Scott Anderson recommends that we in B.C. vote for a true Conservative party. Unfortunately that means going back to early Conservatism: rule by “men of means,” little or no role for government except to create laws, maintain order and make a good climate for business. That was rule by the few and for the few.
There was no thought of democracy, worker rights or concerns for the people.
It was all a “master/servant” relationship and a law of the jungle system.
This ideology still exists today seen by Conservatives still lobbying parliaments for grants, special laws and “bail-outs” for the giant corporations and opposing anything which benefits the wage-earning class.
Secondly, Harold Foster wrote “…how about trying something new like a free and fair society?”
Well, that’s been attempted ever since capitalism was created but ruthlessly put down by Conservative governments who represent the rich and powerful.
Reforms are rejected because they cut into the power and profits of the ruling elite.
Such reforms were put down by military force, but in recent decades was achieved by propaganda and censorship by the mass media.
Marshall McLuhan said it correctly: the “media is the message” and accordingly, the people believe in the propaganda (message) put out and repeated by the wealthy who own the mass media.
This is the only logical reason why people continue to vote for Conservatism (or Liberalism) and against their own interests.
So to answer Fosters’s question, it’s not about trying for a free and fair society, it’s about how to achieve it in a “brain-washed” society.
The solutions are many but the best solutions for societies are those written in 1933 during the Great Depression, called the Regina Manifesto, by the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF), much of which can be used today.
Translated into today’s needs, these are the solutions needed to save Canada:
– Eliminate NAFTA and other free-trade agreements which reduces our sovereignty and democracy before we lose all our democratic rights to change, and before all real jobs are lost. (Yes, even hi-tech jobs are being off-shored and unless this problem is solved, there is no solution.)
– Eliminate military spending (which is $23 billion and increasing) except for pensions and border patrols), and support a militarized UN, not the US’s controlled NATO. By “disarming,” our security costs of $7 billion annually would be greatly reduced as there would be no need for retaliation against Canada for supporting US imperialism.
– Make a progressive tax system. Tax the higher income earners and corporations at a fair rate as in the 1950s. Stop the designed “loopholes” and subsidies to oil and gas corporations. Stop the tax havens which costs our government hundreds of billions in lost tax revenues. Initiate a tax on stock market transactions like it was in the 1950s (a quarter of one per cent). Stop industry from escaping regulatory laws due to exemptions, loopholes and lack of enforcement. Strive for a green society with “teeth” in the legislation.
– Abolish the HST, GST which increases inequality and is grossly inefficient. Such taxes increase the underground economy which reduces government revenues, reduces fair competition, and allows underground workers to escape paying their fair share of taxation.
– Create proportional representation and other electoral reforms to create real democracy.
– Demand that governments borrow from the Bank of Canada like it used to do saving more than $40 billion annually in unnecessary interest costs.
– Implement a policy of full employment which reduces crime, welfare, policing, prisons, court costs etc. — and makes for a happier society.
This will save Canada from the coming Great Depression #2.
JJ Rousso, Vernon
