January – February 2022

Can’t Hurt, May Help – It’s clear from our recent election that most Canadians know very little about guns, even less about criminology, and vanishingly little about our convoluted gun laws. But they often don’t like guns or are completely indifferent to guns, so more regulations and laws are seen as good. Obviously, more laws will help, or could help, or sound like they might help with violent crime, so it’s all gain, no loss, so it can’t hurt. An unfortunate consequence of this is that it makes them sitting ducks for Trudeau’s mastery of talking big while doing little, as well as his expertise at ignoring real problems while he focuses on where the problems aren’t. Another problem with this approach to governance is something economists call “opportunity costs.” These are the foregone benefits which would have happened if our limited resources had been spent elsewhere. Only Trudeau and his finance ministers believe that Canada has unlimited money/resources and debt can always be kicked down the road with ever larger loans and Bank of Canada printing presses.