Politics 101 – Liberal Newspeak

 

George Orwell described a futuristic world where government (Big Brother in his novel, “1984”) chose to define “truth” rather than telling the truth. 

In Orwell’s “1984”, public expectations from government underwent a transformation making what was once reprehensible into actions that are perfectly acceptable by simply redefining what “words” meant.  If you haven’t yet read Orwell’s “1984”, you owe it to yourself to spend an hour with it.  It turns out that what Orwell was writing about in this fiction novel would turn into standard operating procedure by Liberal governments in Ottawa and in Queen’s Park (Ontario).  Orwell described how the public was convinced to change expectations by simply adapting the government’s (Big Brother’s) revised definitions of a word.  Orwell coined the term “Newspeak” for the way Big Brother (government) went about changing bad into good by simply redefining words.

Settling in to the past decade of Liberalism in Ontario, we have learned (as example) that corruption isn’t such a bad thing and that handing back 50% of one’s pay check is normal.  We have learned to adapt and accept that government innovation means finding new ways to extract taxes and take more of your money.  We have learned to accept that government’s primary purpose is to use tax money to socially engineer rather than to provide service.We have learned that “virtue signaling” is more important than being virtuous.

Rather than use “Newspeak”, the Ontario Liberal government has created its own version known as Libspeak.  Here’s how it works.

The Brampton Ontario Experiment

It is neither “Newspeak” no “Libspeak” to state that with a population of over 593,638, Brampton is the third-largest city in the Greater Toronto Area, and the ninth-largest city in Canada.

If I remove my glasses, I will not notice that Brampton lacks adequate hospital beds to serve the existing populace.  I would similarly miss noticing that Brampton has no university but “gets by” with a community college.

It is “old fashioned” thinking to expect that a Provincial government should accept full responsibility for mandates established in law over 150 years ago by way of the British North America Act  which formed Canada and set out responsibilities for the Federal Government and the Provincial Governments.  Each was intended (mandated) to have sole/exclusive responsibilities and everything seemed perfect logical.  Each province was handed responsibility to provide for health care and for education for its residents. The system of funding those schools and hospitals would be through taxes: income tax and sales tax and, and, and (ad nauseam).

But, along came the Liberals who decided that rather than deal with mundane citizen needs, they would be in a better position to hang onto their jobs if they would begin social engineering and spending money on a myriad of more interesting things such as international sporting events (PANAM Games) and finding ways to move money into the pockets of donors. 

While all of that was happening, the population was growing very fast and the existing health care and education systems began to fail and fall short of pubic need.  A new solution was needed and it consisted of two parts.  First, the province began downloading its mandated burden to fund hospitals and education onto the shoulders of those individuals that owned homes.  Second, with the use of “Libspeak”, definitions (and thus public expectations) could be modified.

Through the adept use of “Libspeak” (as example) we learned that a hospital wasn’t a place with beds, nurses and doctors that was there for sick people. The new definition for “hospital” in “Libspeak” omits the words beds, nurses and doctors and would close its doors at the end of business hours.

Rather than divert tax money into hospitals, this government undertook to build wind turbines, invest in a medical record keeping system that never got off the ground, a medical helicopter system probably never should have gotten off the ground and (ughhh!) gas generated electricity plants that were scuttled before completion. Other sundry projects such as a virtual mountain of paper shredders were more worthy uses of tax revenues than hospitals and universities.

Beside let’s not forget that a hospital isn’t really a hospital.  Therefore, a university probably is not a university.

 A New University?

A new twist to the panzi-scheme involved downloading costs for a hospital onto the property tax bills of home owners who were genuinely crying out for proper medical facilities.  To that end, a special $60 Million property tax levy was handed to property owners.  Along the way, government innovation was at work  and all the talk about “global warming” created a brand new tax opportunity – Carbon Tax.

An old adage says, “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.”.  The Liberal government in Ontario can’t be faulted for using the hospital scheme to solve its failure to fund university space.  Why not download a goodly chunk onto the shoulders of property tax payers?

Yesterday, the City Council of the City of Brampton just voted (unanimously) to accept a $150,000,000 download from the Liberals in Queen’s Park towards building a university in Brampton.  Also, (not to be outdone by the hospital boards) it seems that we misunderstood what a university is. 

It turns out that as described by “Libspeak”; a university does not need all those classrooms and lecture halls nor on campus student residences.  Simply adjust your thinking on things and even the ridiculous can become perfectly logical.

All of which leads to an obvious question.  Given that property owners are picking up the costs of hospitals and universities in the world of “Libspeak”; does it necessarily follow that only property tax payers will have access?  Just asking.

Virtue Signaling

If one argues against this type of unfairness; one is labeled as not wanting every kid to have access to schools or every sick person to have full and equal access to health care.

Provinces have many more sources of revenue (income taxes; sales taxes; carbon taxes etc) than a municipality does (property tax).  And I plan to pose this question to any potential politician who comes knocking on my door for a vote in next year’s Provincial Election.  I certainly won’t vote for ANY politician who speaks “Libspeak” or cannot see the unfairness in that way of doing things.  Maybe IF the Provincial government stopped wasting taxpayers’ money on social engineering there would be plenty of money to pay for the things they should be doing.

Tired of being lied to? Me too!

Follow Lloyd’s articles on Twitter @LloydFournier1

Copyright   Thunderbird Rising 2017

The above article is copyrighted.  You may use, copy or distribute this article conditional on attributing your source (Thunderbird Rising) and the author (Lloyd Fournier)