The Speech I Want to Hear

Here is the speech I want to hear…

Ladies and Gentlemen, I am here tonight to introduce the NEW PROSPERITY PARTY of Canada, and tell you what our party will do for YOU, if you will go to the polls and make us your government.

First, I am assuming that you all want prosperity, that is, better roads, medical care, education, and more money in each of your bank accounts. If you don’t want this, then just get up and leave, right now.

Prosperity is created by the production of goods and then selling them. Examples are manufacturing, computer software, electronics, medical systems, potash, uranium, and farm produce.

How much we produce determines our level of prosperity, and how much we produce is directly proportional to how many hours are worked, times the amount we get done per hour. What we have to do is get more people working, and get them working smarter so we increase the total number of hour worked and increase the amount produced per hour.

In a few moments I am going to tell you exactly how we will get more people working, and working smarter, but first I want to discuss some obstacles that we must overcome if we are to prosper. It won’t help us if we become more productive, and then just pay high taxes to Ottawa and get little in return from Ottawa. The federal government has to get on the prosperity bandwagon with us, or all our efforts will be in vain. I don't, think there is a hope in hell that Ottawa is going to get more efficient so we have to be willing to go it alone. We have to be ready to pull out of confederation if they don’t do what we want. We have to start telling them that we are not going to pay any taxes for such wasteful activities as the gun registry, or their huge and inefficient civil service. We need more provincial power to make the changes we need, and make sure that what we produce is not wasted by Ottawa.

Second, we have to get the power from Ottawa to control destructive and counterproductive activities. Mainly, I am talking about crime. There is no sense in all of us working harder and smarter if some of us just break the things we make, and waste valuable time, and that is what crime does. We need a new criminal code and charter of rights so we can get rid of this silly Ottawa controlled justice system that does nothing to discourage criminals. How many MRI’s could we afford from just the waste created by the few hoodlums stealing cars. Think of the cost of all the policemen, judges, social workers, psychiatrists, prison guards and insurance claims that these few individuals cost us. Another major problem is Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS), which is costing us possibly 30 billion dollars per year. We need the power to force irresponsible people not to drink alcohol when pregnant and force on society for the next 50 years the care of a mentally retarded and socially irresponsible individual. Today, it is estimated that 30 FAS babies are born every day, and the rules of Ottawa are what is stopping us from bringing in legislation strong enough to address these types of problems. We, you and I, have to be strong enough to stand up to Ottawa, and go it alone if necessary, and a vote from you will give us this mandate. I know this is serious business, but if we seriously want to prosper, we will still fail if we allow Ottawa to suck us dry with high taxes, and the inability to stop destructive and costly criminal activities.

Now, back to productivity, more people working and everyone working smarter. We have to get money oriented, because money is the best and easiest measure of efficiency. Every government department, crown corporation and initiative must be looked at as a profit center. We must set our goals and clearly define the objectives and deliverables for every government activity, and these deliverables and objectives must be monitored and the project shut down and re-evaluated as soon as the goals are not being met. You will notice I have addressed this to the government only and not private business. This is because private business does this automatically in order to compete.

We must also make sure that the government does not stand in the way of business doing things in the most inefficient way. An example is the concept of seniority in the workplace. If we want to be efficient, then these is nothing more counterproductive than giving a person a job just because he has been there longer, when someone else is able to do the job better. If we took all the seniority based appointments and changed them to productivity based assignments, then we would make a significant change in the GDP of Canada.

We have to work towards getting every able bodied person working. This includes underworked employees, welfare recipients, prisoners and native indians.

On the native indian issue, I personally reject the concept that my great great grandfather had the right to sit with the great great grandfather of a current day native indian and decide what rules we have to live by in today. I believe that special privileges based on heritage or skin colour are basically wrong. We have very different challenges today than we had 200 years ago, and we should be able to make whatever rules work today in a fair and equitable way that treats everyone equally. I will do away with any special status for any ethnic group, and we will all be equal citizens. Once again, Ottawa may not agree with us.

We will instill the basic and fair belief that your highest calling is to support yourself and your family. If you are on welfare then, unless disabled, you have failed and are in a shameful situation because you are living on the back of someone else. I will help you get off welfare and regain your self respect, but you are going to have to report to work every day and learn enough and become valuable enough that you can get a regular job. I reject the idea that we have to coddle the self esteem of people on welfare. You have already lost all your self esteem by living on the back of another person, and the only way to get it back is to start supporting yourself.

We also have to work smarter, and to do this we have to be smarter and better educated. A bureaucrat was once defined as someone who is more concerned with the process than with the result. Our education system has many bureaucrats who have lost sight of the goals. The only worthwhile goal is getting kids to working age with the best possible knowledge and thinking skills. To do this we have to take small steps, one year at a time and set academic targets and measure them. We have to create competitive educational institutions, similar to Alberta, where competition with more small private schools has really forced the public education system to change and improve. We need to measure the effectiveness of teachers based only on their ability to impart knowledge and thinking skills. If we improve the level of education then in a few short years we will have workers who produce more fore each hour worked, and will make the single most effective change toward increased prosperity.

Toward this goal we will separate the functions of teaching and marking in all public schools and every student will be tested by way of final exams in every grade. This will be done by a separate testing organization.

We will separate the functions of teaching and degree granting in the universities. The university will only be concerned with imparting knowledge, and the university and the students will be evaluated on final exams from a separate organization. I want to hear in the hallways that the average mark on the provincial exams in Course X was higher at UBC than U of S. This will create competition in the only area that really matters, how much you know when you get out of school

In summary, we WILL create prosperity in this country. All of our lives will change a little. Most of you won’t have to work any harder, but you will have to think more about what you are doing and what you are trying to accomplish each day. We will all get more done, and more people will be working, and we will easily afford our necessary social programs and have more personal money left over after taxes. There will be change, and sometimes that is hard by itself, but in the process we will throw out some old and wasteful ideas and replace them with new and efficient ideas, and in the end we will be proud of our great country,