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Save us from efficient government - Wednesday, November 19, 2003 at 16:11

PUBLICATION:  National Post
DATE:  2003.11.13
EDITION:  National
SECTION:  Editorials
PAGE:  A19
BYLINE:  John Weissenberger and George Koch
SOURCE:  National Post

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Save us from efficient government
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Four beefy football fans from Fort Saskatchewan, Alta., their butt-cheeks smeared with a trenchant "GO ESKIES," clutch inflatable clapper-tubes provided by ... the Government of Canada. Another dismal Calgary Flames game is sponsored by ... the Government of Canada, its T-shirt cannon firing federal logo-wear at the narcoleptic masses. Fans at Taylor Field receive Government of Canada postcards, the better to indicate their favourite government service to the expansion-minded mandarins of the "national capital region."

The federal government thinks it's doing a damned fine job -- and it's using your money to convince you it is. Olympic hockey games feature Canadian Wheat Board commercials, despite the lack of international grain-traders in the audience. Newspaper readers are assailed by 28-page government inserts explaining how to surf the Web "for learning and employment." (Check out Section 7, on how to find work in the U.S.!)

The No Logos crowd rails against the hated corporate sector's "created needs" -- like fabric softener, or Pepsi poured down Hottentots' throats. But entire federal departments constitute "created needs." Nobody makes you buy fabric softener or Pepsi. But those government programs, they have a way of going on and on. Their markets are captive, their revenues assured.

The feds' advertising boondoggles are well known. According to one magazine publisher we know, they don't even haggle. "Your ad rate is $5,000 per half page? Fine, we'll take two."

While small-c conservative parties have rattled the Canadian public's faith in big government since the 1980s, their achievements have been modest. Back when the PCs axed Katimavik, their rallying cry wasn't, "This is a stupid program that trains young people for life-long dependency on the state." It was, "Cut Katimavik today, so there can be more Katimaviks tomorrow." At the risk of provoking a hunger strike, we maintain that if city kids want to toke up in remote communities, they should use their own money.

Government departments and agencies continually seek new ways to consolidate and grow, even while under severe criticism. Beyond taxpayer-funded self-promotion, they are co-opting the trappings of the private-sector to find, expand and exploit "markets." While there's nothing wrong with a little "customer focus," the government's free market mantle mostly sugar-coats superfluous activity. It's a whole parallel economy, a bloated edifice that creates no wealth. Rather the
opposite: It sucks money from genuine economic activity.

CBC Radio recently debated whether private-sector methods and performance criteria undermine government's supposedly egalitarian foundations. It appears, however, that our public broadcaster is as concerned with its image as those Estuary-speaking Brits from Revlon London. Why else would the CBC, convinced it already perfectly reflects Canada, commission PR consultants?

The state's manufactured demand is both self-referential and self-fulfilling. Take the two-decade-long campaign for subsidized, coast-to-coast daycare. In the absence of genuine public need, activist groups are given public funds to conjure an atmosphere of crisis. Constant polling eventually reveals the desired public opinion. Once a new program is launched, Canadians can expect weeknight phone calls demanding to know when they will take advantage of the wondrous new services. One of us recently refused to participate in a home telephone survey on the new energy efficiency subsidies.

There are countless things government should not be doing, things that even the best advertising can't justify. However, Paul Martin never talks about making government smaller, getting bureaucrats out of our faces or slashing regulations. This should give pause to those eager to see him make government "more efficient." What he seems to mean is making existing programs work a little bit better so he and his army of helpers can come up with even more. If that's the kind of efficient government we're in for, maybe we should be grateful for inefficiency.

At least sloth, waste and corruption forestall some of the nastiest aspects of our most intrusive government programs. For $1-billion, the federal gun registry offers the illusion of enhanced safety to the handful of activists who demanded it, while all but ignoring enforcement and thus remaining just bearable to the several million who hunt and shoot. If this program were "well-run," we'd probably have uniformed goons scouring every second farmyard for unregistered .22s or unlicenced 14-year-olds blasting rodents.

All the waste might even prevent entire programs from coming into being. We still don't have national daycare. It's currently as dead as if the Canadian Alliance actually had the Prime Minister's ear.

Nor did Canada's signing the Kyoto Protocol unleash National Energy Program II. Not because Kyoto's critics were paranoid, but simply because the Liberals were too lazy to concoct the vast array of new regulations, taxes and spending needed to cut carbon dioxide emissions. Thank you, Jean Chretien. Mr. Martin, on the other hand, has said it was unconscionable to ratify Kyoto without a plan to implement it. One can only shudder at what he has in mind.

When we demand government efficiency, we should beware of what we're asking for. We're already getting way more government than we need.