I’m a slow thinker. It’s why I don’t do Twitter. It takes me a long time to come up with an opinion. I have to keep turning over an issue and looking at it from different angles. I read both sides of an argument. I often find some book on philosophy, poli sci or history that is relevant. And finally after all of that I (might) have an opinion on the subject.
So it took me a while to write about the Canadian election, which happened 6 months ago.
It was obviously time for a change
There is a saying that government is like underwear. After a while it gets dirty and you have to change it. Over time the problems of the day rub off on the once fresh government until it accumulates a stink, and people eventually want something that smells better. The fact that the Liberal government under Trudeau the Younger was 10 years old in 2025 was a strong predictor that it was the Conservatives’ time for electoral success, even if the Libs had been doing a reasonable job.
But by any measure, they weren’t. They gave us many reasons to give them the boot. The Libs massively violated civil liberties during COVID. They made it a human rights violation to refuse to call a man who says he is a woman a man. They filled high positions with geniuses like Theresa “Gloryhole” Tam who made us an international laughing stock. They flooded the country with immigrants by increasing immigration rates 15-fold. They massively increased the debt and deficit and rubbed salt into that wound by doing things like paying friends of the party 750 times the original budget for the ArriveCan app. They were debatably the most scandal-ridden government in our history, with so many examples to pick from that Trudeau’s multiple blackface appearances don’t even make the top 10. Obviously there was no way they could win. Right?
In the run-up to the election there was a lot of fighting over which poll was more accurate. Conservatives disbelieved polls that pointed Liberal, and vice versa. What was initially a clear lead for the Conservatives shrank and then disappeared under the influence of a clever Liberal campaign which tapped into the most central part of Canadian identity: anti-Americanism. When the Liberals won, many of my conservative friends were surprised and disappointed. I was not surprised.
A long socialist slide
Western society’s slide towards socialism - including the 2025 Canadian election result - is a predictable outcome of a gradual but inexorable transformation of our collective vision of government’s role in society. Politics - and thus our choice of government - is downstream from culture.
Historically, a centralized authority was seen as being a necessary evil, there to prevent your neighbour from killing you and/or stealing your stuff. Food, clothing, and shelter were your own problem.
But over generations the Overton window through which we view government’s role has shifted inexorably leftward. As we expect more of government, it has grown to occupy a much larger place in our economy and our day-to-day lives, as I have previously written about:
This shift in politics has developed as the belief in positive “rights” has become entrenched in our collective psyche. (You can flip back to another previous Substack for more on positive versus negative rights.) If we have a “right” to an always expanding wish list of services, then government must necessarily take more from productive citizens to provide these things to citizens who are less productive and responsible.
A major leftward shift
A simple but controversial example. Is it the duty of the state (and therefore the taxpayer) to support a woman who gets pregnant and cannot support her baby? A hundred years ago, even the most extremely progressive politicians would not have thought so. Such a duty was thought to lie with the mother herself, the father, the families involved, and the local community and church. Benevolent societies might help, but were run by volunteers, and contributed to voluntarily. Generations ago, not even the most progressive politician would have suggested the government take on this moral and financial responsibility.
In 2025, even the most “far-right” politician would not DARE suggest that such support is not the duty of the government. That is how much the Overton window has shifted.
Similar changes have occurred in most realms - housing, education, addictions, healthcare, dental care, child care, and now school lunch programs. There are few areas where we do not now see the government as responsible for providing the needs (and sometimes the wants) of the populace.
The mindset that one is responsible for taking care of himself - let alone his family or community - is less and less common, even amongst the more conservative demographic.
“Free” stuff is not really free, but rather quite expensive
Even some of my conservative friends, after ~1/3 of their taxes went towards healthcare for several decades, were thankful that they “didn’t have to pay” for their healthcare when they finally access the system. Wow, what a bargain! Lucky!
The word “free”, when used in place of “taxpayer-funded” is a politician’s trick. When Big Government runs a service, we pay a huge administrative premium on top of the price of the service. Someone must collect taxes. Someone must dole them back to organizations and individuals. Someone needs to be in charge of gender and racial equity. Someone must do an environmental impact assessment. Someone must manage the service delivery. And of course someone still has to actually perform the service.
All the extra steps require bureaucrats and functionaries, who have well-paid positions with pensions and benefits. Would you rather pay someone to dig a hole for you, or pay a government administrator to arrange it for you? Does it become “free” if you pay taxes to have it dug?
I’ll vote for you if you give me stuff
Although politics has always attracted graft and corruption, I do think that we once expected our politicians to be wise. Perhaps I’m over-romanticizing the past (I certainly know that politics has always been dirty) but it seems that we have devolved into pure “pothole politics”: we simply vote for people who promise us the most stuff. “Stuff” paid for with productive citizens’ taxes.
Voters who expect the government to give them free stuff vote for politicians who promise free stuff. And this means voting for politicians who are considered good “constituency men”. If you haven’t heard the term, here is an AI summary:
My take on the term is less generous. To me, a constituency man is simply someone who people think will get them free stuff. In my former home in industrial Cape Breton - a hyper-unionized and hyper-entitled place with very high rates of “disability”, welfare, and seasonal EI - we constantly vote in good constituency men who will “do anything for ya”.
