More Gibberish from the NDP

This time it's “social policy.” The NDP tend to forget that the State did not create society. That the State is not the outcome of everyone in society pooling together resources to create a “social contract.” Society is, to paraphrase von Mises, concerted human action. It is millions of individuals working together, not for some collective, but to raise their personal standard of living. The best way to go about this is peaceful exchange with other individuals. The division of labour in the market of voluntary exchange is far superior to any State coercion.

Now that we've established that let's examine the idea of a criminal statist organization having a “social policy.” Obviously, the State in no way represents society in any real coherent fashion. Yes, we have elections and statists say things that sound pleasant and nice and blah blah blah. But a violent system cannot generate peaceful exchange. An organization that relies on theft cannot protect or secure the individual.

With that said, let's debunk the NDP's social policy.



3.1 Health

1. The right of all Canadians to have universal access to high-quality public health care that is transferable between provinces and territories

I hate to break this to you fellow Canadians, but health-care is not a right. And if it were, why health-care? Aren't food and shelter just as – if not more – important? We wouldn't want a State monopoly on those two industries. So why health-care?

2. Fighting the privatization of public health care services, including through the use of existing mechanisms within the Canada Health Act

Like it or not, privatization is our only method in achieving some sustainability in our health-care practices. The “p” word disturbs some Canadians, and for good reason. When the State privatizes something, it usually means they're going to hand out contracts to their corporate buddies. A good way to fix health-care without “privatizing” is to dump all costs, responsibilities and tax revenue onto the municipalities. Let each Canadian community decide if they still want State-run health-care.

3. Increasing health care transfers to the provinces and territories

The ability to travel from one end of Canada to another without seeing a difference in health service sounds great, unless that service is below par. Also keep in mind that the preferred level of service and the preferred type of services are going to differ from area to area. A “one size fits all” mentality to health-care really isn't a good idea. Taxing a rich part of the country to fund a poorer part is just counter-productive.

4. Providing incentives to recruit and train more health professionals, especially doctors and nurses

The best kind of incentives are market incentives. Anything the State provides is at the expense of others. Plus, adding more doctors and nurses doesn't get at the root of the problem. In Canada, we don't have money determining the price of health-care. So instead the market has chosen time. Here's a great article from the Canadian branch of the Ludwig von Mises Institute.

5. Reducing costs by providing funding for provincial and territorial pharmacare programs, coordinating the bulk purchase of pharmaceutical drugs, and encouraging the use of less expensive generic drugs

The State cannot reduce costs by funding, in fact the very opposite occurs. Over time any coercive policy to offset this upswing in costs will be done at the expense of everyone else. The State can only spend what it takes in, or it relies on money printing (a hidden quasi-tax) or taxing people not even born yet (deficit spending).

6. Investing in not-for-profit home care for seniors and people with disabilities

Not-for-profits are fundamentally wealth-destroying. Despite the negative connotation “profit-motive” implies, businesses working for profit benefit everyone as this adds wealth to society. At a time when baby boomers are aging, to expand services without any consideration to costs – it's absolutely criminal. Why anyone under 30 would support the NDP is beyond me.

7. Promoting healthy living, physical activity, and reduced tobacco use

Just like the Communists promoted communal living, sacrifice, and reduced individual freedom “for the benefit for all.” Or how the Nazis promoted the murder of Jews, minorities and snitching on neighbours. Am I comparing the statist NDP to those monsters? Absolutely. Tyranny doesn't come fully set up. It's a slow process, and it starts with State intrusions like this.

8. Adopting a harm reduction approach to substance abuse and permitting the use of marijuana for medicinal purposes

Do I disagree with harm reduction and marijuana use? Absolutely not, but it is not the State's business to tell us whether these things are to be permitted.

9. Protecting the health and safety of sex-trade workers

That's what pimps are for. As we've seen, especially recently with the marketing abilities of the internet, a lot of prostitutes are able to pimp out themselves. Protecting the health and safety of this profession is just like protecting any other profession – let the free market take care of it.

