Policy: Grow Ontario’s Economy

Government Does Not Create Jobs

Despite a widespread belief to the contrary, the government does not create jobs in a free-market economy.  Jobs are created in the private sector.  It’s government fiscal policy that determines the conditions for an economy to flourish or to tank.

Taxes and Red Tape – A Need For Balance

Taxes

The biggest killers of an economy and investment are taxes and “Red Tape”.  When it comes to taxes, one of the most important, yet seemingly universally ignored principles by our governments today is the “Laffer Curve” principle on taxation.  If governments tax too much, they’ll actually harvest less revenue.  Conversely, if governments tax less, they can increase tax revenue.

The Laffer Curve

The Laffer curve demonstrates the correlation between increasing tax rates beyond acceptable levels thus actually causing a decrease in tax revenues.

After a certain point, the more you tax, the less revenue is harvested.

Governments who continually run deficits to fund government operations are undeniably encroaching on the principals of the Laffer Curve.

Taxes are necessary to fund government so that it can function.  A free market economy actually needs a strong government to function as it is the government that creates impartial courts to enforce contracts if there are breaches.  The government maintains public safety institutions such as the police to ensure safety, law and order.

The key to taxes is balance and there is a growing sentiment and dissatisfaction from the public that taxes are too high in exchange for what is received.

Red Tape

One role of government in a free and democratic society is to act as a regulator on behalf of the population to ensure private industry does not create products that harm the population.  The government has the power to limit or prohibit certain types of products, such as asbestos for example, that harm the population.

The term “Red Tape” refers to government barriers, either policy barriers or “high achievement thresholds” (hoops that businesses have to jump through) inhibiting or preventing private industry from moving forward on various economic initiatives.  Red Tape can be a good thing for a population or a bad thing for the population.  Red Tape becomes bad for the population when government leaders use their power and that of “Red Tape” to personally benefit from policies that otherwise negatively impact the population.

Enter the Windmill

Windmills are a perfect example in Ontario.  For the population, windmills are supposed to create “Green Energy” and be a wise choice for environmental sustainability.  However, there are many suspicious facets to the windmill issue in Ontario.  For example:

Windmills are manufactured outside of Canada.  Should there be “political incentives” such as bribes, kickbacks or other nefarious means of incentivizing politicians to support such costly and questionable initiatives, there is no ability for Canadian governments to issue search warrants, subpoena witnesses or to otherwise reliably investigate nefarious profit making schemes to ensure the integrity of the contracts and payouts.

It’s very suspicious in Ontario that politicians insist on “Green Energy Initiatives” and “Sustainable Development” while destroying aquifers, killing birds, causing health problems and otherwise being unable to reliably harness the generated power of windmills which most often, does not occur at peak usage times when extra electricity is needed most.

While the windmill example is just an example of questionable government policy that definitely needs follow-up and investigation it’s an example of drain on the economy and increase in the cost of doing business locally due to high electricity rates, making Ontario uncompetitive in manufacturing against other jurisdictions.

A Plan To Grow Ontario’s Economy and Create Jobs

Growing Ontario’s economy starts with allowing Ontario to be competitive.  Lowing hydro rates by ending the windmill fiasco is a start.  Encouraging entrepreneurship and self-employment by creating the conditions for such businesses to flourish is another step.  When businesses are plentiful, wages automatically increase due to supply and demand.  When there are more jobs then there are workers to fill them, employers will be willing to pay many times the rate of minimum wage to keep employees.

When the government fails to create conditions that allow an economy to grow, those governments are preoccupied with promises of “increasing the minimum wage” to buy votes despite previously failed economic policies.

The New Blue Party of Ontario will create the conditions necessary to grow Ontario’s economy by 5%.  If you want to live in a province with a strong economy, better services and a better quality of life, vote Rob Stocki MPP, Carleton – New Blue Party of Ontario.