Why are governments always getting bigger?
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.
Why are governments always getting bigger?
By Maxime Bernier
Saint-Narcisse
August 27, 2010
(Words of thanks)
You know, there are many things to do on a Friday evening apart from coming here and listening to Jacques (Gourde) and me talking about politics. Yes, Jacques and I are politicians – it’s not the ideal job nowadays! We’re involved in politics, we talk about politics.
But we are not naive. We know that many of you see politicians as people who don’t always tell the truth, who make nice promises that they do not always keep. That’s why people have become cynical and disenchanted towards some politicians.
They have good reasons for that. Politicians tend to exaggerate their own merits and denigrate their opponents. They claim that they can solve everything with a new regulation, a new law or a new program.
I’m trying to do politics differently, to say things as they are, to not make promises and to do my best to represent the people of the Beauce and of Quebec in Ottawa.
People realize that from one government to the other, from a decade to the other, we get the impression that things are not that different, and even that they are getting worse.
That’s why I’m not going to make a typical political speech this evening, but rather a speech about the problems of today’s politics. Politics is a lot more interesting when you reach out to people’s intellect instead of their emotions or their partisanship.
So, let’s discuss a crucial problem of contemporary politics: why is it that so many people have the impression that things are getting worse, or at any rate are not getting better, despite economic growth and the advantages of modern life? Is it a false impression?
If we look at certain general historical trends, I think we can conclude that this impression is indeed justified.
The main trend that we observe is that governments are constantly getting bigger. A bigger government means a government that taxes more, spends more, gets deeper into debt, and regulates more. It’s a government which intervenes in all aspects of our lives, all the while curtailing our freedom to act.
This happened all over the world during the 20th century. The scope, size and powers of government have grown tremendously.
Take for example public spending as a proportion of gross domestic product, that is, the portion of the overall economic controlled by governments. In the main countries of the western world, it has gone from around 10% a century ago to beyond 40% today.
This means that almost half of all economic activity is controlled by the state. Half of your salaries are going away in taxes. So you work almost six months per year to fund spending by federal, provincial and municipal governments.
But these gigantic sums are not even enough to pay for all the programs and interventions of governments. They still have to borrow billions of dollars every year to make up for their deficits.
Some of you may have young children, or are planning to have one. Well, you should know that when they are born, Canadian baby already owe many tens of thousands of dollars, which they will have to reimburse in one way or another in the course of their life. Perhaps this is why they start crying as soon as they arrive in this world!
The size of public spending and the taxes that are collected to fund it only explain one aspect of the growth of the state. We must also take into account the increase in the number of laws and regulation.
Some years ago, the Montreal Economic Institute calculated that each year, the Quebec government added 8000 new pages of laws and regulation in its books, while the federal government added 2000. Very few rules are ever abolished, even when they become obsolete, while a variety of new rules are constantly being created. Our society has never been so thoroughly regulated.
I don’t want to demoralize anyone, but think for example about all the papers that you need to obtain and everything you have to pay in order to be able to drive a car, from the driver’s license to taxes on gasoline, and not forgetting the parking tickets and other fines.
Or think about all the red tape that is involved in owning a hunting rifle. The gun registry is a bureaucratic monster that has cost a thousand times more than it was supposed to, and because of it every hunter is treated like a potential criminal.
You can barely do anything nowadays without having to ask a bureaucrat for some permission. You want to drive a rowboat or an ATV? Better be patient while you try to obtain all the necessary authorisations and learn all the rules that apply. Although there may be thousands of pages of obscure regulation or anything and everything, you won’t be able to claim that you did not know them before a judge if you are caught violating one of them. Ignorance of the law is no defence.
Governments too often treat us like irresponsible children and act as if they know better than we do what is good for us. From their perspective, this justifies all the measures they adopt to hold our hands and tell us what to do. And also to pick our pockets.
Did you know for example that there is a law in Quebec and in other provinces which imposes a minimum price on the beer that you buy at the store? That’s right, beer could be cheaper, but the government is afraid that you may drink too much of it if you pay less than some arbitrary amount for it. So the Liquor Board determines a “minimum retail price for beer so that it does not encourage irresponsible consumption.”
