Jack Layton and the NDP believe in central planning. That's about the core of their platform. Certain planks sound great and awesome and for the economic illiterate they're a God-send. Heaven on Earth. Sweden in Canada... But a rational look at their platform should tell us otherwise.
The State is our enemy. Whether it's Blue, Orange, Red or Green. The State is the antithesis to Society. Nowhere is this more clear than part five of the NDP's 7 part platform.
5.1 Building a New Relationship with First Nations
We will build a new partnership on a nation-to-nation basis with First Nations, Inuit and Métis people across the country to restore a central element of social justice in Canada and reconcile the hopes of Aboriginal people with those of all Canadians;
We all have different backgrounds. The one thing in common we all have is that we're human, we act, and we act purposefully. Hopefully rationale plays a role in this as well. Other than that, thanks to the State, we're divided into two classes. Tax consumers and tax producers. Once we reconcile that difference (i.e. a private law society) than all other issues will solve themselves.
Including First Nations issues.
We will establish this new partnership by forging a new relationship with First Nations, Inuit and Métis peoples, fostering economic opportunity and lasting prosperity, ending the discrimination still faced by Aboriginal people in Canada and supporting the process of healing the harms of past injustices. We will begin by:
Increasing access to capital for aboriginal business development so that First Nations, Inuit and Métis people can fully participate in the Canadian economy;
Increasing access to capital. 'Nuff said. Cheap credit = Economic Recession. Fiat money = Economic Depression.
Improving physical infrastructure such as housing, drinking water facilities, roads and other essential services;
It should read: Privatizing all infrastructure such as housing, drinking water facilities, roads and other essential services.
Removing the punitive 2 per cent funding cap on Indian and Northern Affairs Canada transfers to aboriginal communities;
Reduce the funding cap to 0%. No more transfers.
Addressing the education deficit with a $1 billion per year investment over the next four years, inspired by Shannen’s Dream.
It should read: Privatize education. Start your own "Shannen's Memorial Private School"
5.2 Ensuring Canada’s Arts and Culture Thrive
We will promote the production and broadcast of Canadian content on Canadian television and in Canadian theatres, and will strongly support Canada’s performing arts, cultural institutions, and creators.
"Promote" and "strongly support" can be translated into: We will use guns to force Canadians to pay for the arts. If these artists are producing something of value, they can get paid like the rest of us: voluntary exchange.
5.3 Building Home-grown Film and TV Production
We will ensure Canadian TV and telecom networks remain Canadian-owned by maintaining effective regulations on foreign ownership;
WHAT!? The core problem with our telecom industry is government regulation and the lack of foreign ownership. This State-sanctioned oligopoly is the reason internet is expensive. It's the reason we had the whole "usage-based billing" debate. If foreign telecom networks could come into Canada and compete with the Canadian oligopoly, then we could have some real competition and real market prices.
Instead the NDP support the status quo. Bell, Rogers and Telus own over 94% of the wireless market. Apparently, Jack Layton doesn't have a problem with this.
We will re-focus the mandate of the CRTC to promote and protect Canadian cultural industries;
End the CRTC.
We will provide sustained funding for the Canada Media Fund and Telefilm Canada, enhance federal film incentives and develop a targeted strategy for the promotion of domestic films in Canada;
Funding through coercion. Through violence. Force. Shouldn't Canadians choose to support their culture? Voluntarily?
We will set license requirements for broadcasters based on clear, binding and enforced performance standards for broadcasters, including increased Canadian drama.
More central control over freedom of speech... and Canadian dramas for some reason.
5.4 Investing in our Shared Cultural Heritage
We will increase public funding for the Canada Council and implement tax averaging for artists and cultural workers;
Should I link you here or here?
We will explore the creation of a new international arts touring fund to replace the now-defunct Trade Routes and PromArt programs;
Or scrap it all.
We will implement a matching grant for Canadian museums, historic buildings and heritage lighthouses;
As great as that sounds, this kind of funding needs to come from the grassroots. Not top-down collectivist style.