10. Working with First Nations, Inuit and Métis peoples to address their specific health care challenges

The Aboriginal issue is a difficult one in Canada. Here's a common sense solution: let them take care of themselves.

11. Establishing a comprehensive policy on reproductive health

Wanna a comprehensive policy on reproductive health? Don't establish one.

12. Working with all relevant authorities and governments to set up coordinated emergency plans in case of natural disaster, terrorism or other emergency

Like the back-up government the USA was running on during 9/11? Or is this just for health-care. In that case, don't even bother. Natural disasters won't effect the entire country, terrorism is largely overseas and the ones in our borders are usually State sponsored and any other emergency can be dealt with by private, for-profit means.

13. Investing in public health initiatives to deal with pandemics, product and food security, and drinking water

Well let's see. SARS, the media propaganda of H1N1, the lack of efficiency in State run product and food security and the fluoride in our drinking water. Perhaps the State should stay out of this business and let the real “social contract” (the free market) take care of these issues.

14. Working towards the establishment of a Canadian Health Covenant or patient’s bill of rights; and

More coercion in health-care. A patient's bill of rights? What about the right to opt-out of this socialist system? The right for me to pay for a doctor and not have my doctor fined or scared of losing his license? What kind of “free” health-care system is this, anyway?

15. Working towards the establishment of a national health care council to ensure the Canada Health Act is enforced and the range of services extended to include home care, palliative care and prescription drugs.

More bureaucrats enforcing arbitrary rules and regulations on other bureaucrats. In no way would this improve the level of service Canadians receive. Sometimes I wonder how anyone could consider these poilices a good idea. Even in my younger days when I considered myself a “libertarian socialist” I couldn't see a proposal like this providing anything but more power to unelected bureaucrats.

3.2 Post-secondary Education and Training

1. The establishment of a Post-Secondary Education Act to guarantee stable funding, and protect principles of accessibility, quality, academic freedom, public administration and not-for-profit delivery 

No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Let's break this down one by one:

Accessibility – Student loans are great tools; unlike a mortgage, you can't default and unlike a credit card, you can't go bankrupt. The creditor always wins on the student loan. The entire post-secondary process is fraudulent. 

School resources are scarce, costs indicate the best allocation of these resources. Consider all the individuals entering post-secondary school with wealth accumulated by themselves, or family members, or even private borrowers. When everything was paid by private capital, things tended to work out. But now consider when the State enters with either stolen wealth or counterfeit money. The idea is to provide accessibility to those who can't afford school, but eventually everyone becomes dependent on student loans. This is why:

Funding – Schools see an unexpected increase in applicable students courtesy of the loans that never would have been made voluntarily. The increase of students puts pressure on the schools to raise prices, particularly tuition. Seeing the higher prices offset the coercive loan program it's involved in, the State starts funding the schools directly, with more stolen loot. This helps create a cycle for the more funding the school receives, the less private capital is needed, keeping prices artificially high, thus becoming more and more dependent on student loans. But student loans are also driving prices higher, as the influx of new students are a strain on the school's resources. State funding helps drive out private investment that would indicate real costs.

Quality – Student debt is a plague that can't be easily shaken off. Is school really worth the price? When a mass of people decide it's not, the bubble bursts. It's unfortunate that some of the most important professions like doctors and nurses, can only be attained by taking on massive debt. The quality of education may be okay but the costs are grossly inflated.

Academic Freedom – I've never attended a university so I don't know how much freedom of speech is tolerated. I've heard bad stories, I've heard good ones. Professors who praise John Maynard Keynes and those that use Human Action as the main textbook. It depends on the school and the quality of education the individual prefers. Why would the NDP advocate using force to interrupt this peaceful process?

Public Administration – Part of the problem. These jobs almost completely rely on the State funding that's been appropriated without any compensation. These bureaus are in charge of keeping the statist quo.

