For those who love high taxes, large government for its own sake and think the private sector should be eyed suspiciously on principle, they’ll be happy to hear there’s a new think tank in Canada.
As of September, the Broadbent Institute will open its doors. It’s named after Ed Broadbent, former leader of the federal New Democrats.
I’ll take a wild guess that instead of talking about “free money” (via higher taxes and more debt) and free love of government as the solution to all that ails us, the new think tank will offer up its policy in slightly different terms.
Instead:
•recommendations on tax increases will be dressed up as “fair”;
•an expansion of government will be justified “compassionate”; and
•restrictions on personal freedoms – say, gag laws at election time, which Broadbent always favoured – will be justified as promoting civility.
Early media reports on the impetus for the Broadbent Institute note how it’s meant to be a leftist counterpart to the Manning Centre for Building Democracy. The Manning Centre, founded by Preston Manning and led by the same, is not a think tank. Still, it has tried to help conservative and libertarian groups be more effective.
Full disclosure: in addition to my day job at the Fraser Institute, I’ve also worked with Manning and his centre. So I am not an impartial observer.
The new think tank might be justified by some as bringing “balance” and/or to counter existing biases. Fair argument. Moreover, on principle, I favour more voices in the marketplace of ideas. So I welcome any new voice, including the Broadbent Institute.
That noted, the “need” for another interventionist think tank escapes me. Such a mindset is already rife in much of academia, the bureaucracy, among too many politicians and somewhat prevalent in the media. Also, for every one group that wants governments to be more careful with their economic and other interventions, there are already 100 on the other side, often financed by tax dollars.
As for bias, biases can be created out of ignorance or be a result of studying what works. I’ll argue the “bias” for market-friendly policy, moderate tax regimes and sensible regulation originates in the latter; they also benefit citizens who have some pre-existing rights that should not be infringed upon by governments.
In contrast, much of what Broadbent stood for in the 1970s and 1980s didn’t work and that’s connected to a core belief based on a faulty reading of how the world functions. Self-described progressives often think that if only enough tax dollars and smart people – by which they normally mean themselves – were in the same room, all private problems could be solved via public means, i.e., the levers and institutions of government.
Some examples: under Broadbent, the NDP loved nationalization and/or public-sector monopolization of the commanding heights of the economy. Targets included automobile insurance companies, energy companies and health-care delivery.
The first example still lives on and prevents open competition for consumer insurance policies. The second was disastrously costly. Petro-Canada’s creation in the 1970s, urged on by the NDP, cost $14 billion in wasted taxpayer money according to journalist Peter Foster, who wrote a book on the subject.
The third – the hysteric opposition to private involvement in health care – has always been about protecting government unions, not about universal health-care coverage. After all universal health care exists perfectly well in Europe where a mix of private and public delivery and insurance is the norm.
To see how ridiculous NDP opposition to the private sector has long been, consider Broadbent’s 1980s-era opposition to free trade. He was always against open markets, even though free trade boosts incomes, creates jobs and has, around the world, lifted millions out of poverty.
If the new Broadbent think tank advocates what its namesake pushed for in the 1970s and 1980s, it will be unfortunate proof that bad ideas are never buried. They’re just on life support until a new generation unfamiliar with the devastation wrought by the previous incarnation of such ideas tries to revive them.
Broadbent was leader of the federal NDP between 1975 and 1989. That year, history finally gave up on most of the policies Broadbent tried so hard to introduce in Canada, and which he and his colleagues were regrettably too successful in getting implemented via Pierre Trudeau’s government. That Broadbent quit as NDP leader just as the Berlin Wall fell is probably just coincidence, albeit one rich in historical irony. •
