Linda McQuaig Must Be Defeated

Apparently, the by-election in Toronto Centre is effectively set. Liberal candidate Chrystia Freeland will contest the riding against NDP nominee Linda McQuaig.

The two-horse-race is apparently so much so that whoever the Conservative nominee in the riding might end up being, they haven't warranted so much as a mention in coverage so far.

Freeland is far from a perfect candidate. But as seldom as I endorse a Liberal candidate, I can certainly say that she's the far better of the two candidates: the "lesser of two evils," as it were.

The reason for this actually boils entirely down to McQuaig. She is what NDP leader Thomas Mulcair has insisted that his party doesn't represent: she's very much a "class war" candidate, bent on winning support from the poor by not only demonizing the wealthy, but promising re-distribution of wealth on a stunning scale. And while this may play well to voters in Regent Park, it's actually the reason why, for the good of the country, Linda McQuaig absolutely must be defeated.

It all comes down to her economic theories:

1. They're vindictive - McQuaig doesn't like millionaires. She really doesn't like billionaires. And so she has consistently advocated for policies that would wipe out every fortune in Canada. This is, of course, the dark side of McQuaig's equality crusade: her quest to force equality of result -- as opposed to equality of opportunity -- on Canadian society requires that she take the things people have earned for them, mostly just for the sake of taking it.

That's not the kind of attitude that ends itself to strong government.

2. They're tyrannical -There's something about a person who thinks that she should be able to decide what you should be able to earn, and what you should be able to leave to your children. Think about that: not only does she want to confiscate any excess if she thinks you've managed to earn too much, but if even if someone were to find their way around that and earn a fortune, she wants to confiscate it upon your passing.

She apparently thinks herself fit to decide what your children can have when you're gone. That's a staggering amount of power she thinks herself fit to wield.

3. They're reckless - McQuaig eyes up the wealthy as a source of revenue from which the government can fund the laundry list of social programs she envisions -- and those that she hasn't even thought up yet.

So imagine that McQuaig gets what she wants. Presumably everything's fine so long as their are fortunes to snatch.

What happens when there aren't?

McQuaig's policies would saddle Canada with extravagant social programming under on the basis that pilfered fortunes could be used to pay for them. And then her policies actively and deliberately set out to destroy the source of that revenue. It would be enough to transform Canada into Greece within a single generation. A competent economist would know better.

4. They're irrational - A competent economist would know better. Yet somehow Linda McQuaig doesn't.

How could this be? She may not necessarily be an economist, but she considers herself well-versed in economics. Yet her theories reject not only any remote semblance of economic orthodoxy -- in itself not necessarily a bad thing -- but also reject decades worth of economic history. She's the kind of theorist who not only clings to her model for years after the observed results contradicts them, but actually doubles down.

It doesn't seem unfair to suggest that running to be an MP is McQuaig's way of doubling down on her own disproven economic fantasies. McQuaig's theories wouldn't bring an embrace of evidence-based governance to Parliament, but rather a rejection of it.

Farbeit to say that electing McQuaig is guaranteed to bring economic ruin to Canada. After all, she would be but one MP, and her party has absolutely no chance of ever governing the country. But should McQuaig be elected, it would show that Canadians very much could be wooed by petty divisiveness and pure ideological fervour.

That should never be allowed to happen. Linda McQuaig must be defeated in Toronto-Centre.