Not-for-profit Delivery – A not-for-profit organization relies on arbitrary calculations based off of a guaranteed money source. Not-for-profits are fundamentally wealth-destroying. Profits indicate the most efficient ways to allocate resources. Without profit, bureaucracies arrive.

2. Increasing post-secondary education transfers to provinces and territories 

A redistribution of income. It didn't work in Russia and it's not going to work here.

3. Measures to halt further privatization of education 

It should read: Measures to halt lowering costs for students.

4. Reducing tuition fees by working in collaboration with provincial governments 

That is not going to reduce tuition fees; bureaucrats having meetings will not result in any kind of progress. The good solution is to stop spending money on these schools, the best solution is to stop taxing in the first place. But I digress,

5. Relieving student debt through needs-based grants, maintaining low interest rates for student loans, and simplifying student aid programs; and 

No more student loans = no more student debt. It's that simple.

But let's look at the NDP's proposals. Instead of allowing private donors – like charities – to send the poor to school, the statists want to set up a grant system. More debt. The low interest rates will help ensure more debt accumulation for more students. Higher rates will help burst the bubble. Tanstaafl. Wanna simplify student aid programs? Get the hell out of the business!

6. Supporting literacy programs and adult education and training.

It really does sound like a good idea, but people can invest in these things themselves. If the State wasn't taxing everyone all the time then we could afford a higher standard of living. The State gives back less than we put out. The free market produces. 

3.3 Early Childhood Education

1. Providing long-term, secure funding to provinces and territories for early childhood education and child care services

When it comes to Western Civilization, the State's days are numbered. There will be no long-term secure funding. Especially for the indoctrination of children. It's too early to tell if the current children raised by daycares will do the same to their children, but one thing's for sure: State support for these atrocities is drying up.

2. Ensuring federal funding provides high-quality, accessible, affordable, non-profit universal services

Again with the term “non-profit.” As if “for-profit” meant hurting people. The opposite is true really, as everything the State does, it does by the threat of violence. Whatever services the State wants to fund, it will most likely drive up those prices. High-quality? Maybe. Accessible and affordable? Absolutely not.

3. Establishing an enhanced and simplified child tax benefit

Why not allow parents to opt-out of taxes? Why mess with the complicated tax system by introducing more benefits? Just tell Canadians, if you have a kid, you don't have to pay taxes. Now this incentive may cause a lot of people who shouldn't be having kids, to have kids. So we'll allow non-parents to opt out of taxes as well. Perhaps for the first time in history the State can raise its funds just like everyone else – voluntarily.

4. Expanding access to parental leave

Now I know where the Liberals got this absurd idea. Just like maternity leave, this proposal lets people take off work (and still get paid) to take care of their parents. There are far better ways to do this than State coercion. Tanstaafl Canada!

5. Encouraging employers and employees to develop work-life balance policies; and

This is the worst kind of State meddling. Anyone who supports this kind of intrusion needs their head examined.

6. Establishing a law which will protect childcare by enshrining it in legislation, with a Canadian Early Childhood Learning and Care Act – to be a cornerstone of Canada, like the Canada Health Act.

First, you can't protect children just by passing a law. Second, indoctrinating and enslaving children into daycares is the cornerstone of Stalin's Russia. Of course, no one in the NDP will admit that that's what they're trying to achieve, but like it not, that will be the end result. The State is a dangerous institution that must be dismantled if children are to have any kind of future.

3.4 Fighting Poverty

1. Increasing the Canada Social Transfer to the provinces and territories to enhance welfare programs

Once again, centralizing the country like this is a half-baked idea. And so are State provided welfare programs. All this does is create a permanent welfare class and a perpetual growing bureaucracy. I know it's hard to accept that welfare is hurting the poor (especially when they receive checks every week) but it's the old case of focusing on one group in the short-run instead of the long-term effects on everybody.

