The Case Against "The Conservative Case for a Carbon Tax"*

Liberal Party of Canada leader Stéphane Dion may very well lose his job following the next election. His ouster might even be justified by the fact that his unprincipled “Green Shift” platform is politically costly yet offers nothing conservatives would recognize as a benefit. However, were conservatives to press ahead with “The Conservative Case for a Carbon Tax” described by National Post columnist Jonathan Kay, they would actually be functioning as the liberal collectivist’s most effective weapon against both conservativism and capitalist individualism. The leader of such a conservative movement would be more deserving of ouster than even Mr. Dion. Read more

All Nut, No Tree: FP's Terry Corcoran Interviews Stéphane Dion

As I write, I am listening to a recording of Financial Post editor Terry Corcoran interviewing Liberal Party of Canada leader Stéphane Dion. The experience is surreal. A bit like listening to a psychiatrist interviewing a mental patient about some notes they have found tucked behind a loose brick in the patient’s holding cell: crazy notes detailing plans for a comet-chasing mass-suicide. Read more

Problem Solved for Stéphane Dion: Shift from Green to Red

Canada’s Globe and Mail newspaper today reported that a well-established Toronto-based company, Green Shift Inc., which carries on business under the name “Green Shift” (in which it holds the registered Trade Mark), is contemplating the commencement of legal action against the Liberal Party of Canada. Last week, the Liberal Party of Canada released a platform of “green” proposals to tax the consumption of “carbon”, while purportedly lowering income tax rates to make the new carbon taxes “revenue neutral” (but, see below). The Liberals named the platform “The Green Shift”, and registered the domain name thegreenshift.ca to promote it. Green Shift Inc.’s domain name is greenshift.ca (no “the”). Read more

PowerWise's "Allard-Johnson Communications" Commenter: Holocaust a "controversial…theory", PM a "Doochebag"

Readers of my blog may have read my post, yesterday, about the PowerWise.ca website, and a “tip” which the site left up on its home pages: a tip that suggested ending all immigration to Canada, so that said would-be immigrants will not increase their carbon footprint. In response to my post, I received a couple of comments. One of which was particularly interesting.

First, some background. My blog software has a spam feature. First-time posters cannot post until I have approved them. Whenever a first-time poster submits a comment, my blog software sends me an e-mail asking whether or not I want to approve the comment. Today I got one such e-mail, from a person lacking the testicular fortitude to use his own name (he tendered the name “guy incognito”). The submitted comment read as follows: Read more

Not Published: My Letter to the Editor of the Toronto Star

Early yesterday morning, I submitted the following letter to the Editor of the Toronto Star, in response to this editorial concerning the Ontario-Quebec proposal for an inter-provincial carbon cap-and-trade system. Although The Star has published my letters, and an op-ed, before, this letter did not get published in today’s paper. One possible reason is the length of the letter (it was a little longer than some of my others, though not long by the measure of other letters published daily in the Star). Can you think of any other reasons it was not published? Read more

Could Ontario Follow Massachussets' Bid to End Income Tax?

On May 22, 2008, the Western Standard reported that the Center for Small Government, for the second time since 2002, is trying to introduce a ballot initiative to end income taxation in the State of Massachussets. In 2002, 45 percent of the state voted to scrap the state’s income tax. With the figures for early 2008 show similar levels of support, the collectivists – this time – are spending big money to fight the elimination of taxation.

In the comments to the Western Standard story, Anonymous noted that Massachusset’s state revenue would drop only 39% were the income tax to be scrapped. He/she asked others to do the math for Canada and its provinces. I posted the following, in reply: Read more

The Malfare State

In the Nation Post blog, Rudyard Griffiths opines that “In a recession, our bulked up petrodollar will accelerate the gutting of Ontario’s manufacturing sector and further delay the province’s economic recovery.”

I replied:
The fortunate fact is Read more

"Equalization" and the "Constitutional Entrenchment" Myth

For days now, major daily newspapers have featured one or more reports or columns about the Canadian federal government’s “equalization program”. In a nutshell, the equalization program works like this:

1. The federal government overtaxes Canadians, so that it has more money than it needs to pay for services that it is authorized, by the constitution, to provide.
2. The federal government takes the extra revenue, and contributes it to provincial coffers in an effort to ensure that each province has the same amount of money for its various socialist programs (notably, health care, welfare, and education).

Under this program, people who get skinned are called residents of the “Have” provinces. People who get stuff they didn’t pay for are called residents of the “Have Not” provinces. Read more

Lobbying for Death

In response to my blog entry about David Archuleta, Mark Steyn, and Reason, a facebook friend commented, in part:

I’m worried what those law students will be trying to do once they pass the bar. Sounds like they want to criminalize people’s feelings and anything that may stir the pot in a direction they don’t like. Thought police anyone?

I replied:

Law is a description of the circumstances under which the government may deprive you of liberty or property. It can be consistent with the facts of reality (including the nature of man), or it can be contrary to the facts of reality.

To tell your child that a given religious belief is contrary to the facts of reality, or that it foretells a physical threat to ones liberty or property, may very well offend those who hold the belief, but it may very well save the life of ones child. All of the good feelings in the world won’t allow someone to survive. All of the ignorance in the world will certainly decrease the likelihood of ones survival/happiness.

Freedom requires that a government’s ethical standard be the life of a man qua man. That requires government always to be consistent with the facts of reality.

To call upon the government to seize control of a person’s liberty or property on the ground of emotion is to call upon the government to abandon human life as its ethical standard. It is to lobby for death.

John Tory's Bait & Switch for Gullible Right-Wingers

Realizing that he’s got problems in his own party – those in it who want smaller government and reduced taxes are looking to leave his party – party leader John Tory has resorted to posing as a Harrisite, without actually proposing anything in particular.

In the Toronto Star’s editorial today – laughably titled “Tory Turns to the Right” – the Star reports that Tory yesterday gave a post-budget speech to the Economic Club of Toronto:

Tory’s solutions are right out of the Mike Harris hymnal: Cut taxes and allow “businesses and families to keep more of their own money.” Shrink regulations. And take a hard look at the number of civil servants who are making big salaries and “breathing each other’s exhaust.

Which taxes exactly? Silence.

How much? Silence.

Which civil servants should be canned? Silence.

How much should spending on the civil service be reduced? Silence.

Thankfully, the Toronto Star was keen enough to notice that Tory’s words on tax cuts and spending cuts are of the “Here I sit, broken hearted, paid and dime and only farted” nature:

Tory didn’t help his case by dodging reporters’ questions about what services he would cut to pay for tax breaks. Instead, he criticized the Liberal government for not looking for unspecified “efficiencies” and “waste.” He also suggested McGuinty could have slowed down “other initiatives” to fund tax cuts, although he did not spell out which ones.

Ah yes, “finding efficiencies”, “reducing waste”, “tightening the belt”, yada yada yada. The same schtick he delivered leading up to the election of 2007…and the same one he’ll continue to deliver, because he is actually a defender of Ontario’s health insurance monopoly, a defender of tax-funded government-owned/operated schools, and a defender of Ontario’s various welfare programs. He’s repeatedly said that keeping those programs well-funded takes priority, even if that means raising taxes.

Tory’s real aim is to make it LOOK as though he’s turned hard right so as to shore up support within his party.

He has absolutely no plan to deliver tax cuts or spending cuts of any significant nature or extent. Mark my words. He’s just desperate.

« Previous Page — Next Page »