Bangkokcanuck said:
I am pretty surprised at the level of support the Liberals still receive. They are pretty close to the NDP in policy it seems these days and really could Canada afford to have the modern Day Bob Rae in power, I don't think that Ontario ever fully recovered from that.
But it seems to my POV that the Conservatives are the least likely to turn Canada into a 100% nanny state.. I don't know about reversing the current level but standing still would be somewhat of a relief.
I agree: Canada is close to being a "nanny" state, which means high taxes necessary to support the huge bureaucracy required to administer this socialism.
I recently read the list of services provided by Service Canada. What a large list of services and what a huge expense! The underlying principle seems to be that immigrants (and Canadians using the services too) are idiots who cannot function on their own at a basic level.
I may seem harsh, and I invite anyone with a different viewpoint to help me understand why it is necessary to provide these services. Getting/renewing a passport -- I understand; that's a valuable service.
But taxpayers are also paying for 330 Canada Prenatal Nutrition Program sites around the country. Not surprisingly these sites report that they are doing good work, and so the funding continues. These sites have not been audited, to judge from the Auditor General's annual reports, so we have no way to know if they are really earning their keep.
Canada produced in 2009 a huge report explaining how to reduce injuries to children involved in sports. The report gives many websites to refer to – maintained by Health and Welfare Canada and other departments. But surely any parent willing to sort through all these websites is already a dedicated and careful parent, and unlikely to expose his/her child to needless danger. The careless parent is unlikely to do this research, and so the wisdom of the report preaches to the already-converted, and misses the proper target audience. Result: a waste of taxpayers’ money.
Example of a recommendation of the report: putting a child in the top bunk eposes him to the risk of falling. Really? I slept in a top bunk as a child, but my parents installed a barricade. How did my parents think of this without the help of an expensive government report? Common sense, something the report’s authors seem to believe is in short supply among Canadians.
.Another useful recommendation of the report. Leaving a baby unattended in a bath seat, in a bath tub, exposes the baby to the risk of drowning. Again, really?! And again, if the parent is careless enough to leave a baby unattended in a bath tub, he/she is probably not going to be reading reports on proper child care.
I could go on, but won’t: it is too easy to find questionable uses of tax dollars by bureaucrats – who seem to believe that most people lack common sense (debatable) and they need a government report to correct their behaviour (doubtful). Actually, the Auditor general’s Report each year exposes may bureaucratic practices that should cause taxpayers to cringe. And each year the bureaucrats spend many person-hours (that’s your tax dollars) defending their practices, rather than correcting their practices.
What’s the point? Keep governments small – whether headed by Conservatives, Liberals, or the NDP -- restrict their responsibilities to the basic necessary services, and stop them from expanding their empires. No matter how nice the service might sound in principle, it almost always loses its benefit in the inefficient, self-serving hands of bureaucrats.
