- Laissez-faire, ‘sink-or-swim’ approach has no place in a modern, complex, economy based society such as is Canada’s

My E-mail to lorrie.goldstein@sunmedia.ca
sent 10 May.'09:

Hi Lorrie Goldstein

The following is a comment on your article in the Toronto Sun, “A 'liberal' state of mind”, 10th May 2009, 3:49am
http://www.torontosun.com/comment/columnists/lorrie_goldstein/2009/05/10/9410256-sun.html

I am quite surprised that, in this day and age, your newspaper does not allow people to post comments – both the Toronto Star and Globe and mail do.

I am posting this to my blog:
http://cicblog.com/comments.html

You may E-mail me, at this E-mail address, a response if you wish for my consideration.


“Freedom’ and ‘individual liberty, material security, voluntary co-operation and social order’ are all afforded by a good standard of living. One need only look to the deficiency of freedom, individual liberty, material security, voluntary co-operation and social order people in third world countries have, except those very few that have money. One need also only look at those living in poverty in the United States.

The foundation of a good standard of living is education. It is clear that education must start early in life. Education has the added benefit of produces well adjusted members of society who understand and have learned the need to co-operate and live in harmony with everyone else.

One need only look at the causes of the current and severe economic downturn to see the problems of allowing ‘entrepreneurial’ forces to run amuck and unchecked.

Dr. Lyle H. Rossiter, Jr., may be a good psychiatrist, I have no idea, but simply testifying at thousands of trials in the United States neither means, per se, he is good (one need only look at Dr. Charles Smith in Ontario) nor that he has any understanding of the Canadian social or political context. Canadian society, precisely in this regard, is very much distinct to US society.

For example, in my observation, Canadians believe firmly in the social safety net actively established and maintained by government policies. The Americans subscribe to a far more laissez-faire, ‘sink-or-swim’ approach to society and their economy. This by itself is fatal to relying on his opinion in these matters as they apply to the Canadian context and one need not go further to investigate his competence to give an informed opinion on political matters, or the merits of said opinions.

It seems to me that this is more a testament to the power of education and social freedom in a country like the United States – i.e. no matter what the opinion, you can find someone with high credentials expounding it, just watch some of the ‘Infomercials’, or read, or listen to, some of their media editorials.

On the other hand I can see how those subscribing to a right wing extremist ideology might be tempted to blindly embrace his ruminations with or without an objective assessment of their merits or relevance to the Canadian context.

If I recall it seems to me the comment by Scott Reid had to do with the Harper government shirking the responsibility of our Federal government regarding day care and adopting the ‘sink-or-swim’ approach the American seems to embrace so much. Day care is a serious and important element of our society, and our future, and the education of our young. $100 a month does not come close to paying for it (If you can do it, please let me know how I can and I would be more than happy to retract this statement). Realistically, the only way that meaningful, quality Day-Care will be available to all Canadians, and not just those with a high income, is a program established and maintained by the government. Such government initiatives work, we all know that.

It seems to me that "winners," as opposed to "losers," is referring to Harper’s Minister of Finance, Jim Flaherty’s statement regarding refusing to helping out the Ford Motor Company in Jan.’08 – vis.: “quite frankly, politicians aren't very good at picking business winners and losers" (G&M, 16 Jan.’08, “No bailout for Ford, Flaherty says”).

When looked at in the current economic context we see just how wrong Flaherty was, and the extent to which blindly and dogmatically applying this laissez-faire, right wing, extremist ideology expounded by Dr. Lyle H. Rossiter, Jr., is out of step and damaging in a modern, complex, economy based society such as Canada has. On the other hand, if Flaherty was speaking for himself, Harper and the Con’s then, I am sure, he got their inability to take an active approach to running the country right – one need only look at the events as they have been unfolding since Jan.’08.

Lloyd MacIlquham, Nanaimo, BC,