Published

National Post Column: It’s time to kick the politicians off electoral welfare

Published in the National Post and other Post Media outlets
When the Canadian Taxpayers Federation pulled its National Debt Clock in front of Parliament Hill last month, a formerly homeless man approached and stared in amazement. After a minute of staring at the massive, spinning clock, the man said, “I’ve lived on the [...]

April 18, 2011 Tags: Election 2011, National Post, Per-vote subsidy, political donations, Political Welfare, Post Media, Tax Credits Posted in: Blog Content, Published Comments Closed

Sun Column: This election offers no cheap date

Published in the Sun Media chain and QMI Agency
Politicians are everywhere right now: on your TV, at your shopping malls, at your doorsteps and in your wallets. Yet, the most expensive part of an election is not the $300 million spent on counting ballots, but the bidding war that politicians engage in to buy [...]

April 13, 2011 Tags: Bloc Quebecious, Conservative Party of Canada, Debt, Deficit, Election 2011, Election Promises, Liberal Party of Canada, New Democractic Party, Spending Posted in: Blog Content, Published Comments Closed

10% of the Problem: MP Junk Mail

An edited version of the following article appeared in the Winter 2009 edition of The Taxpayer. Since this article’s publishing, Parliament has taken steps to limit the practice of “10 percenters.”
What is another word for ‘free money’ on Parliament Hill? ‘Taxpayer money’, ‘your money’, ‘not my money’ are all fair synonyms. It’s therefore [...]

July 20, 2010 Tags: 10, 10 percenters, The Taxpayer Posted in: Blog Content, Published One Comment

Sudetenland of 2010

The following article was written in the summer of 2007 during an internship with the ‘Canadian Coalition for Democracies’, a foreign policy and national security think-tank and advocacy group.
In the 1930s, Western leaders struggled with what to do with the resurfacing “German problem”. Most of Europe argued for a policy of “accommodation” or as it [...]

March 18, 2010 Tags: 2nd World War, Canadian Coalition, Canadian Coalition for Democracies, Fascism, Foreign Policy, Germany, Germany Problem, Nazism, Second World War, Word Ward 2, World War II Posted in: Blog Content, Published One Comment

CTF and Manning Centre Internship Program

Applications are now open for students to apply for the Canadian Taxpayers Federation (CTF) and Manning Centre’s joint internship program. The Manning Centre and CTF (along with several other advocacy groups) partnered with the Manning Centre last summer to give students a chance to work on the front-lines of the taxpayer’s movement and acquire excellent [...]

February 9, 2010 Tags: Canadian Taxpayers Federation, CTF, Internship, Manning Centre for Building Democracy, The Taxpayer Posted in: Blog Content, Published Comments Closed

Published in The Taxpayer ~ “Cash for Life” vs Retirement in the Senate

An edited version of the following article appears in the Fall 2009 edition of The Taxpayer.
On September 4th, 2009, an unnamed man near Windsor, Ontario (let’s call him, George) scratched his lottery ticket and won $1,000 a week guaranteed for the rest of his life. The ticket was part of the Ontario Lottery and Gaming [...]

January 29, 2010 Tags: Cash-For-Life", Senate, Senate Reform, The Taxpayer Posted in: Published 2 Comments

Published in the National Post ~ Derek Fildebrandt: Make Senate reform a confidence vote

The following article appears in the January 25, 2010 edition of the National Post, & Canada Free Press.

Few politicians are thought to have Senate reform in their blood the way Prime Minister Stephen Harper does. Having campaigned for it beginning in the late 1980s and winning two general elections with it as a significant part [...]

January 25, 2010 Tags: Canada Free Press, Emperor Caligula, National Post, Reform Party, Senate Reform, Stephen Harper Posted in: Published One Comment

Published in Report Magazine ~ Stop Digging: The size of the debt is only half the story. It’s the rate of its growth, and the inability of government to reverse it that will bury us.

The following article appears in the Fall 2009 issue of Report Magazine.
What a difference a few months can make. In last October’s federal election, both parties contending for power – Liberal and Conservative – and even the opposition parties – NDP, Bloc Québécois and Greens – all pledged to support balanced budgets. Fast forward a [...]

November 6, 2009 Tags: Balanced Budgets, Debt, Deficit, Harper, Report Magazine, Trudeau Posted in: Published Comments Closed

Published in Report Magazine ~ Talkin’ Bout My Generation: Why the Coming Demographic Collapse Will Hurt Taxpayers Coming of Age

The following article appears in the June 2009 issue of Report Magazine.
“People try to put us d-down.” That opening line from The Who’s 1965 hit ‘My Generation’ sums up, in reverse, the situation in which young and middle-aged taxpayers will soon find themselves. In fact, it is a lack of people paying taxes that will [...]

June 10, 2009 Tags: Demographics, Report Magazine, State Dependency Posted in: Published 4 Comments

Published in The Charlatan ~ Carleton’s Conservative Campus

The following article appears in an October 2007 edition of The Charlatan
Political discourse on campus is pretty straightforward: you’re either a liberal or a socialist, or some more obscure or extreme variation of the two. Or so we are given the impression from day one at Carleton.
It’s not all that bad if you’re of a [...]

October 4, 2007 Tags: Carleton University, Conservative, CUPE, Libertarian, OPIRG, The Charlatan Posted in: Published Comments Closed