That’s not a joke, this is how the law is written. The government believes that you won’t be able to control yourself and to drink beer in a responsible manner if the price of beer is too low. And it’s a nice coincidence because that also happens to bring more taxes in government coffers.
Governments are trying to control everything we do to protect us from all the imaginable dangers and risks of life. But who will protect us against governments?
The state also controls whole sectors of the economy, such as health care and education. Sectors which seem to be in a permanent state of crisis and always have funding problems. Still, every year, their budgets increase faster than the overall economy. How is that possible?
Former US president Ronald Reagan explained it best when he said that big interventionist governments tend to see things as follows: if it moves, tax it; if it keeps moving, regulate it; and if it stops moving, subsidize it!
What we need to ask is why are governments always getting bigger? Does everyone really wish to have these giant governments? Is this what people vote for?
Economists have tried to explain this dynamic. Their research shows how particular groups have a strong interest in getting organized to put pressure on politicians.
These special interest groups want subsidies, trade protection, more generous social programs, a fiscal or legal privilege, regulation that favours them and keeps out competition. Any favour they get from the government can potentially bring them huge benefits.
Of course, in the end, it’s you, the citizens, who will have to pay for these favours. But in your case, the amount you have to pay for each measure is not significant enough to justify getting organized to oppose it. You don’t have time to go to meetings and demonstrate in the street to oppose a particular program that will cost you ten dollars, even if ten dollars here and ten dollars there add up to hundreds and thousands of dollars. You have to work and take care of your family. But the small group of people who get 100 million dollars have a huge interest in getting organized.
It’s very hard for politicians to say no to these lobbies because they have the means to hijack debates, quickly mobilize support and fuel controversies in the media. On the other hand, nobody hears what you, the silent majority, have to say even if you are the ones paying the bill.
So, there is a fundamental imbalance in political debates. On one side, you have concentrated benefits to special interest groups who have a strong incentive to do their lobbying; on the other side, you have dispersed costs that fall on society at large.
Within governments, civil servants too are trying to get higher salaries and other perks. Bureaucrats are not saints who dedicate their lives to the common good. They also have their own personal interests to advance.
Civil servants have a very large influence on political decisions because they are the ones who control the information and the day to day agenda of politicians. I got first-hand experience of this as minister of Industry. I had to fight civil servants in my own department to achieve my goal of deregulating a section of the telecom sector, in order to foster more competition and offer more choice and better prices to consumers.
If special interest groups and civil servants want a more interventionist government and if politicians agree to this, then voters will get a bigger government, whether they like it or not.
That’s how government grows and grows. That’s how we become less and less free. And more and more dependent on government.
What can we do – what can you do – to reverse this trend? First it’s essential to understand that the main rift in politics is the one that separates those who want a bigger government, more programs, more control, more taxes and regulation from those who want individuals to be free and responsible for their own actions.
If you belong to this second group, you can do something: ask your governments to get out of your way. Demand more freedom from your Members of Parliament. Ask them to treat you like responsible adults. Discuss these issues with your family, your friends and your neighbours.
The more people there will be who understand and share these ideas, the easier it will be to create a counterweight to the lobbies that we constantly see in the media asking for more government intervention, and for a bigger chunk of your salary. It might also move politicians to finally take into account the interests of the silent majority, your interests.
To conclude, it’s true that politics can be boring. Political debates often sink to the level of petty squabbling. But by not paying attention to politics, you make it easier for politicians to determine for you how you live your life and spend your money. In the end, it’s up to you to decide if we shall have a freer, more responsible and more prosperous society.
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Bravo Maxime,
Enfin un discours intelligent.
Merci, Msr. Bernier.
Exactement Simard.
Man, are you ever a breath of fresh air. I want to have your children, and I’m not even gay!
Is anyone in the “Conservative” caucus listening?
Félicitation M. Bernier pour ce discours qui est déjà selon moi une oeuvre d’art de la nouvelle politique moderne qui devra voir le jour sous peu avant que l’on se fasse tous englober par l’État. Cela redonne espoir de vous entendre et lire, d’entendre aussi un Chris Christie qui a réussi un tour de force incroyable de dégraissage de l’État dans le New-Jersey. Un Mike Harris qui a pris le taureau par les cornes en Ontario et une dame que l’on ne parle pas assez souvent, Mme Hazel McCallion mairesse de Mississauga Ontario qui applique ce genre de politique pour ces habitants.
