answers, Hudak is choosing to do everything he can to divert their attention. Moreover, his willingness to present Freedom Party and NDP planks as his own came only after his own internal polling suggested that the Freedom Party and NDP planks are both popular. Popularity – not rationality – is the guiding star of the Hudak ship.
• Tim Hudak will gladly sacrifice honesty, integrity, accountability, colleagues, and even the credibility of the Ontario government if it will get the voters to hand him and the PCs the reins of power.

The biggest problem is this: in the long term, people – voters, the private sector, the bond rating agencies, and even the journalists – eventually get wise to such manipulative diversions, flip-flops, sacrifices, etc.. They stop getting duped. And when the person attempting to dupe them is the Chief Executive Officer (i.e., the Premier) of the province of Ontario, the wisening of the formerly-duped results in all Ontarians suffering the consequences. We, the public, all get told by the Premier and his soldiers that we – not the Premier – are wrong (or worse, that we are “liars”). We all become Olumides, being punished for playing by the rules, so as to make way for people with political connections and pull. We all become Hilliers, forced to take a beating for the misdeeds of the Premier.

I close with these words…mark them: A man will wield the reins of power in the same manner he obtains them. God help us all if our neighbours hand those reins to Tim Hudak and the Progressive Conservatives. The time for journalists, voters, and the private sector to grow wise to Hudak’s deceptions and abuses is now. If we wait until after October 6, 2011, it will be too late.

Take, as the most recent example, the McGuinty government’s announcement, today, that the province will offer two new vaccines as part of its immunization program. The link to that government announcement was tweeted no less than 32 times this afternoon. Do I hear you thinking “that’s actually impressive” or “wow, people are really excited about two more immunizations”? Well, who could blame you when twitterers (twits?) like one Paris Meilleur are tweeting that the announcement is “Pretty darn awesome”; or when fellow twit Kate Julien exclaims “Rock on!”?

“Pretty darn awesome”. Seriously?

“Rock-on!”. Oh, give me a break. I refuse to believe that anyone is truly that weird or boring.

That such poorly-acted twittergasms are being pretended at all, by anyone, becomes less surprising when one does a bit of research into the backgrounds of those who are faking it. What follows is a list of everyone – that’s right, *everyone* – who tweeted about the immunization announcement this afternoon, and who tagged their tweet with the popular hashtag “onpoli”:

Grahame Rivers: Social Media Coordinator in the Office of the Premier of Ontario (source: twitter)

Jane Almeida: Press Secretary to Premier of Ontario, Dalton McGuinty (source: twitter)

Leslie O’Leary: Associate Press Secretary in the Office of the Premier of Ontario (source: twitter)

Associate Press Secretary in the Office of the Premier of Ontario

John Wilkinson (Liberal MPP – Environment Minister)

Laurel Broten (Liberal MPP – Minister of Children and Youth Services)

Bob Chiarelli (Liberal MPP – Minister of Infrastructure)

Seirge T. LeBlanc: Press Secretary for the honourable Bob Chiarelli, Minister of Infrastructure at Ministry of Infrastructure (source: linked in – http://ca.linkedin.com/pub/seirge-leblanc/12/bb/32 )

Brad Duguid (Liberal MPP – Minister of Energy)

Deb Matthews (Liberal MPP – Minister of Health & Long-Term Care)

Paris Meilleur: works for Ontario’s Minister of Health & Long-Term Care Deb Matthews (source: Twitter)

Megan Primeau: Staffer for Deb Matthews, Ontario’s Minister of Health & Long-Term Care. (source: twitter)

Christine Lall: Minister’s Office, 416-325-0238, Ministry of Consumer Services (Ministry of Consumer Services).

Andrew Campbell: Director of Communications at Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing (source: linked-in – http://ca.linkedin.com/in/andrewmcampbell)

Laura Blondeau: Director of Communications at Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing (source: http://ca.linkedin.com/pub/laura-blondeau/1a/6a/a96)

Joanne Ghiz: Communications Officer, Ministers Office at Government of Ontario (source: http://www.jigsaw.com/scid34574104/joanne_ghiz.xhtml ); Ministry of Northern Development, Mines and Forestry (source: http://news.ontario.ca/mndmf/en/2011/04/supporting-the-forest-industry-in-greenstone-and-haileybury.html )

Cassandra McKenna: Scheduler in the Ministry of Education (Source: http://www.infogo.gov.on.ca/infogo/office.do?actionType=telephonedirectory&infoType=telephone&unitId=UNT0002169&locale=en )

Annette Phillips: Communications Director to John Milloy, Minister of Training, Colleges and Universities (source: twitter)

Thomas Chanzy: Senior Special Assitant Francophone Affaires Office of the Honourable Madeleine Meilleur ( http://www.nataliagnecco.com/index.php?option=com_k2&view=item&id=140:ontarios-challenge&lang=fr )

Jessica Voin: Communications Assistant for the Kitchener-Center MPP John Milloy (source: http://theimprint.ca/archives/1347 )

