Ten days ago, I gave a speech on politics and the evolution of government in the 20th century before approximately 50 people at an event organized by my colleague Jacques Gourde, MP for Lotbinière-Chutes-de-la-Chaudière, in Saint-Narcisse (Quebec). Here is an adapted version of my speech, which you can also watch (in French) on these video clips.

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Some days ago, I signed the commitment proposed by the Quebec section of the Canadian Convenience Stores Association to fight contraband. Convenience stores are losing a lot of revenues because of the illicit tobacco trade, which accounts for a large portion of total consumption in Canada. This association is asking for lower taxes on cigarettes, which constitute more than 75% of the retail price and have more than doubled since 2001.

I am in total agreement with this solution. As is well known, prohibition fuelled alcohol contraband and the rise of organized crime in the U. S. in the 1920s. Excessive taxes on a legal product have the same effect. Lower taxes would bring back some order in this sector and let convenience stores do their legitimate trade, while diminishing the tax burden that falls on smokers. From my perspective, any reduction in taxes is a good thing.

I wish to emphasize that I do not smoke and do not encourage anyone to smoke. But cigarettes are a legal product and as such, smoking is a personal choice. Excessive taxes are not helping to solve any of the problems associated with smoking, but on the contrary are creating many others. It is time to put an end to this failed policy.

The second picture has me and Wildrose Alliance leader Danielle Smith. In the third picture, I get a handshake from my colleague Edmonton Centre MP Laurie Hawn. I also used the occasion to go door knocking in the Edmonton-Strathcona riding with dynamic CPC candidate Ryan Hastman and some supporters.

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Earlier this week, La Presse’s chief editorialist, André Pratte, denounced our government’s decision to replace the long-form census with a voluntary survey in an editorial entitled “The height of stupidity.” The paper published my reply in its pages this morning. This is an English version of it.

The poll results, which incidentally were barely reported by any media organisation in Canada, can be found in this Montreal Gazette article.

Intrusive questions

Maxime Bernier

The author is Member of Parliament for Beauce.

My government’s decision to put an end to the compulsory long census questionnaire has been attacked from all sides in the past few days. Most of the country’s editorial boards have denounced it. Almost no organisation has publicly supported it. If we were to believe those who speak against it, there is near unanimity on this issue in Canada.

Among others, this is the point of view put forward by André Pratte (July 20), who thus ridiculed my declaration that the data from the census are mostly useful to special interest groups: “The census data are being used by a large group of persons and institutions. If these are the ones that Mr. Bernier is talking about, then Canada as a whole is an interest group!”

Fundamentally, my position is that whatever the presumed usefulness of these data, I don’t believe it justifies forcing people to answer intrusive questions about their lives, under threat from a 500$ fine or three months in jail if they don’t.

Why in the world should peaceful and honest citizens be threatened in this way if they refuse to answer questions about how many hours of unpaid housework or yard work they did the previous week, who pays for what in their household, how many bedrooms there are in their home and if it needs minor or major repairs?

Private businesses and organizations who want such data should pay to get surveys done that answer their needs instead of relying on government coercion to get them.

Decisions made by the government should answer the needs of the majority of the population, not those of interest groups. Now, it turns out that despite this unanimous chorus of opposition from the elites and the fact that our side has barely been heard, Canadians are equally divided on the issue. An Ipsos-Reid poll which has just been released shows that 49% of them agree with the government’s decision. Interestingly, the largest level of support was registered in my home province, Quebec, at 62%.

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Over the past couple of weeks, I have been invited by local conservative associations to deliver several speeches before hundreds of party members accross Canada. Every time, just like I did in my Calgary, Winnipeg and Mont-St-Grégoire speeches, I talk about our conservative values, that is, about individual freedom and responsibility, free markets and the need to shrink government intervention in the economy and in our lives.

I am always pleasantly surprised to see how the people attending these events appreciate that kind of message. I want to use this opportunity to again thank them for coming to hear me and to encourage them to promote our values and continue their important work to get their local candidate elected at the next election.

Here are some pictures taken at these events.

Here I am with members of the board of directors of the St-Maurice-Champlain association in Trois-Rivières on June 13. They are Mr. Michel Champagne, president, Mr. Marco Gauvin, recruitment director and Mr. Maxim Boivert, director of communications. The event gathered members from this and other associations in the region. 

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I intervened in the media over the weekend to defend my government’s decision to scrap the compulsory long-form questionnaire of the census. There has been a lot of opposition to this decision over the past two weeks coming from all kinds of interest groups who use the data from the census.

Fundamentally, my position is that whatever the presumed usefulness of these data, I don’t believe it justifies forcing people to answer intrusive questions about their lives, under threat from a fine or jail time if they don’t.

