print“Canada’s balance sheet is healthier than those of other developed nations,” reports the Wall Street Journal. “Canada’s federal deficit is just 1.9% of gross domestic product,” and Finance Minister Jim Flaherty “aims to reduce that to zero by 2016 with new cuts in his annual budget, expected next month.”
Unlike the states stateside, the Canadian provinces are aiming to balance their books, as they ought to. “Ontario, the largest province in terms of population, released an independent report recommending 362 spending cuts, from increased school class sizes to fewer hospitals, to rein in a 16 billion Canadian dollar (US$16 billion) budget deficit and balance its books in five years.”
Alas, a show of responsibility on the part of some Canadian leaders has met with opprobrium from mooching members of the public. “Critics of Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s Conservative Party have accused the government of using austerity to push through one of its political goals: smaller government.”
OMIGOD. What could be worse than shrinking the state , which invariably grows society? Those arguing against cutting the “oink sector,” so as to ensure these strong fundamentals persist defer to Keynesian political economy, of course. The need for the state to stimulate the delirium of demand, rather than allow the necessary slowdown in consumption that is associated with liquidation of bad investments and increased savings.
…austerity threatens jobs and saps demand at home. It also shuts down a source of global demand that the world needs more than ever amid slower-than-expected growth almost everywhere else in the developed world.
Ludwig von Mises, who wrote the “Theory of Money and Credit” (1912) well in advance of Keynes’ “General Theory,” showed that the Keynesian cure—inflating the money supply in order to stimulate demand—causes depressions.
Writes Peter Schiff: “Stimulus merely numbs the pain of economic contraction, as the underlying trauma gets worse. Austerity might slow an economy down, but at least the wounds are able to heal. America has chosen the former and Europe the latter, albeit not quite as large a dose as needed. The fact that in the short-run Europe is suffering more than the US does not vindicate Washington’s approach. On the contrary, this is exactly what is to be expected.”
Economic good news aside, Canada, on the other hand, boasts draconian anti-free speech laws. One of the most oppressive instruments in the Canadian state is the Human Rights apparatus. “The Human Rights Commission, a Kangaroo court, operates outside the Canadian courts, affording its victims none of the defenses or due process the courts afford. For example, mens rea, or criminal intention: the absence of the intent to harm is no defense in this ‘court.’ Neither is truth.”
To top that, as RT reports, “Lawmakers in the Great White North are debating a bill that will pulverize what’s left of online privacy for Canucks.”
The Investigative Powers for the 21st Century Act (Bill C-51) is legislation that isn’t new to Canadian Parliament, but after a series of additions and other changes, lawmakers there are expected to begin discussion on it this week. If passed, law enforcement there will be able to monitor all Internet and telephone activity from anyone, anywhere in the country, without having to obtain a warrant.
I’ve been up there several times. The people strike me as sensible, but the insane speech laws and welfare scams illustrate what happens when “niceness” becomes the overarching value in any society.
Freedom is being assaulted in the Western World by the “hate crimes Gestapo” (led by minorities , feminists, and gays who claim the right to arrest/fine/punish anyone who utters SPEECH – not actions – that they dislike) and the “Hollywood Copyright Gestapo” who also claim the right to shut you down or check your privacy for violations of their protocols.
While the latter two Gestapos are inspired by the left, the right gets its dibs in assaulting freedom in the name of fighting “terrorism”. The word “terrorism” no longer refers to action against unarmed civilians but rather any challenge to governmental or military or quasi-military power. Hence, lack of trials, no habeas corpus, TSA gropes, GPS tracking, RFID chips in all of us, tens of thousands of ubiquitous cameras.
The TSA logo I passed today said “Remembering 9/11” but it might as well have said “Welcome to Soviet America”.
The insane speech laws M.Malic refer to only illustrate the veritable chasm between the small chattering class and the ‘real’ Canada where public discourse is often of an amazingly candid and open nature.
Most people leave these ‘bien pensants’ to bray alone in the dark. Don’t expect many lawsuits to result from any of this. As for those welfare scams, look mostly for the usual suspects.
Yes, Canadians are a bit too nice, but the pendulum is gathering moment and swinging back.
I once lived in Canada. Thought that Canadians mostly lived in a kind of dream world. Certainly they were a rougn and ready bunch, I was in Alberta, but they seemed to be a naive group generally about politics and social considerations. Of course, now that Americans no longer have an identity they are no better.