Mora Carruthers: Scheduler at Government of Ontario (source: http://ca.linkedin.com/pub/mora-carruthers/32/a35/7a7)

Brian Whitmore: “N/A at Government of Ontario” (source: http://ca.linkedin.com/pub/brian-whitmore/28/43a/787

Fahim Kaderdina: Communications Advisor at Ontario Liberal Party, Central Campaign 2007 (Source: Linked-in – http://ca.linkedin.com/in/fahimkaderdina )

Kate Julien: Ontario Liberal Youth Honourary Senator (2010) (Source: http://www.oyl.org/the-oyl/oyl-honourary-senators/)

Vijay Sappani: Organiser and fundraiser for the Liberal Party (source: http://www.vijaysappani.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1&Itemid=2 )

Kayla Lewis: (former?) Executive Vice President of the Ontario Young Liberals (source: http://ontario.liberal.ca/files/2010/06/May-2008-LPC_O_-Newsletter-English.pdf )

Richmond Hill Liberals: the Provincial and Federal Young Liberals of Richmond Hill. (source: twitter)

PerthWelliPLA: Perth-Wellington Provincial Liberal Association (source: twitter)

Ryan Bird (1010 AM Toronto*)

With the possible exception of Ryan Bird, everyone tweeting and retweeting the announcement was a Minister in the Liberal government of Dalton McGuinty, an employee of the Liberal government of Dalton McGuinty, or is/was active with the Liberal Party. What’s absent? Interest from the general public. Not one tweet. Heck: not even a tweet from any of the Progressive Conservative or NDP MPPs.

There was one exception: my own tweet, which read “McGuinty’s answer to lack of remedial health care: pump kids full of additional vaccines (“preventive medcn“): http://bit.ly/lzEp3f #onpoli ”

I would like to be able to tell you that the almost-exclusively-Liberal tweets about the immunization announcement were a rare fluke. I cannot tell you that. Simply read the things posted with the #onpoli hashtag each day and – with the exception of a small handful of obsessive compulsive environmentalists and independent candidates for MPP – most of the twits are Liberal government Ministers and taxpayer-funded government employees clearly being paid, in part, to create the false impression that there is grass-roots excitement about the McGuinty government.

I, for one, want a reimbursement for the time each of those government employees takes taxpayer-funded time out of their jobs to participate in this daily twittergasm charade. Perhaps a better term for this scandalous, Liberal, taxpayer funded weasel-fest would be twittergate?

Paul McKeever is the leader of the Freedom Party of Ontario

*I am advised the Ryan Bird is no longer associated with 1010 AM Toronto.

In 2008, I wrote a column for The Western Standard’s blog – Levant had sold The Western Standard by that time – titled “Freedom Requires a Better Defence“. The central argument was that Levant’s arguments in favour of freedom were so poor as to leave the undecided thinking that freedom is not defensible. Imagine my horror upon hearing Levant explain, during SUN TV’s 4:30 PM programming profile, that “The Source” would be all “about freedom”. It was a horror that compelled me to watch episode 1 of “The Source”, if only to gauge how badly Levant’s show would undermine the cause of individual freedom.

Strategically, the show had its rough aspects – surely Levant can make better use of his biting wit than to stand in front of the camera for the first 30 or 40 or minutes delivering lectures on various topics (see suggestion below) – but I am happy to report that, in episode 1 of his show, Levant delivered impressively.

For example, the CBC website has an online questionnaire called the “Vote Compass“. One answers 30 questions on a scale of 1 to 5, and – in the end – is told which political party one is best aligned with. Levant demonstrated – live, before the viewers’ eyes – that default alignment is: Liberal Party of Canada. In a deliciously scandalous demonstration, Levant gave the “no opinion” answer to every single question in the survey, yet the “compass” declared him to be most closely aligned with the Liberals (and – surprise [not] – least well aligned with the Liberals’ most troublesome competition in this election, the NDP). Either the survey is telling us that Liberals are vacuous, or the poll is – as Levant concludes – nothing but a tool to promote the Liberals. And, as Levant helpfully pointed out, the survey was developed by a former Michael Ignatieff team member.

In another segment, Levant took on the CRTC, arguing essentially that it should have no power to censor. Immediately thereafter, he did a segment practically designed to invite trouble from the CRTC: a segment in which he showed all of the Danish Mohammad cartoons the republication of which famously got him into trouble with the Alberta Human Rights Commission a few years back. Levant, it appears, is itching for another fight and, if the CRTC doesn’t take the bait, it will only embolden Levant. The coming days and weeks should be interesting.

That said, Levant did not rest on his cartoon laurels. In a segment impressively titled something akin to “Are You a Maker or a Taker?”, Levant laid out disturbing statistics concerning the proportion of Canada’s employees who work for an employer that takes for a living (the government) versus those who make for a living (the producers in the private sector). Levant – like too few others – apparently recognizes that one is defined and valued not by whom one chooses to include as good company, but by whom one excludes. My bet: the excluded takers will be among Levant’s most regular viewers (see the example of Howard Stern’s prudish listeners).