“Donne à une personne un poisson, tu le nourriras un jour, apprends lui à pêcher et tu l’auras nourris pour toujours” – proverbe chinois
Ce n’est pas en donnant tout cuit dans le bec à une personne que l’on va l’aider à devenir meilleure, à être autonome et à l’aider à prospérer… nos gouvernements le font pour des centaines de milliers d’individus qui vivent de plus en plus aux mamelles de l’État et qui en sont devenus dépendants. Oui ça fait élire des politiciens de genre de pratique, mais ça hypothèque le futur de toute une société…
Encore une fois félicitation pour ce discours
Maxime, please be my Prime Minister! We need someone who understand economics. Apparently a economics degree from the University of Calgary isn’t enough.
Thank you Mr. Bernier. It is my belief that the electorate is not naive but for the most part – is not engaged. It is my hope that forums such as this, where issues are ptresented in a clear manner based on common sense, will help mobilize the debate among ‘ordinary citizens’ so that the ‘majority’ – the wealth creators, will no longer be ‘silent’ and will begin to demand a government representative of their needs and interests.
It is beginning to happen. I am still hopeful that I will find the support and representation I so desperately need both here in the Beauce and in Ottawa. Government intervention at any level can actually destroy individual lives and we need people with influence to stop it and to create an environment where the fundamental right of every individual Canadian to secure their own livlihood is respected and protected without distinction.
all my life government has continued to expand. it has not made any difference which party is in control. the question is who, while in power will cut the total government payroll and personnel by at least 10 percent. the correct answer, no one because canadians are overwelmingly socialist and our governments will continue to grow until we go broke or the government owns all the production and wealth of the country.
i could not agree more mr bernier. exellent speech and one that must be delivered via prime time. im thinking CBC. im sure they would love to hear your message. we need a majority in the next election and it is the responsibility of conservatives everywhere to educate themselves on the reality of economics and to pound the pavement in the next election to disseminate that knowledge.
“The main trend that we observe is that governments are constantly getting bigger. A bigger government means a government that taxes more, spends more, gets deeper into debt, and regulates more. It’s a government which intervenes in all aspects of our lives, all the while curtailing our freedom to act.”
With respect, that main trend has never been bigger than under your government, Mr. Bernier. Even before the recession, your government shattered spending records in your budget and then shattered them again the next year. Spending increases were announced (and many later cancelled) for military, sure, but you also increased the budget for such things as the kind of polling Mr. Harper criticized before he became PM, for such things as regional development agencies that Mr. Harper criticized before he became PM (including the creation of 2 brand new regional development agencies), corporate welfare, the size of the PMO’s budget, transfer payments to elimintate the phantom “fiscal imbalance”, etc.
And it wasn’t just spending: the size of the government increased – there has never been more people in the direct employ of the federal government. That is spending that just increases over time and more people wanting to interfere more.
And then the recession hit and Harper firmly entrenched the idea that only government can save an economy with tens of billions of taxpayer dollars. Worse than the unprecedent spending, the unapologetic bragging about how necessary it was, the shere size of the spending, the obvious porkbarrel politics of it, worse than that was the waste even in the implementation: over a hundred million dollars on advertisements and signage, money for a private girls school soccer field, sidewalks to nowhere.
And then even worse, as we emerge from the recession and austerity should return, the budget increases, the size of the government increases. Instead of cutting back, the PMO budget is now bigger than it has ever been. Even the Canadian Human Rights Commission budget has increased and the number of people it employs has gone up this year. The only thing that seems to be cut is over $2 billion in announced military spending.
As for interference, you mentioned driving a boat: stricter and stricter boat licensing was brought in by Harper. Rather than just spend oodles and oodles of money, Harper is dictating and interfering in local projects and planning like never before. With the specialized tax cuts for certain activities, your government is trying to dictate how we should live our lives and raise our children (why should a sports activity get a tax break and not a chess club or a science club for our kids for example?).
