Q – Libertarians favour smaller government, lower taxes, and more social and economic freedom. Which of the three is most important to you?
A - That’s a difficult question to answer, as all three are inter-related. You can have “smaller government” and still have an all-powerful State; you can have “lower taxes’ and yet still have more State control over your life; so I think that we libertarians would be more apt towards social and economic freedom. If we had countless choices over our lives and economic choices, government would invariably become smaller and with less taxes needed to run government bureaucracies, due to goods and services being abundant in the private sector, there would be no need or justification for the State to grow.
Q – How can smaller parties convince traditional voters to try something different?
A - The status quo of the other parties is self-evident. The main three have all done damage to the economy and lessened choices and opportunities for each of us. Something has to give and we libertarians think that time has come to allow consenting adults to live with as little government interference as possible. The citizenry can make up their own minds, as to how they wish to conduct themselves, as long as government doesn’t stand in their way by limiting those choices. The only caveat libertarians insist on is that those choices cannot be made with the use of force or coercion.
Q - Which government powers would you most like to limit?
A - Wherever I choose to obtain anything in the unlimited market of goods and services is my personal choice, not some government official. It’s my life, hence my choice. If I choose to obtain medical care or education, liquor or marijuana, or anything else – it’s up to me and I would respect that of my fellow citizen. This of course includes the aforementioned caveat and that with each choice I take responsibility for that choice. The lesson being one cannot live and grow if the government does not allow me to make a choice - even if that choice is the wrong one.
Q – Ontario’s minimum wage rose to $11 an hour on June 1. Where do you think it should be? A dollar figure, please.
A - Raising wages by government fiat is wrong. We must consider a few truisms: we cannot distribute more wealth than is created. We cannot in the long run pay labor as a whole more than it produces. The best way to raise wages, therefore, is to raise marginal labor productivity. The better an employee is worth to their employer; the more they will be paid. Real wages come out of production, not out of government decrees. There should be no minimum wage law. What we need is to allow more private wealth to be created by lessening government intervention.
Q - Name one thing you would do for Sarnia-Lambton that the other candidates can’t or won’t?
A - The only thing I can do would be to make it my personal mission at Queen’s Park to take the lead in standing up for the rights of individuals in Sarnia-Lambton and across the Province of Ontario to be liberated from government tyranny. The politics of envy is dividing us all into variations of mob rule. It’s easy to lead when the citizenry is in chaos. Our liberties are at stake here - now and in our children’s’ future. “Liberty is not the means to a higher political end; it is itself the highest political end.”
- Tomorrow online, Liberal candidate Anne Marie Gillis