What is truly commendable is the fact that SUN TV allowed Levant so blatantly to take on the CRTC, to republish – again – the Mohammad cartoons, and to call the bigger part of Canada’s employed viewers “takers”. Hopefully, SUN TV is not giving Levant such rope on a temporary basis. SUN TV’s value to freedom-loving Canadians and to the freedom and future of Canada – not to mention its value to advertisers seeking an actual audience – in the medium to long term will be wholly dependent upon allowing Levant and others to shine light on the dark and smelly corners in which Canada’s moochers and looters – Canada’s takers – can be found gnawing on the bones of their victims.

What I’ve written above might appear a bit one-sided and optimistic. However, I stand by it because of the truly unusual, truly courageous editorial policy SUN TV News clearly is taking from the outset. Moreover, it is noteworthy that there did not appear to be even a smidgen of pro-Conservative (big-C) propaganda in Levant’s show. It was – perhaps deliberately – non partisan. Levant’s focus was not the who, but the what. That, alone, inspires great optimism.

My pessimism about Levant’s show is not entirely discharged, however. One stylistic aspect of the show was the display of a quotation shown just before each commercial break, each quotation appearing in a box labelled with one word: “FREEDOM”. There was a good quotation (which I don’t recall) from Einstein, but the quotation that both surprised and worried me was nothing other than the John Galt oath that appears in Ayn Rand’s celebrated novel, Atlas Shrugged: “I swear by my life and my love of it that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine.” I experienced surprise (and a bit of hopefulness) at seeing that quotation made in a mainstream political broadcast – made with reverence rather than with ridicule. That quotation contains, in a nutshell, Ayn Rand’s ethical philosophy: rational egoism. Yet the prevailing ethics in all of Canadian society – and in all of Canadian broadcasting – is the opposite: altruism; the holding up of sacrificing-of-oneself-for-others as the highest moral value and purpose. Altruism is also the prevailing ethics of the conservative movement, much of which holds self-sacrificial Judeo-Christian ethics in high regard. Hence my worry. If SUN TV – and Levant – are to be the voice of conservativism on Canadian TV, there is a risk that Rand and her ethical philosophy – which, in my view, is the necessary foundation for continuing individual freedom – will be misrepresented or misunderstood as being in some way conservative; that her fame and the reverence many hold for her and her philosophy will be used to attract people to conservativism.

In point of fact, Rand was anti-altruist, anti-conservative, and atheistic. For example, her rational egoism runs diametrically opposed to the notion that socialist medicine – which Ontario’s Progressive Conservatives imposed on Ontario, and which both federal and provincial Conservatives regularly vow to defend and fund – is moral. It runs against the typical conservative, anti-liberty, “war on drugs” or “anti-drug strategy” championed by the god-fearing, bible-thumping conservatives who are hell bent on handing a peaceful cannabis seed seller like Canadian Marc Emery over to the U.S.A. to rot in a prison, away from the eyes and memories of sympathetic Canadians. It runs contrary to the human rights codes, income taxes, retail sales taxes, rent controls, and Sunday shopping bans et cetera that have been introduced by Ontario’s Progressive Conservatives and by other conservatives, for decades, in this country. Why would a self-styled “conservative” like Levant want to demonstrate such reverence for the core of Rand’s ethical philosophy in the context of praising freedom? One hopes that it is conservativism’s soapbox that is being used.

I close with a suggestion. The USA’s Rush Limbaugh used to have a television program that aired in the early morning, even in Canada. One of its central and most entertaining aspects was ridicule: ridicule of all things false and leftist, including efforts by the mainstream media to whitewash the Democrats and then-President Bill Clinton. I remember, as one example, a bit in which Bill Clinton was shown telling the cameras that he wanted his privacy for a few minutes. He was on the beach in France (was it Normandy?). In the mainstream news, Clinton was portrayed as thereafter having been “caught” laying a rose on a grave near the beach (or some such thing). The mainstream media portrayed this allegedly private, allegedly deeply personal, alledgely unscripted event as something the taping of which Clinton was unaware. Rush blew a hole in the bullshit by turning one of his cameras upon perhaps 50 to 100 mainstream newsmedia cameras positioned only tens of feet away from Clinton. Limbaugh exposed the fact that there was nothing private, deeply personal, or unscripted about the event. He demonstrated that the whole thing was political theatre – in effect, pro-Democrat propaganda – and that there had been a conspiracy among the mainstream media to falsely portray the event as though it were some kind of unexpected paparazzi moment. The value, to the public, was extraordinary. I highly recommend that – to break-up the monotony of Ezra’s 1/2 hour opening rant – SUN TV spring for a videographer to follow the party leaders/government leaders around, to shed light on the truth when CTV, CBC, and Global conspire not to let reality get in the way of good fiction-telling. When the others are doing what is tantamount to covering up for the fact that Roosevelt could not stand unaided, show the ‘crutches’. The truth will set us set us free…and it may well pay off, for SUN TV.