2. Launching an action plan with short and long-term objectives to eliminate poverty in Canada

First off, define poverty. Currently there is no definite government poverty line, so the Statistics Canada bureau uses the low-income cut-off (LICO) figure. Basically, the LICO determines poverty by someone who spends 20% more of their income on basic necessities than the average Canadian. There are many things wrong with defining poverty in this way, but let's assume the NDP will create their own “poverty line figure” for their action plan.

Unless this action plan cuts taxes across the board for businesses, incomes, consumer goods, etc (I recommend abolishing all forms of taxes) and ending the coercive minimum wage law, then anything the NDP do to alleviate poverty will only make the situation worse.

3. Meeting Canada’s objective to eliminate child poverty within ten years; and

Again, defining poverty is somewhat arbitrary, plus I can guarantee that any social policy the NDP enact will only result in creating a permanent impoverished class. The best way to eliminate child poverty is allow private charities to raise funds voluntarily. Believe it or not, profit-motive will weed out the bad, reward the good and benefit all. Who would donate to a charity that's doing a terrible job at it's objective?

4. Prohibiting discrimination based on poverty and economic position.

With a gun. Because at the core, that's all the State has: a weapon to force people to act a certain way. If I own a business I have every right not to hire someone who is poor, rich, black, white, or anything I don't like about them. Granted, my business may suffer based on my prejudices, but I – and only I – am morally responsible for my actions.

3.5 Housing

1. Supporting social and cooperative housing, in cooperation with all levels of government

If the American fiasco taught us anything, it's that people who can't afford homes shouldn't own one. So the NDP support having the rest of us pay for “public housing” by means of theft. Despite the anti-capitalist rhetoric we usually here from the NDP, a cooperative house is a legal entity, usually a corporation, that owns real estate. Basically, instead of allowing the free market to allocate housing-related resources (made easier and cheaper by less taxation and regulation) the NDP support central planning ideas. The hallmark of the old Soviet Union, where nobody was homeless – but kitchens were shared, apartment building toilets were sometimes just one outhouse and where mold was a serious problem... I'd rather be homeless.

2. Adopting specific strategies to address homelessness, with special attention to the needs of Aboriginal peoples

Oh great, more things that sound great but are forced at gunpoint. There are complex social issues behind homelessness, and without more detail I'm just going to have assume that the NDP will be focusing on one group in the short-run instead of everybody in the long-run.

3. Assisting low-income households to improve household energy efficiency; and

Steal from everyone to benefit a few. By the time the money filters through the bureaucracy I imagine these low-income households will only be able to afford a couple compact fluorescent light-bulbs.

4. Ensuring accessibility standards for all forms of disability are met in social housing.

I wonder how much that will cost? Better to privatize all housing, then allow the owners to accommodate the disabled according to each individual need. There is no way to centrally plan this with any efficiency.

3.6 Employment Insurance

1. A protected fund for Employment Insurance to protect workers

No, fuck off.

2. Expanding access to EI by reducing the hours of work required to qualify

In that case, after a couple weeks of working I'm going to take a paid-leave. EI may be necessary for some, but I know a few people that actually abuse the system. This will simply make it easier for them.

3. Improving EI by abolishing waiting periods, calculating benefits based on the twelve best weeks of work, expanding eligibility to self-employed workers, and improving sickness and injury benefits

The only way the State will be able to pull of those promises is by privatizing EI. Want to improve EI? Allow a bunch of insurance companies to offer those benefits, allow the individual to choose to pay for EI.

4. Eliminating discriminatory rules, including geographical restrictions; and

Geographical restrictions aren't discriminatory – it's common sense. If PEI has a large unemployment rate, yet Alberta is in dire need of workers, why should taxpayers support those unemployed in PEI? There's plenty of work out West. Just get off your lazy ass. Have a family? Bring 'em along!

5. Directing a portion of the fund to training and skills development.

Let the insurance companies decide that, they have a better incentive. Plus, what will the NDP train these unemployed workers? How can bureaucrats in Ottawa decide what's best for the rest of the country? There's a knowledge problem Hayek wrote about, it applies here.