We will introduce tax incentives to ensure the restoration and preservation of historic buildings;
See above.
We will strengthen public broadcasting with long-term stable funding for CBC, Radio-Canada and other public broadcasters, including capacity to deliver superior regional production and internet services;
"Public" and "internet" should never appear in the same sentence. In addition, privatize the CBC and other "public" broadcasters.
On a side note: With the appearance of Sun News TV, many on the left have dubbed the channel "Fox News North." I disagree. Americans are naturally anti-government. Canadians tend to be favourable of big government. Therefore CBC is our Fox News as it's the vocal chord of the Establishment Left... Just my two cents. Let's continue,
We will reform the CRTC and also ensure it better reflects Quebec’s cultural and linguistic reality and that of the francophone community;
End the CRTC.
We will develop a digital on-line culture service to broaden access to Canadian content.
Very scary scenario. What exactly is the NDP proposing here? CanCon laws applied to the internet? The internet and the State should never mix.
5.5 Ensuring Your Family’s Food is Safe
We will introduce a Canadian Food Strategy that will combine health goals, environmental goals, food quality objectives, local and organic choices for consumers across the country;
Government and food should never mix.
We will increase food safety by hiring 200 new food inspectors for the Canadian Food Inspection Agency;
Adding more bureaucrats will not increase food safety. It will just make more people tax consumers.
We will strengthen the Canada Food Inspection Agency’s capacity to prevent, detect and respond to food borne illness outbreaks and ensure imported foods meet the same environmental and health standards that apply to food produced in Canada;
Unless the NDP plan to "strengthen" the bureaucracy by enacting a profit-and-loss structure through voluntary payment - anything the NDP do will fail.
We will enact legislation to require proper labeling of food with information on its origin, its nutritional value and whether it is genetically modified or not.
This will most likely raise the cost of producing food, favouring larger corporations at the expense of smaller, marginal producers.
5.6 Protecting the Family Farm
We will work with provinces to provide easily accessible business risk management programs for farmers that cost less;
Or, easy access to credit.
We will review railway freight tariffs that have been gouging Canadian farmers across the country;
No need to review: just privatize and end tariffs. I'm sure whatever the problem is, these two steps will solve the issue.
We will work to ensure the sustainability of Canada’s agriculture by encouraging young farmers to take up farming and by supporting current farmers with enhanced skill training, mentorship programs and ensuring that arable land is more widely available;
In my critique of the Liberal Food Policy, I advocated a radical but essential proposal to encourage more farmers and sustainability. No taxes. If you're a farmer you pay no income tax or property tax. That should correct the issue speedily.
We will work with provinces to streamline and make more accessible business risk management programs by cutting accounting fees;
Interference in the market that leaves everyone poorer.
We will support the Canadian Wheat Board as the single desk marketer for Canadian wheat and barley.
Government-granted monopolies are always bad ideas.
5.7 Hiring More Police to Protect Your Community
We will keep our communities safe from crime by investing in a balanced, effective approach based on prevention, policing, and prosecution;
Nice sound bite, but this is a party platform. Be more specific. How will hiring more police create more safety? I'm really starting to doubt the government's role as a defender of property rights and arbitrary aggression. But pitch me the sale, Jack.
We will ensure that communities have the resources they need to invest in crime prevention programs, particularly those targeting youth, by increasing federal support to crime prevention initiatives from $65 million to $100 million per year;
Better idea: return $65 million to $100 million per year to taxpayers and allow communitites to hire competitive defense agencies and private prisons and rehabilition centres. Throw in some voluntary accreditation agencies and already the system is more efficent than government. And this could be done before dismantling the central bank.
We will work with the provinces, territories, and First Nations communities to provide stable, multi-year funding to eventually put at least 2,500 new police officers on the streets, and keep them there permanently;
If some voluntary private police force put 2,500 officers on the street and those that wished to pay for them actually did - then we'd have no problem. But putting 2,500 people on the public payroll - that is - making them tax consumers, will only exasperate future economic problems.