Meet the new boss. Way worse than the old boss.
“Meet the new boss. Way worse than the old boss.”
The difference being that at least the Conservative caucus has members such as Mr.Bernier who are arguing for smaller government and less intervention. The Liberals and the NDP are both arguing for more central planning of our economy and society. In other words, substantially more intervention in our daily lives. Over the years our right to manage our own lives has eroded substantially. Our politicians should be protecting those rights. There isn’t a single politician on the left side of the fence who is willing to do that.
Seems to me John Doe that there was a Liberal government before Harper and it was not worse than Harper but in fact, on conservative issues, clearly better.
Harper has even made it very clear what he thinks of the single politician on the right side of the fence who is willing to do that.
When Harper is moving the fence further to the left than it ever was and trying to find new ways to and inventive and more permanent ways interfere with our lives, then you only have yourself to blame for continuing to support him.
Unfortunately, Ted, we can’t re-elect the past. Looking forward, it’s Liberal central planning. I’ll take my chances with the persuasive forces within the Conservative party. It is the only party at this point in time that has members who believe in free markets and protecting our fundamental right to manage our own lives. If the Liberals were ever to return to their classical liberal roots they would definitely be an alternative.
Given that the only thing propelling “progressivism” is the people in favour of it are petrified to think, much less conclude, that they might be wrong; real change has to take place, and not just in government.
Maxime is speaking clearly, and I see the best of Quebec in him, because what he says is true at any time.
Speeches are great and very motivating but I want to see concrete action from every or any MP who claims to put the protection of individual rights ahead of the interests of the social collective that got him or her elected – they have to actually walk the walk and the opportunities to do so are plentiful.
We’re watching. We’ve had enough political, idealistic verbage. We want to SEE the change we need. We want to BE the change we need.
It takes courage for a politician to stand up to the ‘powers that be’ who are intent on safeguarding the status quo and the political power it provides them.
When the electorate takes back it’s power and demands change we will have the government we need and politicians will be forced to respect our liberty.
We don’t need more ‘politics’ … we need ‘leadership’ …
De la musique pour mes oreilles, On se cherche un nouveau Pm au Québec PLEASE….
@Ted: indeed, this speech only further motivates me to hurt the CPC in the next election. I may even vote Liberal out of spite-all the more so since my MP is Keith Martin.
@JohnDoe: persuasive voices in the CPC? Who are these? Max hasn’t persuaded anybody who can make a difference (no offense). The only way Max can get power is by winning the leadership race that will result from the CPC losing an election. Giving the CPC a majority is the worst thing that could happen.
@ Cytotoxic,
You are right, having this phony conservative government constantly violating basic conservative principles is much worse for the cause of freedom and small government than having the other parties in power, whether they are moderate reformers like Chrétien-Martin (who now look like libertarians compared with Harper) or big spenders as we can expect a liberal-NDP coalition to be.
They deserve to be thrown out at the next election. Maxime can expect to be one of the few still standing up in the wreckage.
FYI, Don Martin in the Post has just published a column on the Quebec City stadium. This morning, the Quebec PC caucus came out in favour of federal subsidies to built this future white elephant. And guess what?
http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2010/09/08/don-martin-harper-prepares-to-buy-off-quebec
The picture of beaming Conservative MPs sporting new Quebec Nordiques hockey jerseys on Wednesday was worth a thousand words of political insight.
Canadian taxpayers, it seems obvious, are about to sink almost $200 million deeper into deficit to finance a giant hockey arena in Quebec’s “national” capital to help land a second NHL hockey team for the province, in exchange for more Conservative seats.
The signs are not even subtle. Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s lapdog MPs would never pose in such a giddy thumbs-up stance without first getting the go-ahead from above. And there’s no way they’d get clearance from the PMO, where this contentious file now sits, unless Mr. Harper was setting up great expectations for a cash delivery.
It was instructive that Quebec MP Maxime Bernier, who opposes public handouts for private enterprise, was missing from the photograph and e-mailed me a curt ‘no comment’ when asked about the merits of federal support for the arena.
