Deborah Coyne Won't Win

I don't want to spend too much time on the Liberal leadership race simply because it's a bad habit. I'm much better off to go smoke a cigarette or shoot up heroin than to pay attention to this garbage. But as a political junkie, I just can't keep the addiction at bay. Hence this short post on Deborah Coyne.


Deborah Coyne: a lawyer, author, professor and Liberal Party technocrat. Never an MP, she has decided to launch her bid at the leadership. She won't win simply because one of her proposals is, "a national energy policy... It should include a carbon tax."

Liberals aren't that stupid... or are they? Conservatives would have a field day if Coyne won the leadership. Like shooting fish in a barrel.

There are many things wrong with Coyne's vision, and she outlines it in great detail on her website. But here's the core of what I want to get at:

For far too many Canadians, joining a political party is to be avoided... Membership rarely provides any sense that you are part of an enterprise that can make a difference to the country or your community. People who want to be engaged with their fellow citizens on public issues are more likely now to get online to form instant networks or join the civil society sector: the voluntary organizations that work for change outside of government and business, such as civic associations, unions, faith groups, charities, and issue-specific non-profits.

That's great news. The Grits should propose a strategy to empower these voluntary organizations while dismantling the power of the state. For there's nothing compassionate about getting government to force money out of people for the poor. That's not moral. That's bullying. That's not making change for the good. That's using violence to get what you want.

I would say far too few Canadians are on board with the idea of limiting state power and embracing the voluntary organizations of civil society. The Liberals should campaign on changing that.

Also, scrap the carbon tax. Any candidate proposing a carbon tax should be purged from the Party on the basis that they're really operatives for the Conservatives.

Seriously, how could you still support a carbon tax? You've seen what the Tory machine did with Dion and what they're trying to do with Mulcair, right?

The best way to promote environmental sustainability is through property rights. It's like what Ludwig von Mises wrote,

"The program of liberalism, therefore, if condensed into a single word, would have to read: property, that is, private ownership of the means of production... All the other demands of liberalism result from his fundamental demand."