3.7 Seniors and Retiree

1. Maintaining the universality of Old Age Security (OAS) and increasing funding for the Guaranteed Section 3 - Investing in a Canada Where No One is Left Behind 9 Income Supplement (GIS)

Hate to break it to you Canada, but there ain't no security in old age. Apart from the inevitable death, there's the harsh reality that as each passing year goes by, the number of baby boomers qualifying for OAS and GIS will be increasing. Somethings gotta give, and eventually, it will. Any more funding for these socialist schemes will destroy wealth, prolong real solutions and create resentment among the younger generations born into this debt and forced to finance it.

2. Ensuring automatic eligibility for OAS and GIS recipients to ensure seniors receive the benefits to which they are entitled

Two possible scenarios here: one, seniors will receive their entitlements and the rest of us will be noticeably poorer. Two, the younger generations will opt-out and the seniors won't receive jack-shit... I guess there is a third option, where the State just keeps printing money to pay for these entitlements, but this translate into scenario number two: nobody will want to deal with a bad currency so seniors won't receive jack-shit.

3. Mandating the Canada Pension Plan (CPP) Investment Board to invest a portion of their assets in developing Canadian businesses and in socially responsible enterprise

To be honest, I haven't looked at the CPP Investments closely to determine how bad things really are (it's on my list of things to do). But if it's anything like Social Security scheme across the border (and it probably is) the CPP is bankrupt. But even if everything is eh-okay, this policy still runs into the same problems mentioned above. Young people (and by young I mean anyone who is younger than baby boomers) will realize that they are not retiring with or without the CPP. This realization will, hopefully, create an incentive to withdrawal consent from this theft on our paychecks. Maybe it'll even be an election issue someday. Anything to keep the focus off the State's monopoly on violence.

4. Ensuring workers and retirees participate on private pension management boards; and

Then they're really not private pensions boards, are they? If the State is going to coerce private managers into allowing certain people participate in their pension decisions, at what point does this just become another State entitlement? Plus, workers and retirees have their own motivations and desires that may sit outside the realm of reality-based pension plans.

5. Creating an ombudsman for seniors.

How about an ombudsman for the younger generations? We're the ones being coerced into paying for the retirement of the world's richest generation. What about our living standards? What about our future? Fuck the NDP.

3.8 Justice and Crime Prevention

1. Investing in crime prevention, focussing on at-risk youth and gangs

It's better than the Conservative policies. But alas, the State cannot invest money, and reducing crime is hypocritical since the State itself is a criminal organization. Change begins at home, if the NDP want to prevent crime they should start with taxation.

2. Supporting community and not-for-profit organizations active in crime prevention

I'd support that – voluntarily. There are probably other people that'd support the tough law and order approach of the Harper government. They are free to voluntarily pay for that style. It all depends on where you live and the people in your community. There is no need for the State's presence in these matters.

3. Emphasizing rehabilitation and reintegration wherever possible, particularly for treating addictions

Again, I like the sound of this, but all this crime prevention is only possible because of crime itself. Weary about ending the State? Then allow for voluntary taxation. At least that puts us on the right road.

4. Supporting restorative justice initiatives including redress and restitution whenever possible

See above.

5. Safeguarding the rights, health, and dignity of prisoners

Privatize prisons. Regarding this issue, Bob Murphy from the Mises Institute gave a great lecture last year at the summer Mises University seminar.

6. Adapting sentencing rules to allow, under judicial discretion, for more severe sentences for violent crimes

See that book on the side, The Trouble With Canada...Still!? Gairdner has some great stuff about how judges have way too much power these days. Here's a great example, although it's not a violent crime, the same rules still apply.

7. Maintaining a youth criminal justice system that is distinct from adult courts

How about a whole bunch of private courts, each with their own justice system? Again I refer you to Bob Murphy's lecture, or books by Murray Rothbard.

8. Strengthening rules for sentencing dangerous offenders; and

See above(s).

