By-Election Statements  

November 18 Debate (Yee Hong Centre)
Opening Statement (Approximate)

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I’m honoured for this opportunity to speak to all of you this evening, and I want to thank the sponsors of this event for allowing me to express my views.

As a Libertarian, I believe that liberty is the highest political end.

In a society based on liberty, people would be free to make their own choices as long as they respect the rights of their neighbours.

But the way our system works now is that people use the government to control their neighbours.

For example, the government creates certification monopolies and licensing laws that make it hard for everybody, especially new immigrants, to find work.

In a libertarian system, the government would be limited to providing a system of justice that protects individual rights – life and property – against violence and theft.

Most of us live with an understanding of moral law. In the Bible, for example, one of the Ten Commandments calls on us to “Honor your father and mother….” And we also have moral rules that ask us to honor the elderly and care for those in need.

Whose responsibility is it to care for our elders or the needy? It’s mine and yours. It’s not the government’s.

So I would end government involvement in seniors care, reduce taxes as low as possible and encourage private systems of care.

The government claims responsibility for everything – for seniors care, for child care, for education, for health, for the safety of our water, for our environment, for what we do with our property, for what we do with our persons, for what we smoke. It even has a new Minister of Health Promotion to advise us on our diet and exercise.

The government involves itself in every area of our lives and undermines the spiritual and voluntary structures of our society – family, moral teachings, independence, charity, the free market and personal responsibility.

How is it possible that the government is actually effective in all of these responsibilities? It’s NOT POSSIBLE.

The government didn’t prevent Walkerton [water contamination], it didn’t diagnose the Legionnaires Disease outbreak at Seven Oaks in a timely way. It struggles with health care, it struggles with education. But we rely on government to do all these things FOR US.

Decades ago, the government undermined common-law protections that protected property owners against pollution – in order to allow companies to pollute. Now, in the name of the environment, it has taken control over large stretches of privately owned land. The latest interference is called the Greenbelt Act which prevents landowners from building on their own property.

Another interference in our lives is called the Smoke-Free Ontario Act – Anti-Smoking Legislation which seeks to control whether people can smoke in private places of business and even in private clubs.

These two Acts typify the ever-increasing domination over our lives by the provincial government – an ever-increasing loss of personal sovereignty and an aggression against our traditional liberties.

If you oppose the direction Ontario is headed, vote Libertarian on Nov 24. Please vote for Alan Mercer. Thank you very much.

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