The Guelph by-election was cancelled because of a general federal election. I believe Libertarian Phil Bender will be continuing his campaign in Guelph as part of the general election.

Thanks to one of the candidates, John Turmel, who has posted an account here of mostly his responses during the August 28 CJOY-radio debate.

I appreciated what he says where Libertarian Phil Bender’s comments against the war in Afghanistan. Good. I’m surprised how much the Liberal candidate objects to the war – good! Also I’m impressed with Turmel’s controversial statements about Afghanistan and 9/11.

[As far as Turmel’s criticism of the LP: There is a lot wrong with the banking system, but loaning someone money without interest is charity (it’s ok but it’s charity), because receiving money in advance of paying for it is worth an extra amount that people are willing to pay for. Interest comes from nature, from human action. See “Human Action” by Mises and Rothbard’s book, “Man, Economy and State”. Libertarians approach this issue by saying that we want a real free market where the government doesn’t intervene except to prevent fraud (and fractional reserve appears to be a fraudulent practice.) Since a free market situation doesn’t exist, and we have a system that is supposed to be controlled by public institutions, I disagree with that, but I would like to better understand populist and socred ideas on this. I think it is probably better for libertarians to understand these competing ideas in order to explain their own ideas – to present libertarian ideas in a more populist light and more in tune with the realities people face.]

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