Alarming Eloise
An indulgent letter to the Prime Minister on behalf of my daughter.
The Right Honourable Stephen Harper
Office of the Prime Minister
80 Wellington Street
Ottawa K1A 0A2
Dear Mr. Harper:
I am an editor and a primary contributor to the weekly internet serial, pintday.org. Our brief at pintday is to write topical opinion pieces on a wide range of subjects, and we have done so to moderate applause since 2001. I usually write articles about the benefits of smaller government. Please accept this open letter as another such missive, and the first in a series.
Mr. Harper, I have an eleven-week old daughter, Eloise, who laughs easily, eats and sleeps well, and is generally a joy to hold and behold. (Picture enclosed.) Occasionally while I’m holding her however, she will wake from a quiet doze and give a fitful, piercing cry.
What could be disturbing Eloise like this, Mr. Harper? Until such time as she is old enough that I can ask her directly, I have my suspicions.
First, I think she is alarmed by much of the Conservative Party’s platform. I am also going to give her the benefit of the doubt—she’s so cute, I can’t help myself—and surmise that she is concerned for other than the typical “secret agenda” reasons.
I understand that the Conservative Party’s platform breaks down into the following hot-topic categories: Environment, Lower Taxes, Accountability, Crime, Child Care and Health Care. What we find concerning—and what keeps Eloise up at night—is how your party supports increasing the size of government in every one of these categories.
Environment: Your party calls for government interference in the developing biofuels markets. You call for giveaways to support retrofitting private homes. You call for increased government regulation of industry, and your government has most famously interfered in Canadians’ choice of light bulbs. That’s a lot of meddling coming from the organization that is Canada’s largest polluter.
Lower Taxes: Your 1% reduction of the GST didn’t come with a reduction in spending, which made your gesture meaningless. Almost unbelievably, on your government’s web site under the heading “Lower Taxes”, you brag about increasing spending on the unconstitutional national health service to $30,300,000,000 by 2014, spending $4,400,000,000 on clean energy programmes, and another $300,000,000 for conservation. To your government, Lower Taxes is merely a catchword header on your website.
Accountability: Apparently, in order to have accountable government, we need a whole new branch of the thing, in the guise of the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner.
Crime: You are increasing funding for the RCMP apparatus, and creating a DNA monitoring bank. You are giving taxpayer handouts to victims of crime, and spending more money on unnecessary border security. (A free country, Mr. Harper, has nothing to fear from open borders.) As always, getting tough on crime is the classic social conservative’s excuse for growing government.
Child Care: You created an ongoing expense in the form of the $100 per month per child Universal Child Care Plan. I am sure Canadians can look forward to the continued expansion of this programme, which contains in its name two popular political buzzwords—Child Care, and Universal—which will no doubt become irresistible for inclusion in future governments’ press releases.
Health Care: In addition to the increased spending touted in your Lower Taxes plan, you are also instituting regulation governing patient wait times. Government control and subsequent rationing of health services has created such a politically unpopular state of affairs, you feel compelled to attempt to legislate the symptom out of existence, which is just as likely as legislating against mosquitoes. When those wait time guarantees are eventually broken, your solution will no doubt be to expand government even further into health care.
Mr. Harper, people vote Conservative because they think you stand for limited government. The sad reality is, you stand for growing government in every one of the areas you deem important. This truly confuses me, because when I feel something is important, the last thing I want is the government meddling with it.
Your government is aggressively contributing to Canada’s greatest problem—too much government everywhere—and it’s keeping my daughter from sleeping. Please stop.
ev · PDDCCCXXIII
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