We will give parents, teachers and police more tools to protect our children by making gang recruiting illegal, and establishing a comprehensive Correctional Anti-Gang Strategy to ensure that prisons do not serve as “crime schools” to train gang-involved offenders;
Let's break this down one by one: gang recruiting won't go away just because it's "illegal." Special programs can help, but a private law society would be far superior. Believe it or not, there's some rationale behind private prisons.
We will create new, stand-alone offences for home invasions and carjackings;
More of the same.
We will enact, the so-called “Lucky Moose” bill – a law that would allow citizens to detain criminals within “a reasonable amount of time” after a crime is committed;
I'd take this a step further and allow citizens to set up their own police force. Let's privatize the defense sector; the government is doing a terrible job.
We will ensure that appropriate care, treatment, and interventions are available for mentally ill offenders in prison, as recommended by the Correctional Investigator of Canada.
Best to privatize prisons then...
5.8 Recognizing Local Heroes
We will support a volunteer firefighters’ tax credit for those who perform 200 hours a year or more service on behalf of their communities;
As great as that sounds, taxation shouldn't be permitted whatsoever. It's theft, pure and simple.
We will establish a Hero’s Benefit to recognize the contributions of firefighters and police officers who die in the line of duty. The fund will pay a benefit of $300,000 to the families of fallen firefighters and officers.
This would be better suited for the private, voluntary areas of the economy.
5.9 Fast-Tracking Immigration and Family Reunification
We will move towards a fair, efficient, transparent and accountable immigration system and end the restrictive immigration measures based on secretive, arbitrary decisions by cabinet ministers;
Since all bureaucratic decisions are more-or-less secretive and arbitrary, I assume the NDP will enact some sort of market-based immigration system???
Accordingly, we will bring forward measures to:
Accelerate and streamline the recognition of foreign credentials, overseas degrees and previous employment experience in conjunction with provinces and licensing authorities;
We've been doing that and it hasn't been working. For example: foreign doctors with tons of experience can get citizenship, but rarely become practicing doctors... There are deeper issues to be dealt with here.
Increase resources to reduce the huge and unacceptable backlogs in processing immigration applications, with an emphasis on speeding up family reunification;
Allowing more people into the country to live off the welfare state they've barely paid into will only intensify resentment toward new immigrants. "Family reunification" is not a legitimate reason for allowing people to move here. I'm not anti-immigration, I just resent the secretive and arbitrary decisions made by the State.
Implement the NDP’s Once in a Lifetime Act to allow Canadians a one-time opportunity to sponsor a relative who is not a member of the family class to come to Canada;
Once upon a time, as kids, we believed in a man that would come once a year and deliver consumer goods. As we grew older we realized this figure was a myth. Unfortunately most of us haven't applied that same reasoning to government.
Fast-track family class sponsorship from disaster areas;
Let's just open up the Canadian borders to anyone and everyone... I'm not against that proposal, once we've established a private law society.
Reinstate federal funding for the settlement of new Canadians cut by Stephen Harper. Funding will assist with literacy, community integration and orientation, including bridging, mentorship, English and French as a second language programs and resource centres;
Fuck, how do I become a new Canadian?
Ensure that tough laws against crooked immigration consultants are enforced;
Privatize immigration, watch voluntary accreditation agencies come to the market. Keep the State's hands off everything. Problem solved.
Develop credible, accountable procedures and appeal processes for visitors seeking visas to enter Canada for important family events.
See above.
5.10 Strengthening Canada’s Official Languages
We will protect and foster Canadians’ right to live and grow in the official language of their choice;
Oh thank you Jack Layton! Letting me speak the language of my choice! Oh thank you benevolent State!
We will work with linguistic minorities across Canada to ensure programs and regulations under the Official Languages Act meet the real needs of communities;
We don't need the Official Languages Act, nor any funding to any programs related to the Act.