And so, the elements are converging to create a political squeeze play pitting West against East, fiscal prudence against profligacy, vote buying in Quebec against voter backlash everywhere else.
(…) With seven Bloc Quebecois seats up for sale to the highest bidder, the magic number for a Conservative majority gets tantalizingly close if they win over the arena’s spectator catchment area.
Still, the optics are horrible outside of the happily-bribed region.
How any diehard Conservative loyalist is still able to treat this as a principled party is beyond me. Had this been a Liberal display of blatant chequebook politics, the howls from true-blue types would be heard from coast to coast.
Handled badly, this could be Mr. Harper’s CF-18 moment, a rehash of that dark Prairie day in 1986 when Brian Mulroney yanked a jet fighter maintenance contract out of Winnipeg and handed it to Canadair in Montreal. That unleashed a firestorm that created the Reform Party, including a rookie MP named Stephen Harper.
Your prescription for action is:
1. “(A)sk your governments to get out of your way. Demand more freedom from your Members of Parliament. Ask them to treat you like responsible adults.”
2. “Discuss these issues with your family, your friends and your neighbours.”
There are problems with each of these. The problem with the first is that you have already correctly identified the reason why it won’t work – the enormous incentives, in terms of money and power, for your demands to be ignored by vote-buying politicians and money-leeching special interest groups, most significantly big business.
We have legitimized a system of legalized theft where both personal freedom and tax slavery are equally acceptable political options. This is the no-win state of affairs that we further legitimize every time we cast a ballot for freedom in an exercise doomed to failure.
One can admire your efforts while still observe how frustratingly small the difference you have been able to make in pushing back big government even within a government many of whose members supposedly think as you do.
The problem with your second suggestion is its futility if all that is discussed is where to mark your “X”. We have to stop marking Xs altogether. Stop treating a vote for legalized theft as morally equivalent and just as acceptable as a vote for individual liberty. They are not equal – the first is simply wrong and no majority of bribed voters can make it right. The majority already either declines to vote, or votes for what they consider the lesser evil without actually supporting that party’s platform. Our “majoritarian” democracy is a sham. Our “liberal” democracy has abandoned the principle of liberty. It’s time those who value freedom recognized that and stopped participating in an irredeemably illegitimate system.
Don’t vote. Oppose the state in every way you can. If you have to vote, pay your taxes, or complete a census at the point of a gun then do so, but only then. It is the sanction of the victim that empowers them. Withdraw your sanction. Over time we can replace all necessary goods and services now provided by the state with voluntary ones. Find them. Engage with other free traders in the free market. Disengage from the state.
A businessman’s success depends on his intelligence, his knowledge, his productive ability, his economic judgment—and on the voluntary agreement of all those he deals with: his customers, his suppliers, his employees, his creditors or investors.
A bureaucrat’s success depends on his political pull.
A businessman cannot force you to buy his product; if he makes a mistake, he suffers the consequences; if he fails, he takes the loss.
A bureaucrat forces you to obey his decisions, whether you agree with him or not—and the more advanced the stage of a country’s statism, the wider and more discretionary the powers wielded by a bureaucrat. If he makes a mistake, you suffer the consequences; if he fails, he passes the loss on to you, in the form of heavier taxes.
The businessman’s tool is values;
The bureaucrat’s tool is fear.
… taken from the writings of Ayn Rand – Capitalism : The Unknown Ideal.
@ Howard MacKinnon
Please consider that :
The citizens of a free nation may disagree about the specific legal procedures or methods of implementing their rights (which is a complex problem, the province of political science and of the philosophy of law), but they agree on the basic principle to be implemented: the principle of individual rights.
When a country’s constitution places individual rights outside the reach of public authorities, the sphere of political power is severely delimited — and thus the citizens may, safely and properly, agree to abide by the decisions of a majority vote in this delimited sphere.
The lives and property of minorities or dissenters are not at stake, are not subject to vote and are not endangered by any majority decision; no person or group holds a blank check on power over others.
Individual rights are not subject to a public vote; a majority has no right to vote away the rights of a minority i.e. the individual.
However, since knowledge, thinking, and rational action are properties of the individual, since the choice to exercise his/her rational faculty or not depends on the individual, survival requires that those who think be free of the interference of those who don’t.
