“According to the Small Business Administration, the cost to the economy of government regulation is about $1.75 trillion per annum. You and your fellow citizens pay for that — and it’s about twice as much as you pay in income tax.”
“For example, in New York City, applying for the “right” to open a restaurant requires dealing with the conflicting demands of at least eleven municipal agencies, plus submitting to 23 city inspections and applying for 30 different permits and certificates.”
“Decline is not inevitable; it is a choice”
Thank you, thank you, Rob. Regulation == big gov.
Mark Steyn is awesome. And right.
Tax cut. Only. Way. To. Win.
Pay attention CPC.
Time to cut the civil service by 10% federally and here in Sask. Way too many government workers with big pensions and benefits.
It’s become regulation to the point the regulators aren’t sure if they regulate the process they oversee.
Short story; I’m trying to sever a portion of my acreage that is north of the river that cuts my property in two. I was referred from one agency to the next until I did a complete circle more or less twice. From the Municipality to the Land Planner to the Ministry of Government Services to MPAC to the Land Planner – who left the job…wait 3 months for the hiring process to run its course and new land planner installed – to the Municipality and back to the Land Planner and finally back to the Ministry of Government Services…It’s like they’ve never even dreamt of the process before. I’m tempted to build an outhouse without a building permit just to see how promptly and precisely I’m instructed to apply and pay for my permit.
otterdriver, just call in an anonymous complaint about your own property and see how fast a suit shows up on your front porch. You’ll hear a sonic boom.
Custom10307, I think they could survive a 10% trim. We don’t want that.
The point is not to streamline or rationalize the regulation process, the point is to SMASH the process. Break it, drag its busted hulk out into an open field and set fire to it.
Cut the civil service in half. They’re going to -feel- that. That would make a good start on reducing it to less than ten percent of what it is now. Let go 90% of them, then we have government approaching a size that can be managed rationally.
TAX CUT!
What they’ll come back with, Phanton, is … which service would you be willing to do without?
CBC being the obvious one.
Health care? That takes up much more than 10% of the budget.
Canada Pension Plan? Those who have taken care of their future likely really don’t need that 900 bucks a month. What do you do with the hammerheads who haven’t figured out the money won’t be there for them?
Any other ideas? Let’s see your budget and some ideas. Bluster is cheap.
Which explains why so much is done in Canada via regulation, rather than legislation. Scary stuff.
Is there any examples in history of an empire or government voluntarily reducing its power without a revolution or collapse? I can think of examples of binge and purge cycles but not a permanent transformation to libertarian ideals.
Phanton, I am embarrassed I didn’t think of that myself.
Ring ring. Hello, I’d like to report an illegal land severance at the following address….Click. 5 minutes later “PUT DOWN THE IRON BAR AND TRANSIT AND COME OUT WITH YOUR TAPE MEASURE AND COMPASS IN PLAIN SIGHT”
My sister owns a convenience store in Nova Scotia. On a recent visit, I counted six licences on her wall. She doesn’t serve food, other than packaged sandwiches. She has movie rentals. I see no need for more than 2 permits.
Permit…allow…suffer…
I’m amazed any business can be done in Saskatchewan these days. SWEEP still refuses to allow ewaste companies like Second Time Office Equipment participate in the program. The Department(and Minister) of Environment refuses to control SWEEP. SWEEP has been given a monopoly with complete ability to tax the citizens of Saskatchewan WITHOUT any accountability or oversight to and by the Government of Saskatchewan. Enterprise Saskatchewan who according to their mandate and the Saskatchewan Enterprise Act cannot or will not do anything to create a fair and level playing field. And worst of all, despite, having a large majority, the Sask Party seems incapable and unwilling to live up to their free enterprise principles. Since when is it okay for government to be putting business out of business?
Darcy, that would most likely be because the progressive side of the Sask Party and the bureaucrats are now controlling the government.
Despite claims to the contrary….who can show evidence that the current inspection and regulator regime can/could prevent or detect another “Typhoid Mary”? Especially if if the hypothetical “Mary” is a minority.
The original intent of these regulations is often ignored to merely sustain bureaucracies and graft.
Building inspectors’ conduct is the dirty little secret most municipalities conceal.
Example: In most jurisdictions routine maintainence of a woodstove…cleaning and repainting can render the into scrap if the CSA sticker is defaced or damaged. Virtually any repair is considered a modification, such as replacing the glass panels with steel plate, that voids the CSA certification.
Phantom, I agree a 10% cut wouldn’t make a change in service likely. But it would be a good start…
Is The True North Really Strong and Free. In Canada the citizens are hemmed in and regulated like prisoners by our three levels of Gubmint. Canadians pay 105B dollars per year in regulatory burden. This is in addition to the highest taxes in the western world. It now costs the average Canadian Family more in taxes than they spend on Food, Clothing, and housing combined. The regulatory burden is over 500,000 Pages of paper, of laws and rules and regulations, which is a stack of paper over 10 stories high. All shuffled from desk to desk by drones of the civil service in 3 levels of government at Union Scale wages. 500,000 Pages of Rules and Laws and Regulations to control every aspect of the lives of Canada’s 33M citizens. All bleating for more state control and sheparding by the drones of the civil service. Canada The Velvet Gulag. The sheep are happy tho, they have learned to assume the position on demand, with the usual Pavlovian responses.
Moses has 10 commandments not 10,000 regulations
As long as governments, including the CPC, beleive governments are smarter than the people and must do everything for the people it will continue to get worse until democracy collapses. If we are willing to sacrifice some of our freedom for security we will lose both and deserve neither.
The solution is to ignore the bastards as much as possible and question them in detail about the idiocy of their regulations. They usually don’t handle this very well. Phantom is right, cutting the size of the snivel service by 10% yearly would have a very beneficial effect.
I’ve sent letters to the WCB in BC addressed to “Worthless Commie Bastards” and this is the best description of this organization I’ve seen.
There are far too many bureaucrats. Recently, the oxymoronically named “health protection branch” has come up with regulations that all medical software requires certification. This applies to open source software which will be interesting to watch as who is going to apply for a very expensive certification procedure for a product that is given away for free? I’m curious who will be the first person to end up in jail for writing a program that performs some medical diagnostic function and giving it away for free.
Another way of dealing with these morons is to demand that people follow regulations that are imposed by brainless bureaucrats. It is illegal to dump antibiotics into the sewer system. I’ve told this to patients but so far haven’t gotten any of them to agree to collect all the urine and feces they produce while on oral antibiotics which can then be sent to the appropriate government department for proper disposal. Any blood contaminated materials from a medical office are considered biomedical waste and can’t go into regular garbage — get HIV+ women who are still menstruating to send their used tampons to bureaucrats for proper disposal. The morons who created the idiotic regulations should be faced with the consequences of those regulations.
Ultimately what will happen is either society is going to collapse under the weight of regulations or, in the best case scenario, the people will rise up in protest and lamp posts will be festooned with corpses of totalitarian regulators and some semblance of sanity might return.
Loki, you can see what’s going to happen by looking at Mexico. The majority of people have -nothing- and ignore regulations. The wealthy few have government connections and ignore regulations. The ever-shrinking middle class pays bribes to friendly officials and can then ignore regulations.
That’s because the purpose of the regulations is to squeeze bribes from people.
Thus buildings collapse, bridges fall, crime prospers, people die, and misery is widespread. This is the inevitable endgame of the current regulatory regime. Widespread corruption and disaster.
Always remembering, Mexico ain’t bad on the global scale of places that suck. It could be worse, look at Haiti.