We will restore the Court Challenges Program;
Privatize law, courts, police, etc.
We will ensure that the right of Canadians to have their case heard in the official language of their choice at all levels of the judiciary includes the Supreme Court, in accord with the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
Is this not already the case?
5.11 An Action Plan for the Rights of the Disabled
We will implement the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) by:
Supporting the development of a National Action Plan to Implement the CRPD, including mechanisms for collaboration, monitoring and reporting progress, and strategies for achieving such priorities of the disability community as disability supports, poverty alleviation, labour market participation, and access and inclusion;
Like I discussed before, the State divides us into these groups and promises each of us a portion of their stolen loot... But they stole the loot from us to begin with. The best way to help the disabled is to treat them like any other human being. Trade with them, laugh with them, help them if they ask for it. But do not play robin hood.
Holding Parliamentary hearings on the CRPD to hear from the disability community and other key witnesses and creating a high-level panel with representation from national disability organizations to map the way forward;
All right and after the Disability Lobby we have... the Feminists Lobby, the Young People lobby, The Seniors Lobby, etc.
Ending Canada’s reservation on Article 12 (equal recognition before the law).
Listen Jack: the best way to help out all people, including those with disabilities, is capitalism. It raises living standards and it increases capital so people can have the wealth to voluntarily spread around and help their fellow man.
5.12 Moving Forward on Women’s Equality
We will reverse Stephen Harper’s attacks on pay equity and immediately implement the recommendations of the 2004 Pay Equity Task Force to establish a pro-active pay equity regime enshrined in law;
Like minimum wage, pay equity isn't grounded in any logic.
We will work with provinces and territories to expand access to shelter and transition houses to support women fleeing violence;
Throwing money at the issue. Addressing the effects, ignoring the root cause.
We will support a coordinated federal response to violence against Aboriginal women, led by Aboriginal communities, and including the ongoing funding of Aboriginal women’s organizations;
Remember what I said for the very first plank? It applies here.
We will improve Employment Insurance qualification criteria to ensure that those receiving parental leave benefits see no change in their eligibility for Employment Insurance benefits;
"Parental leave" will come as the economy grows and civilization advances. Initiatives to bring this about coercively, as well as other socialist schemes, will only slow down progress and bring civilization to a stand-still.
We will provide a more flexible and generous Employment Insurance Compassionate Care Benefit to permit family members to take up to six months leave from work to tend to relatives near the end of their lives, up from the current six weeks;
Six months leave?! The sheer number of aging baby-boomers will... well let's just say this is one promise an NDP government probably wouldn't follow through on.
We will introduce a new Caregiver Benefit, modelled after the Child Tax Benefit, to assist low and middle-income families in tackling the costs of everyday needs while caring for elderly or dependant family members. Eligible family members will include children, spouses, parents and other family members, and will be able to receive up to $1500 per year;
These socialist schemes can only be financed through borrowing, taxes or inflation. Hate to break it to you Jack, but the State cannot take $5 from a Canadian and turn it into $10. Not without billing future generations.
We will make Status of Women Canada a full ministry responsible for advancing women’s rights, including a mandate for advocacy and research in line with Canada’s international obligations;
No more Ministries. We have enough of those. They're large, bureaucratic and absolutely pointless.
We will support the work of the new UN Women’s Agency;
Any support for the UN (or other global organizations) is support for the power elite that are issuing debt as money.
We will restore funding to women’s programs and organizations cut by Stephen Harper, including the Court Challenges Program;
Cut funding for everything.
We will re-affirm women’s rights to safe, accessible abortion services.
Abortions services should not be in the hands of a bunch of politicians. In fact, any health-care related services should be as far from government as possible.
5.13 Promoting Equality Rights in Canada
We will ensure that gender identity and gender expression are included as prohibited grounds of discrimination in the Canadian Human Rights Act, amend the hate crimes and sentencing provisions of the Criminal Code to ensure we are providing explicit protection for transgender and transsexual Canadians from discrimination in all areas of federal jurisdiction;
A Tory-like tough on crime approach for people engaging in discrimination.