Since people are neither perfect nor infallible, they must be free to agree or disagree, to cooperate or to pursue their own independent course, each according to his/her own rational judgment.
VOTE … with an ‘active’ mind.
… not an ‘open’ mind which hold no firm convictions and grants plausibilityto anything.
… nor a ‘closed’ mind which is in fact a ‘passive’ mind that has dispensed with (or never acquired) the practice of thinking or judging, and feels threatened by any request to consider anything but maintaining the status quo.
An ‘active’ mind – a mind able and eagerly willing to examine ideas, but to examine them critically.
An active mind does not grant equal status to truth and falsehood; it does not remain floating forever in a stagnant vacuum of neutrality and uncertainty; by assuming the responsibility of judgment, it reaches firm convictions and holds to them. Since it is able to prove its convictions, an active mind achieves an unassailable certainty in confrontations with assailants — a certainty untainted by spots of blind faith, approximation, evasion and fear.
NOT to vote – is to EVADE responsibilty for maintaining one’s own freedom
Un peu d’histoire :
Certains commentaires qui datent presque de deux siècles, mais qui sont toujours d’actualité. (Tocqueville, De la démocratie en Amérique, 1840, Ed. Gallimard, 1968)
Bien que farouche défenseur de la démocratie, A. de Tocqueville ne se cache pas qu’elle a quelques failles.
1. L’un des premiers dangers peut être le manque de discernement des électeurs (d’ailleurs Tocqueville connaîtra des déboires électoraux).
2. Un autre danger sera le despotisme démocratique. Un État tentaculaire peut se développer en privant les citoyens de leur liberté en échange d’une égalité de traitement et d’un bonheur minimum. C’est le despotisme démocratique
La réalité est que l’État n’est pas composé d’hommes plus vertueux que le reste de la société que chacun des acteurs du marché politique, votant, politicien ou bureaucrate, cherche à maximiser son bien-être plutôt que le bien commun. La pratique de la course aux faveurs doit être perçue comme un trait permanent du processus de décision politico-bureaucratique.
Depuis la crise économique, en Grèce, il y a un certain consensus de la part des économistes européens.
«Tous les pays démocratiques qui ont un fort déficit ont le même symptôme, des politiciens qui ont surendetté l’État pour gagner la faveur populaire et satisfaire les groupes d’intérêts, sans voir les conséquences économiques à moyen long terme.»
bravo m. bernier
on a besoin d’un nouveau premier ministre
vous avez mon vote
Thank you Mr. Bernier so much for what is probably the most forthright and upstanding thing a politician has said in this country in decades. Among my group of friends and acquaintances there are frequent good-natured arguments about the role of government in Canadian society. I have often used a similar argument; that we are adults and we don’t need nannies… especially those that charge more than we can pay! But in Canada now everything is mandatory. I have to pay for every program that everyone else takes advantage of whether I approve or not. It has reached the point where I make a decent wage and still struggle to own a home and pay my bills because taxes take such a huge percentage of my wages. I keep arguing to no avail that every dollar wasted on unnecessary programs (to curry favor with those that are perfectly able to pay their own way) is a dollar taken from those that actually need it. A society that refuses to assist those that are unable to help themselves is not civilized. Yet we underfund programs that are absolutely necessary to the well-being, and even the survival, of less fortunate citizens while throwing BILLIONS of dollars in unnecessary subsidies to industry, special interests and the expansion of bureaucracy. A recent program offered subsidies to homeowners to do energy audits and retrofit their homes. Should we be offering subsidies to people that can actually afford a home when so many can’t? And the working poor have to pay taxes to support these programs while they have no prospects of owning a home, and likely never will because of the heinous tax burden we face. I didn’t take advantage of this subsidy myself because of the onerous regulation and a nagging conscience, but the temptation was there. We need to remove these temptations that make even good and honest people spend what isn’t theirs because if they don’t it will be lost to someone/something else.
Whatever the future holds for you Mr. Bernier, I will support you. Bravo!