Just as one example: Want support in insisting that your sore back really means you are disabled? No problem! I can’t tell you how many times I have seen this done by “good constituency men”. A colleague’s patient who was later caught building decks under-the-table while collecting compensation for a back too sore to work at the local call centre got a very supportive letter from his MLA when fighting for compensation payments. The politician helped get his constituent free stuff, guaranteeing that vote next election, as well as more votes from family and friends of the happily disabled man who knew the constituency man was someone they could count on.
One of Cape Breton’s most prominent/notorious politicians - Dave Dingwall - was famous for stating that he was “entitled to his entitlements” even though it was clear he was pork-barrelling. Despite this he is still beloved, and prominent in our community. People love him not because he is honest or wise, but because he uses his connections to bring a lot of money into the community.
Vote for a winner! Or you won’t get free stuff
A side effect of the belief in government-as-provider is the impetus to vote for the winning team. If you feel Team Red is going to make the government, and your goal is to get more “stuff”, you really should vote for the Team Red rep even if you don’t like him or the party. Hold your nose and vote red, or risk the cold funding shoulder for the next 4 years. This phenomenon pushes partisan pollsters to perjure and pump up their party’s prospects, as they know voters want to “back a winner”. This is why there is a blackout in the west on results in the east before polls close - it is well known that voters will change their vote to the winning party if they know which it will be.
Et tu, Poilievre?
How popular is the politicians-should-give-me-free-stuff belief? In an attempt to discredit Pierre Poilievre, CTV news deceptively spliced 2 video clips together to make it sound like “alt-right” Pierre wanted to (gasp!!) take away our “free” dental care that the benevolent Liberals had so generously granted to us. This was obviously an attempt to hurt his election prospects.
To me, the important takeaway from this incident was not that mainstream media is corrupt, evil, and deceptive. People who don’t know that are not reading this Substack.
Instead, the part of this story relevant to this Substack is that even the “Conservatives'” rushed to quickly distance themselves from any suggestion that they didn’t support “free” dental care. The Overton window on “free stuff” is so narrow and rigid that even conservatives won’t dare question it. Poilievre’s reputation would have taken a massive hit if people got the impression that he wasn’t 100% on board with giving us free stuff.
Voting is a conflict of interest for many Canadians in 2025, yet still they vote
44% of our GDP is now government spending. And about 25% of Canadians work directly for the government.
Many more work for the government indirectly, either for companies who support themselves mainly with government contracts, as government consultants or contractors, or for “QUANGO’s” (QUAsi-Non-Governmental Organizations: non-profits who, if you trace their funding, are indirectly government-funded). These folks are not explicitly “government employees”, but are still paid by your tax dollars. The DOGE initiative in the USA woke many people up to what a huge issue this is.
Nurses and doctors are just one good example of groups who often base their vote on who is promising to give them the most of their fellow citizens’ money. Healthcare is the largest single employer in some communities and sucks up 12.5 % of our GDP - a number which grows with each election. And healthcare workers will vote for whichever party promises them the biggest raise.
It is standard to recuse oneself from voting if one has a conflict of interest. A CEO leaves the room when the board votes for that CEO’s salary. If you sit on the board of a granting agency, you are expected to recuse yourself if that board is about to vote on a possible grant for your cousin’s (let alone your own) business.
How many government workers, government contractors, nurses, doctors, or QUANGO employees recused themselves in the last Canadian election? How many CBC employees voted Conservative when that party’s leader was threatening to cut off their gravy train, while the Liberals were promising to keep it running smoothly down the same track?
Are we past the tipping point?
Although it’s hard to calculate precisely, many estimates are that more than half of Canadians are now net tax beneficiaries. They can vote for a government that promises to give them more of their fellow citizens’ money. The productive class is now a minority and is subject to the tyranny of the majority.
Does this phenomenon of voting in one’s own self-interest explain why ridings with more seasonal workers (net tax beneficiaries) are more reliable Liberal/NDP (they are pretty much the same party now) strongholds, whereas ridings with more farmers and oil-workers (net contributors) are more reliably Conservative?
Bruce Pardy has done an excellent video on the “Bureaucratic Singularity” - the point where the government is so big that it becomes a black hole that swallows all of society. Is the event horizon the point where more people take from, rather than contribute to, the tax pie?
Most people I know have self-contradictory ideas about government. They complain about high taxation while at the same time expecting the government to provide them with everything they want. They just don’t seem to get it.
A generation or two ago we would definitely have kicked the scandal-ridden, stale, unpopular and unsuccessful Liberals to the curb. But they promised us more free stuff than did the Conservatives.
Was the election result a sign we have crossed a tipping point here in Canada? (and likely elsewhere too - I’d love to hear if readers have opinions or data from other countries) Is it still possible to change course before we reach Bureaucratic Singularity? Darned if I know. Like Yogi Berra said: “Prediction is hard, especially when it’s about the future.”