We will support gay, lesbian, bisexual, trans-gender and transsexual equality internationally, as per the Montreal and Yogyakarta Principles on Human Rights;
This "support" comes with a bullet.
We will work with affected multicultural communities to appropriately redress historical issues arising from governmental actions, including options such as recognition of wrongdoing, official apologies, and compensation.
All government actions have unintended effects. Subtract "compensation" from that list and add "promise to never engage in that area again."
5.14 Ensuring all Canadians Have Access to Broadband and a Robust Digital Economy
We will apply the proceeds from the advanced wireless spectrum auction to ensure all Canadians, no matter where they live, will have quality high-speed broadband internet access;
As the wireless spectrum frequencies are already nationalized, the State auctions off "space" to the highest bidder. As you can see here, it's easy to see why only a few big corporations control the market. This should be a nice wake-up call to Canadians: the NDP have no solution to the status quo. They promise to "apply the proceeds" to "all Canadians" in the form of bandwidth, but are silent on the fact that the Telecom Oligopoly are still in control. Together with their friends at the CRTC, none of this would be possible in a society where radio spectrum frequencies weren't nationalized by the government.
We will expect the major internet carriers to contribute financially to this goal;
Old Jacky needs to remember something: Corporations run the Government. Not the other way around. Regardless, taxing the hell out of the Telecom Oligopoly won't be as effective as dismantling the Telecommunications Act and all the bureaucracies that go with it.
We will rescind the 2006 Conservative industry-oriented directive to the CRTC and direct the regulator to stand up for the public interest, not just the major telecommunications companies;
Can't happen. It's like trying to reform a central bank, won't work. End the CRTC.
We will enshrine “net neutrality” in law, end price gouging and “net throttling,” with clear rules for Internet Service Providers (ISPs), enforced by the CRTC;
Again, with the CRTC. Who exactly is Jack Layton working for? Net neutrality is stupid, price gouging is natural given the circumstances, and all ISP's need to be freed from any government regulation.
We will prohibit all forms of usage-based billing (UBB) by Internet Service Providers (ISPs);
Usage-based billing was a response to loss of monopoly prices enjoyed by the Telecom Oligopoly. Although technically in the right, the smaller ISPs were reflecting competitive prices, almost a free market price if it weren't for other factors. The other factors were the problem: smaller ISPs were leasing frequency, cables and networks through the Telecom Oligopoly.
This situation never would have arise without government involvement. The CRTC is the single biggest threat to online freedom. Dismantling this bureaucracy and revoking all regulations and subsidies to telecom-related industries is the only solution favorable to consumers.
We will introduce a bill on copyright reform to ensure that Canada complies with its international treaty obligations, while balancing consumers’ and creators’ rights.
No. Absolutely not. Intellectual property is the only property government should neglect. It's the patent of ideas. It's not based in reason.
5.15 Restoring the Long-Form Census
We will restore the long-form census.
Fuck you. It's voluntary now, leave it be.
5.16 Fair Treatment for the Provinces
Succession. We're already geographically, ideologically, culturally and financially separate. Keep your Canadian name if you want, but let's opt-out of Ottawa.
We will compensate Quebec on the same basis as other provinces for having harmonized its sales tax with the federal GST – for a total amount of $2.2 billion;
Money for Quebec. No wonder Jack Lenin is popular there.
In the case of the HST implementation being democratically rejected in a B.C. referendum, we will not penalize the province by making it repay the $1.6 billion transfer already invested in health and education.
Forget about it! ... I'd love to hear what the other provinces think about that.
Well that's about it. The election is Monday. Although there is plenty to be scared about concerning a Harper majority, in no way would it be as bad as an NDP-Liberal Coalition. But alas, despite who wins - the Canadian people lose.
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