Disappointment

Being a Conservatarian in Canada these days is to live chock a block with disappointment. Another loss at the federal level, a provincial government that has a leader that seems libertine to the extent of buying liquor but certainly is no conservative on the spending side where it counts. And forget municipal government, the self-serving nature of local politics seems inexorably corrupt.

Budget deficits for generations to come, both federally and provincially mean a couple things. First that any ideas that we can govern within our means can never happen as the cost of the debt burden becomes ever higher. Second this means the governments will have to find ever increasing ways to fund the debt which means more and more they will intrude into our lives.

Increased taxes and reduced services will be the norm. Now a reduction is services sounds like just the ticket for the conservatarian, in fact that is something we strongly advocate for. But the issue is being then able to source that which the government was providing in the private sector. Healthcare obviously is the largest of these, but housing is moving quickly up the scale and soon industrial services also.

A choice is all we want. Maybe it makes more sense to have a government run system, maybe simply government funded or subsidized. I now there are some health costs coming rapidly down the pipe that I have no way to offset without government help. If necessary can I out of pocket these expenses, of course, but would not a having choices be the better way. Maybe in this case there is no private model other than self-funding that could work.

But there are so many other ways that the private sector can assist the healthcare community. Specialized clinics certainly help out. Allowing universities to churn out as many doctors as they could is another way to improve the system. Somehow we need to reduce the burden on hospital emergency rooms. As this costs money and lives.

What about housing. In an over regulated environment already which has simply added to the burdensome nature of building in Canada government has responded to the housing crisis by adding more and more bureaucracy. New federal regulations, a new federal department, provincial regulations, municipal regulations, I mean it’s all so crazy to try and get something built here in Canada. My buddy bought a house to renovate and live in. It took years and significant dollars to secure the various permits from multiple levels of government.

And now the feds want us to consider modular homes as the way of the future. I am sure I am wrong here but what I think of when hearing this is a mobile home. Nothing wrong with mobile homes, they provide housing for those at the bottom scale of the income ranges. While at the same time providing the freedom of your own place. Expecting this to a standard to which our youth should aspire to is just somehow wrong. That our youth need to ‘sacrifice’ I believe is what our government is now telling us.

I can not imagine when I was youthful if the message I was receiving was settle for this because you can never achieve more. I owned my first house when I was 26. We owned a non-conforming duplex with my brother-in-law and his wife. Almost made a killing on it as well had the market not crashed leaving us at break even. We never thought twice about the next one, great little bungalow in Markham with a ton of upside. Even at 15% interest rates for the mortgage. We could afford a home with a yard and still go on vacation and pay for kids. Still put away money for the future.

Today you go to university, rack up many 10’s of thousands in student debt and then, if you are luck enough, you move into a rental paying way too much of your income on housing and student debt to ever think about saving for a down payment. Somehow this is where dreams die. Because withou the leverage of property gives you how do you grow a future.

How does Canada grow a future? Regulations limit everything that could grow the country. Debt limits us, lack of investment limits us, an overburden of immigrants limits us. The current investor class does not care because markets are still going strong due to artificially low interest rates. The debt overburden from government can only lead to trouble as there is only so much money available to borrowers whether they are public or private sector. And there are only two ways I know of to resolve this competition. Print money or restrict it through higher interest. The former causes inflation of the rampent kind seen in places like Argentina. The latter reduces productivity as we have here in Canada.

So why am I disappointed? We have a ‘conservative’ government here in Ontario and a ‘conservative’ opposition at the federal level covering a minority parliament. Is our provincial government conservative fiscally? Not a chance. Is it libertine in the sense of reducing government intervention? Not a chance.

What about the federal Conservatives, they had a chance to act fiscally conservative and defeat the budget that imposes the largest debt burden on Canadians when no crisis exists. No war, no famine or pestilence need be paid for. And what does our ‘conservative’ opposition do? Do they do the pricipled thing and send us back to the polls? Nope, they join with the uni-party and pass this abomination of a budget. Ensuring unborn generations of Canadians will be saddled with debt for their lifetimes, if they even come into being.

So where do we turn, Liberalism is dead, we are on a road inexorably leading to servitude to government. With the amount of debt how can you see any other result. And we have no one who will protect us. And therein lies my disappointment.