Check It Out: Listening to logic and common sense

By Joan Janzen

A recent post on Facebook said: “When I die, I know one of my grandkids will lean in my coffin and whisper: Can I play a game on your phone?”

I’m sure many of you can relate, and it’s funny, however it makes no sense in relation to my topic this week. But who would you rather listen to? Someone who makes sense and uses logic, or someone who causes you to tilt your head in confusion?

Speaking of confusion, the Department of National Defence requires applicants for the position of chaplain to not be affiliated with groups whose values are not aligned with those of the defence team. In other words it is disqualifying followers of Christianity, Islam and Judaism from applying. Yet logic would discern that members of the military who belong to these three groups would be the ones who would most appreciate the services of a chaplain.

Another confusing example took place last week during Question Period when the opposition questioned the PM about information in a newspaper article. He responded by using the F-bomb and accusing them of promoting misinformation and disinformation. It’s obvious our PM doesn’t enjoy criticism, which may explain Bill C-11 which focuses on eliminating disinformation.

The Toronto Sun revealed a response by Twitter, which noted, “The proposal by the Government of Canada to allow the digital safety commissioner to block websites seems drastic. People around the world have been blocked from accessing services in a similar manner as the one proposed by Canada by authoritarian governments under the false guise of online safety, impeding peoples’ rights to access information online.” They listed North Korea, China and Iran as examples. It’s also interesting that the government did not make this response available to the public, but instead buried it. So does it make sense to have the government in charge of defining disinformation?

Viva Frei spoke to a Canadian who came to Canada at the age of 24. “I came here with $200 in my pocket. Now I have a small, successful construction business,” he said. “But now I am worrying about my kids. This is the only country where people aren’t allowed to travel. Now I am fighting stuff that I fought in Poland and I don’t want to do it again,” he said.

MP Pierre Poilievre described a popular tactic used by the Canadian government ... it’s called divide and conquer. “They divide people in new ways. It’s a deliberate strategy for control, so you’ll turn to the government to give them more power,” he said. “Control is something people fight over; freedom is something you fight for. There’s enough freedom for everybody. If your neighbour gets more freedom, it doesn’t mean you get less. More freedom for one is more freedom for another.”

It’s not party affiliation that causes people to listen to Poilievre; it’s the fact that he uses common sense and logic when he speaks. Recently he asked the question: if technology and trade have made it cheaper to make stuff, why is it more expensive to buy stuff? Then he answered the question.

“The answer is, the government grows the supply of money faster than growth in the services and goods that money buys. Their motive? Well, inflation leads to certain winners, number one ... government. When they create more cash they can spend more cash. They can quietly and secretly pass on the cost to consumers without anybody realizing they are the culprit. The wealthy and corporate class get richer and their assets inflate in value. The losers are the working class as their wages diminish in purchasing power,” he said.

He went on to provide a solution - change our monetary policy to slow the growth in money supply to match the growth of goods and services that it buys, and keep inflation as low as humanly possible.

An online response to this logic was, “Trudeau could not have explained that in a thousand years.”

I listened to Canadian Glen McInnis interview Canadians in Ottawa, Halifax and Vancouver. Although they all expressed concern about the rising cost of housing, the same individuals said they thought the current government could fix the economy within the next ten years.’

I read a quote that said, “Everyone wants to live at the expense of the state. They forget that the state lives at the expense of everyone.” The government has no money to spend that it does not first take from someone else. But who will spend the money more effectively? Bureaucrats, or the people who worked to earn it?