Why I Run

 

Last evening, at an all-candidates meeting, someone asked for the transcript of my opening speech. And so I reproduce it here. Not exactly as I spoke it, but as I meant to speak it; I had to abbreviate for time.

Unaccustomed as I am to speaking to live people these days instead of on Zoom…

I watched the leaders’ debate from North Bay a couple of evenings ago.

Why did it remind me of professional wrestling?

Did anyone else see that? Was it just me?

Was any of that real?

Down to business.

Why is New Blue for you?

I expect some of you have never heard of it. 

New Blue is a broad coalition of conservatives and liberals; or libertarians, as they are sometimes called these days; but really, liberals.

Blue for conservatives, like the old Quebec Parti Bleu, 

Gold for liberals, like the Liberal Democrats in the UK.

We believe in equality and human rights. We believe in parliamentary democracy.

I hope at least some of you will be surprised. 

Don’t we all support that? 

Don’t all parties support that?

New Blue grew because a bunch of us think they no longer do. 

We think the PC party is no longer conservative. 

The Liberal party is no longer liberal. 

The NDP no longer cares about the working class. 

They have abandoned it all for a new idol, sometimes called Critical Theory, or postmodernism, or cultural Marxism. It is all the same, or each is a tentacle of the same thing.

It is what is behind all you hear these days about pulling down statues, renaming universities, calling Canada racist, and trying to silence open discussion and dissent.

Critical Theory makes three claims: 

that race is essential to a person’s identity;

that there is no objective truth; 

and that all social relations are about power.

Believing that race is the core of one’s identity is racism. 

Believing there is no objective truth is insanity.

Believing that all social interactions are about power ends in a war of all against all to the last person standing—who will be the most ruthless and most powerful. 

If there is no truth, the only way to deal with someone who disagrees with you is to silence them.

I did not especially want to run for public office. I’m busy as a college instructor, editor, and writer, now managing my own online academy. I’m a husband and a father. I wish I could spend time with my family. But these are not ordinary times. These are the times that try men’s souls, and in such times one has a civic duty.

 I run because no one else was running for New Blue here in Beaches-East York. If I did not run, there was no one to vote for.

I have lived in Toronto on and off since 1982, but also in other countries: the Philippines, South Korea, Qatar, Saudi Arabia---and in Wuhan China back in 1992. 

I swear I had nothing to do with the coronavirus. 

This has given me some perspective on what we have here in Ontario, and what we could lose. 

I am a past president of the Editors’ Association of Canada, a past director of the Book and Periodical Council of Canada, and advised on the establishment of the Canadian Centre for Studies in Publishing.

More importantly, I have two kids, Francis and Maryanne. They and their mother are currently trapped in the Philippines by the pandemic and the mandates. They have been trapped there for three years. I am missing their adolescence, and they are missing their studies.

I run for them and for their future. And for all our children.

Why I'm Running in this Provincial Election for New Blue

 

In 1995, Mike Harris brought Ontario what he called a “Common Sense revolution.”

Things have gone in the wrong direction, since Mike Harris left. 

Today, what we need, it seems, is a sanity revolution.

It is a clown world. 

Today we are told men can become women, equality is discrimination, peaceful protests are illegal, and free speech is oppression.

Like many of you, I have not long thought of myself as a conservative. I believe in human equality and human rights. When did that become necessarily conservative? When did that become “far right”?

But everything has been pushed to the margin now except Marxism, critical theory, and postmodernism. 

Marxism is a crackpot theory disproven by about 1900. Yet we have four parties all agreeing on enforcing the teaching of critical theory in the schools—a Marxist dogma. How did this happen?

It has happened because a small group is controlling the discussion. A Family Compact, to use a term out of Ontario history. It is only too like the Family Compact against which we rose in the 1830s.

This is a small group of people who all go to the same cocktail parties. They control a larger group through hope of joining or fear of being excluded from this “in group.” It’s all a lot like high school. 

This larger group controls a yet larger group that fears losing their job, their family, their reputation, their livelihood. Yeah, it’s all a lot like high school. Except with lives and careers at stake.

They have learned to control the discussion through controlling the schools, the media, the professions, the nomination meetings and leadership contests, the established parties. They control the Overton window, the window of what can and cannot be said.

But here’s the good news. 

Improved communications technology threatens their power. We saw how the gatekeepers were bypassed in the Arab Spring. We saw how they were bypassed and blindsided by the Freedom convoy.

As a result, they are getting scared. I would say they are getting hysterical. They are overreaching, and demanding we endorse impossible things. The masks are coming off, the iron fist is coming down. 

All we need now is to get the word out, to speak the truth loud in the public square, and soon they will be gone.

That’s why I’m with New Blue.

The Ontario NDP Platform

 

My local NDP candidate in the upcoming provincial election sent me this flyer. 

A response to her promises.

Expanding OHIP to include mental health care.

Unfortunately, there is little or no scientific evidence that psychiatric/psychological approaches to mental health actually work. So this probably amounts to shoveling a large amount of taxpayer money to wealthy professionals, with no net benefit to the mentally ill. Who may be all the more neglected due to the illusion that “Something is being done.”

The best mental health care is religion, stable families, and voluntary associations. Unfortunately, political parties like the NDP tend to kick at such supports.

Invest in safe schools and affordable child care.

“Invest” is a weasel word invented by Bill Clinton. It means “spend.”

In the case of education, as with mental health, more money is not the solution. We spend more than Finland, and consistently get worse results on standardized tests. We spend more than we used to, but student results have been flatlining or declining. Most of the growth in educational spending has been on administrative positions, not education.

The solution is to introduce competition to promote better performance.

Affordable child care must not disadvantage those who choose to stay home to raise children; for we know this is the best option for the children. The state cannot do as good a job as the family—witness the residential schools. When we subsidize child care out of general revenues, we are acting against the children’s best interests.

Cashable child care vouchers might be the solution.

Fight the climate crisis with a bold and realistic plan to bring us to net-zero emissions.

The truth is that no provincial plan to fight climate change is realistic. Bringing Ontario to zero emissions would have no detectable effect on climate change. The problem is global. Most emissions come from countries like China, India, and Russia. 

Tougher environmental regulations and carbon taxes will only push manufacturing to these countries, crippling our economy and worsening the problem.

The way out of the climate crisis is improved technology. The pro9vincial government might to its small part with research grants, but these too easily turn into welfare for corporate cronies. Perhaps instead, a prize for significant research results.

Better long term and home care.

This is an empty promise. After the deaths in nursing homes during COVID, everyone demands this. So the only basis on which to vote NDP rather than PC or Liberal is if they seem to have a better plan. And they are not saying what it is.

Here’s a proposal: mandated 24-hour webcams, so that families could monitor the care their relatives are receiving.

Make housing more affordable

Another pie in the sky promise. Everyone recognizes the problem, but what is their plan to fix it?

The main problem is that overregulation means developers cannot offer what the market wants and can afford. Most of this regulation is at the municipal level—but the municipalities are the creatures of the provinces. Thoughtful deregulation is the efficient fix, and costs nothing—indeed, reduces government costs. I suspect the NDP would want to add more regulations, making the problem worse.

Homeowners may worry that deregulation would reduce the value of their homes. But this is short-sighted. Opening up properties for the highest and best use should, instead, on balance increase the resale value of their real estate.