Most people don’t want to be called or be visited at home by a census bureaucrat pressuring them to answer the questions and threatening them with sanctions. They understandably do not want trouble with the government and when they get such threats, they simply comply. Few will officially complain to the government, although when I was Industry minister in 2006 during the previous census, several thousand email messages of complaint were sent to my MP office. (Some people have asked me to show proof of this. It was evidently part of an organized campaign, as my Parliament colleagues and I sometimes receive vast numbers of messages on controversial issues. They are one way among others to gauge the level of public support or opposition to a decision. These messages were obviously not filed for future use by my staff and were deleted.)

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Yesterday, I gave an interview to Roadkill Radio, an Internet radio based in Vancouver, on money. We discussed at length inflation, deflation, the Bank of Canada’s inflation target, the gold standard and other monetary issues that I had talked about in my recent speech at the Economic Club in Toronto. You can listen to the segment here (fast-forward a bit, the hosts spend some time discussing a book before I come in).

Also, economic columnist Neil Reynolds wrote an interesting column on the same speech two weeks ago in the Globe and Mail: “Bernier the Bold’s gold theory deserves greater currency“.

These two newspaper articles appeared following my speech on “Inflation, the Underrated Destroyer of Prosperity“ a few days ago at the Economic Club of Canada in Toronto:

David Pett, “Maxime Bernier breaking the economic mould” in the National Post

James Daw, “MP aims to rally support for a zero inflation target” in the Toronto Star

In my last video message on monetary issues in January, I ended by saying that I would talk about the Bank of Canada’s inflation target in the next one. For all kinds of reasons, including the many speeches that I gave in the meantime, I was not able to do it. However, this is the topic I discuss in a speech delivered at the Economic Club in Toronto this morning.  

Inflation, the Underrated Destroyer of Prosperity
June 8, 2010
The Economic Club, Toronto
Maxime Bernier, MP for Beauce

(Words of thanks)

Monetary policy is one of the most difficult topics in economics. But also, I believe, a topic of absolutely crucial importance for our prosperity.

As you all know, last week, the Bank of Canada increased its benchmark rate by a quarter of a percentage point to 0.5%. There had been a lot of speculation in recent weeks about that decision to finally raise rates after keeping them at a record low for more than a year. And as usual there will be a lot of speculation about the bank’s next moves. How far will it go? How fast?

All this guessing about setting rates has nothing to do with capitalism and free markets; it has more to do with central planning and government control of the money supply. In a monetary free market, the interest rate would be determined by the demand for credit and the supply of savings, just like any other price in the economy.

Government control over money has serious consequences that few people seem to be aware of.

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The Financial Post has an opinion article by me today, which is excerpted from my speech in Winnipeg last week at the Frontier Centre for Public Policy.

A people’s tax cut

Abolish the corporate tax – only real people pay taxes

By Maxime Bernier

A famous American jurist, Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., wrote in 1927 that taxes are the price we pay for civilization. However much truth there may be in this statement, we’ve now gone way beyond this. Taxes today are the price we pay for having a big, fat and inefficient bureaucracy that tries to intervene in every aspect of our lives.

As long as we have taxes, however, we should make sure that they cause the least possible distortion in our economy.

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This is the text of a speech that I delivered yesterday before about 50 people at a lunch organized by the Frontier Centre for Public Policy, a Winnipeg think tank. (In the first picture, I am with Wayne Anderson, Chair of FCPP, and Peter Holle, President.)

Less Public Spending, More Private Wealth Creation

Maxime Bernier
Frontier Centre for Public Policy
Winnipeg, 19 May 2010

(Words of thanks)

It’s a pleasure being here today among friends to discuss economic policy. I say among friends because not that long ago, in 2005, just before I went into politics, I myself worked in a think tank like the Frontier Centre. I was vice-president of the Montreal Economic Institute.

These think tanks do tremendously useful work. It’s very important to have independent voices telling the hard truths in public policy debates, in addition to the usual special interest groups.

One basic thing you learn when you become interested in economic policy is that for some reason, governments keep growing, and growing, and growing. Over the past hundred years, government has grown to gigantic proportions. It intervenes in almost every aspect of our lives. It tries to plan economic development. It tells us if we may or may not cut down a tree on our own property. It tries to take care of us from the cradle to the grave.

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Over the past two weeks, I visited Toronto and Winnipeg and met with members of the party at the invitation of local conservative associations. At both places, I gave a slightly modified version of my Calgary speech from last January on my vision of conservatism.

In Toronto, I had the pleasure of meeting candidates from the region as well as 75 party members. In Winnipeg, 125 members from the Kildonan-St.Paul association welcomed me. This riding is held by my colleague Joy Smith (see picture).

Joy is an inspiration for us all in Ottawa. She devotes a lot of energy to a cause that is dear to her heart, her fight against humain trafficking. She introduced Bill C-268, and regularly gives lectures and participates in conferences about this issue. Last year, she also took part in a demonstration in Montreal against this evil.