9. Prohibiting any reinstatement of the death penalty.

Hey I agree. But I don't want the State prohibiting anything. So if a community (like Montreal, or a small collection of townships and villages) decide to reinstate the death penalty, I'm going to stay as far away as I can from those communities. Then again, if the death penalty creates an incentive and those communities see less crime because of it, I may change my mind and move there. It's all about individual preference.

3.9 Enforcement, Policing, and Safer Communities

1. Increasing the number of RCMP officers

This won't achieve safer communities and it will only damper efforts to reduce crime. Increasing RCMP officers is putting more people on public payroll at a time when the State needs to be cutting spending.

2. Providing the RCMP with adequate resources and improve coordination of police forces to address organized crime, gang activities, and white-collar and cyber crimes

Addressing organized crime? Arrest every single politician (and some bureaucrats) – government is just organized crime under a different name. Police addressing gang activities hasn't made the problem go away and it probably never will. There is a deeper social issue here. White-collar crime? How about stealing from everyone to fund various social issues and crown corporations? Does that constitute white-collar crime? What about having the Bank of Canada governor a former Goldman Sachs terrorist? And cyber crime. Define it, then we can discuss it. Peer to peer file sharing and ignoring intellectual property laws are not crimes.

3. Reforming the administration of the RCMP and strengthen mechanisms for complaints and accountability

The best way to do this is to dismantle the RCMP. Don't privatize it, as the corporation that takes control will probably differ no less. Instead allow RCMP officers to band together with their communities in a spontaneous order of safety and security.

4. Stopping the smuggling of illegal firearms and enable all municipalities, provinces, and territories to implement a ban on handguns

The State should not be defining what illegal firearms are. If it must, then let's say that whatever the government has, we should be able to own it too. “Enable” munis, provs and territs to implement a ban on handguns? Sounds like coercion. The NDP want to force a ban on handguns. When only the police have guns, then it is a police state. All tyrants in history disarmed their subjects before taking tyranny to the next level, and it's logical conclusion: genocide.

5. Promoting local education and crime prevention, with well-resourced community policing

Prevent crime by not pointing guns at people to pay for education. You want well-resourced community policing? Allow communities to provide policing themselves.

6. Ending racial profiling and cancelling measures such as the Anti-Terrorism Act, which arbitrarily restrict the freedom of Canadian citizens

Disagree with the first, agree with the second. I'd like to see all Acts and Statutes canceled out. As to racial profiling? Again, it comes down to individual preference in a community that has every right decide whether or not they want to practice that form of investigation.

7. Enhancing oversight of all federal intelligence agencies by parliamentarians

End federal intelligence and end Parliament. This issue becomes moot.

8. Reinstating the Court Challenges Program; and

Again, with community courts, or insurance company related courts, or no courts at all – this program is moot. Or people can donate to it voluntarily if they think it's worth the price.

9. Decriminalizing marijuana possession with the goal of removing its production and distribution from the control of organized crime.

I used to be for legalization of marijuana. Now I'm quite convinced that the State has no right to tell me what is legal or illegal. Marijuana is a plant that grows in the ground, if you smoke it, you may feel funny and think wonderful things. There are those that decide to use it, and those that decide not to. It is none of the State's business. Plus, a State-sanctioned legalization will only result in moving the business from one criminal class (non-violent entrepreneurs) to another (the State).

3.10 Victims’ and Communities’ Rights

1. Strengthening victims’ rights to protect their personal safety

With privatize defense and private law.

2. Establishing a fund for victims’ support, to be financed in part by the proceeds of crime; and

There is a big chance of this policy back-firing. I'm envisioning scams and con-jobs already.

3. Investing in a special fund to assist high-crime communities.

That special fund better be raised voluntarily. Anything else would be criminal. You can't fight fire with fire, and you can't stop crime by committing criminal acts.



And that's the NDP's social policy. By using reason and logic I'm sure anybody would come to similar conclusions: The NDP advocate crime to stop crime, benefits for seniors at the expense of young people, a permanent welfare class, more debt for students, and health-care forced at gunpoint. Who in their right mind would support such things?