The book was created as an outlet for the Macdonald-Laurier Institute and authored by Brian Lee Crowley, Jason Clemens and Niels Velhius.
I saw this item from the corner of my eye in Chapters. For some odd reason it called to me. The little patriotic voice deep down within me told me to purchase this book. This was a spontaneous purchase that I had not regretted. The message received from this book was one of worry, regret, hope, inspiration and the need for change.
As I settled down and began to read, I was slightly enticed yet bored. It started off with a brief history lesson about the ideals of Sir Wilfred Laurier, a man from the beginning of the century and his vision of Canada, or what will become Canada. His vision was of how the 20th century would be Canada’s century. His dream was nought, or at least for the next 80 years.
The premise hooked me. The facts and numbers and calculations did bore me at the beginning. However, there was something within this brief history lesson. The small, normally quiet, patriotic soul within me kept pulling me forward. I listened to the voice and to my surprise, I thoroughly enjoyed the book. Though there are areas of this book I do not agree with and some areas that do not go far enough, it outlines some very solid plans that can make Canada a pretty strong economic superpower. The 3 main messages received were, smaller government, smarter taxation and balancing the budget.
With the discussion of smaller government makes sense. Cut back on government dependencies and stop supporting mediocrity. It goes through some length about the great reforms on welfare and the lack of movement on healthcare. This section hit my beliefs squarely on the mark. Living in British Columbia, I have seen firsthand what happens when government holds the hands of its citizens. They become mediocre, sluggish and lazy. They expect the world to drop at their feet and refuse to pay a dime for any of it. They take no risks or do any more effort than what is expected. They don’t try to the best of their abilities. I am not saying all British Colombians are like this, but from my 4 years in the lower mainland, it is evident what big governments do to the citizens. This of course was brought on by the NDP Party. There is no reward for hard work. I must admit I too am losing some of my work effort seeing as it does not get me ahead.
Smaller government and high incentive to take risks, invest and expand the overall entrepreneurial-ism of the state is the best way to reward hard work. There is too much red tape, taxes and politics in the areas of business and investment in British Columbia. Far too much for a low income person, like myself, to work around and get ahead while being able to pay my rent. This section of the book hit me close to home. It also bled into the second section, smarter taxation.
This book was well informative of all the stupid taxes that are costing businesses money, which in turn they pass the higher prices to the consumer. I too once hated the HST which was coming into this province. Instead of seeing only what the HST was doing, this book showed me what the HST was stopping. The HST was working on making taxes easier to do under one harmonized system. It is an ugly tax because it’s the tax we see every day. But in the long run, it will be a far cheaper and more manageable tax then the hidden tax on many businesses and industrial goods. There are a lot more taxes out there that cause this country and province more harm than good and people don’t care because they can’t see it. It never gets brought up because most people don’t know of their existence. And it is because of these taxes that governments don’t get the revenue they need, thus the deficit spending. The third topic is brought on by this, balancing the Budget.
Laurier didn’t want this nation to do any deficit spending, as it causes the nation to go into debt. With debt come interest payments, the more interest payments made, the less actual money the government has to spend on necessary programs, thus needing to borrow more. This becomes a downward spiral of all three points. Higher deficit means higher taxes which means bigger government and so forth.
There have been great reforms in this country, by the Chretien government and the Provinces of Ontario, Alberta and Saskatchewan. The whole premise of the book is to keep this nation on Laurier’s plan for the nation. When we follow the path, prosperity comes. When we stray from the path we find deficit and recession. The Harper government, during the recession, tried to hold the ground and keep Canada on the path. But the Dion Liberals, Layton’s NDP and Duceppe’s Bloc we threatening a non confidence vote if he didn’t start deficit spending in the form of stimulus packages. We have now begun to falter from the path of Laurier due to politics and power hungry MP’s.
This book has brought forth many interesting details about the government and how easily people are deceived or mislead. As I have said, there are some viewpoints I do not agree with and some parts of the book that do not go far enough in their thinking. However, I base this book on the ability to make me think and re-evaluate my life. This book did its job and more. It got me thinking “How can I improve some of these ideas?”
The one only drawback of this book is it did not go deep enough. The authors tried to stick to facts and examples without exploring further possibilities and expanding Laurier's work. It needed to speak to the soul a little more to turn the ember into a roaring firestorm. Instead it took the ember and made a nice cozy cooking fire. I did not receive the urgency from which this message needs.
The opportunity for Canada is now and I advise anyone and everyone to read this book. We all need to move toward higher education about all our situations. You will not be disappointed.
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