Bravo Monsieur Bernier enfin un politicien qui se tient debout. Lorsque la fin de la construction du nouveau colisée et que le cout doublera qui sera dans ses petits souliers avec son 45% des couts pendant que l’on a coupé dans la santé, l’éducation. Monsieur Charest c’est décision de politicien qui veut faire oublier la commission Bastarach et toutes les passes passes dans la contruction. Monsieur Bernier pensez très fort a fonder un parti au Québec je serais la première a travailler pour vous pour faire élire . Notre province doit se dotter de quelqu’un comme vous et cela presse . Encore une fois bravo
Sir:
Your speech was the best thing I’ve read in many years, and moved me to tears. It is evryhting i’ve been fighting for, and I often quote Ronald Reagan on taxes.
Now, can you please, please, run for the Party Leadership so that you can become Prime Minister ???
Yours, a demoralised Conservative in Ontario.
On dirait que les politiciens des 50 dernières années ont lu Atlas Shrugged, mais qu’il n’ont rien compris!!! C’est le contraire qu’il fallait faire!
Who is John Galt?
Une chance que vous êtes là M. Bernier!
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/danielhannan/100053891/britain-has-confined-itself-to-a-cramped-and-declining-regional-bloc/ shows that Maxime is not alone in pointing out the dangers of the status
quo, and what can be done.
Wow!! L’art de regarder qu’un seul côté de la médaille!
Je crois beaucoup à l’entreprise privée… j’en gère une. Cependant, il ne faut pas oublier que la plupart des dirigeants d’entreprises ont un seul objectif en tête : faire de l’argent. Pour certains, c’est à tout prix!
Exemple : la crise économique dans laquelle nous sommes! Elle a été causée par quoi? Par une trop grande déréglementation de l’économie aux US. Les financiers ont trop fait de connerie en perdant de vue le “bien commun” pour faire plus d’argent et récolter un beau bonus à la fin de l’année. Sans l’intervention de nos “gros gouvernements”, le système économique serait complètement à terre et nous serions dans une situation pire que celle des années 30.
Quelle a été la province la moins touchée par cette crise économique et quelle s’en sort le mieux? Le Québec! Étrange!!! Je me met à la place d’un travailleur qui a perdu son emploi et j’aurais été super content d’avoir un chèque d’assurance chômage. J’aurais été bien content aussi que ma femme puisse continuer ses traitements de chimio même si je n’aurais été sans un sou…
Il y a eu sans doute des dérives de la part de nos gouvernements actuels, mais tout est perfectible! Revenir dans un obscurantisme des siècles derniers pour la majorité de la population, non merci M. Bernier!
IF Mr. Bernier means what he says, and IF Mr. Bernier can get his message out in spite of the shamelessly slanted, almost-corrupt, socialist media in this country, and IF he could get elected as a result of having reached what I believe is the silent majority of the Canadian people, and IF he followed through instead of changing stripes the minute he gained power, and IF and IF and IF, then there’s some hope for Canada. But those are a lot of big IF’s, and I can’t see us overcoming them without some movement taking place in Canada similar to that of the Tea Party in the U.S. It’s only as a result of them that the U.S. seems to be turning itself around, and they’re a lot more individualistic than we have been for many years. But if they can do it, so can we.
Bonjour M.Bernier
Sincèrement votre discours sur la réduction de l’état me surprend, comme plusieurs politiciens depuis le temps des temps.
J’espère que vous réussirez a contenir le trou béant entre les revenus et les dépenses de l’état!
Comme nous le demande le gouvernement et la banque centrale aux consommateurs!
Dans l’ensemble les fonctionnaires attendent toujours le prochain budget et il n’y a que peu pour satisfaire les besoins. Nous avons tué nos régions au détriment des grandes villes pour se rendre compte de l’incapacité des grands centres a fournir du travail pour les cols bleus.
We the people are sick of paying for buildings we want better services, pay the nurses the teachers and the tools they need not more mega centers..Pay computers for our children in schools so they can compete with the world!Have immigrants teach other laguages, customs and cultures in schools so we can do business and trade all over the world.
Escucha hombres y muyeres del pays, pide que aser para vuestra nuevo pays Canada, necesitamos ayuda, bienvenido! Obrigado, Ciao, etc.
bonne chance, suerte, cheers, Maxime.