Libertarian Canadian Prime Minister Wilfred Laurier on This Day in History

 

This day in history: Wilfrid Laurier oversees Alberta and Saskatchewan joining the Confederation of Canada as its 8th and 9th Canadian provinces on this day in 1905.

From Lawrence W. Reed: 

Owing to where most Americans trace their ancestry from, we tend to know more European history than the history of our immediate neighbors to the north and south, Canada and Mexico. We can name famous entrepreneurs and political leaders from across the sea but rarely one from right next door.

Last May in a casual dinner conversation with Canadian libertarians in Vancouver, I named the better presidents and prime ministers, respectively, of the United States and Great Britain. It suddenly occurred to me that I couldn’t name a single Canadian counterpart.

So I asked my dinner friends, “Among Canada’s political leaders, did you ever have a Grover Cleveland or a William Ewert Gladstone, a prime minister who believed in liberty and defended it?”

One name emerged, almost in unison: Sir Wilfrid Laurier. Embarrassed by my ignorance, I had to admit I had never heard of him. Never mind that he’s the guy with the bushy hair on the Canadian five-dollar bill; I just never noticed. Now that I’ve done a little research, I’m a fan.

Laurier’s political resume is impressive: fourth-longest-serving prime minister in Canada’s history (1896–1911, the longest unbroken term of office of all 22 PMs). Forty-five years in the House of Commons, an all-time record. Longest-serving leader of any Canadian political party (almost 32 years). Across Canada to this day, he is widely regarded as one of the country’s greatest statesmen.

It’s not his tenure in government that makes Laurier an admirable figure. It’s what he stood for while he was there. He really meant it when he declared, “Canada is free and freedom is its nationality” and “Nothing will prevent me from continuing my task of preserving at all cost our civil liberty.”

A new think tank in Ottawa honors Laurier and another Canadian PM, John MacDonald, in its name: the MacDonald-Laurier Institute. Founders Brian Crowley, Jason Clemens, and Niels Veldhuis have authored a new book, The Canadian Century: Moving Out of America’s Shadow, in which they explain the political principles and institutions the great Laurier stood for: limited government, light taxes, fiscal discipline, free trade, private property, and the rule of law.

At a time when others in the British Commonwealth had begun to emulate the welfare-state policies of Bismarckian Germany, Laurier had a better idea. Crowley, Clemens, and Veldhuis write:

Laurier’s objection to such schemes, like that of his Liberal colleagues, was one of principle: when people were expected to take responsibility for themselves and their famil[ies], they made better provision for their needs and directed their productive efforts where they would do the country and themselves the greatest good. When this natural necessity to strive was diluted by an easy access to the public purse, the ever-present danger was of the enervation of the individual and the stagnation of the progress of society. “If you remove the incentives of ambition and emulation from public enterprises”—by which he meant the economic undertakings of individuals and businesses, not state enterprises—Laurier said on the subject in 1907, “you suppress progress, you condemn the community to stagnation and immobility.”

Born in Quebec in 1841, Laurier rose in popularity in spite of his expressed belief in the separation of church and state. The province’s Roman Catholic bishops urged voters to steer clear of him but he built a firm base of local support. The people appreciated his solid character and his desire for goodwill and conciliation among the disparate cultures of Canada. As prime minister he worked to keep the country together by keeping the central government small. Toleration and decentralized federalism became hallmarks of his long legacy in politics.

Relying on Markets

To help Canadians compete with the colossus to the south, Laurier hoped the country would rely on private enterprise and open markets. A key ingredient, he believed, would have to be a lower cost of government and a lower tax burden in Canada than in the United States. He made it clear, in the words of Crowley, Clemens, and Veldhuis, “that people who came to Canada from south of the border or beyond the seas would find in the Dominion a society of free men and women where everyone was expected to work hard, and where, if they did so, they would keep more of the fruits of their labours than anywhere else, including the United States of America.”

Laurier never achieved the degree of free trade his conscience supported, but against powerful opposition he pushed Canada away from high protectionist tariffs. He wanted lower duties aimed more to raise revenue than to favor certain industries or regions at the expense of others. He made progress on some other fronts as well. He proposed balanced budgets as a way to keep Canada’s debt low and manageable. His policies opened the door for an explosion of immigration. Half a million hard-working immigrants rushed to Canada during his tenure, building a strong economy and a melting pot of countless cultures in the process.

Laurier’s record was not perfect from a libertarian perspective. For example, he supported subsidies to transcontinental railroads, a major departure from his otherwise pro-enterprise, limited-government philosophy. But as twentieth-century Canadian prime ministers go, he clearly stands apart and above. My friends in Vancouver don’t believe any PM since Laurier did as much for liberty as he did.

I now keep a Canadian five-dollar bill in my wallet just for those occasions when I meet a Canadian and the conversation turns to politics. We will lament the caliber of more recent politicians on both sides of the border but at least I can now point to Laurier’s picture and say, “We can do better, and indeed, you have.”

Lawrence W. Reed

Lawrence W. Reed is FEE's President Emeritus, Humphreys Family Senior Fellow, and Ron Manners Global Ambassador for Liberty, having served for nearly 11 years as FEE’s president (2008-2019). He is author of the 2020 book, Was Jesus a Socialist? as well as Real Heroes: Incredible True Stories of Courage, Character, and Conviction and Excuse Me, Professor: Challenging the Myths of Progressivism. Follow on LinkedIn and Like his public figure page on Facebook. His website is www.lawrencewreed.com.

This article was originally published on FEE.org. Read the original article.

Alberta Premier Ralph Klein on This Day in History

 

This Day in History: Former Alberta Premier Ralph Klein was born on this day in 1942. He was one of the most popular Premier's in Alberta and earned the title of King Ralph (and Alberta’s Ronald Reagan) by turning Alberta into an economic powerhouse. He did so by making drastic cuts in government and privatizing government services. Less government always means more freedom. When Klein took office the government there was awash in debt. 

"Just one day after assuming the premiership, Mr. Klein cut the size of the cabinet from 26 to 17 ministers, and amalgamated 22 committees into four super-committees. He forced all MLAs and civil servants to take a 5% pay cut...When all was said and done, Mr. Klein had eliminated the deficit, paid off the debt and ushered in a new era of prosperity for the province." Source

The federal government had to do the same in the early 90's to save the country. At the time "Canada suffered a deep recession and teetered on the brink of a debt crisis caused by rising government spending. The Wall Street Journal said that growing debt was making Canada an 'honorary member of the third world' with the 'northern peso' as its currency. But Canada reversed course and cut spending, balanced its budget, and enacted various pro-market reforms." Source

As a result the Canadian economy boomed and unemployment plunged.

History offers us another example of this with the US government 100 years ago. There was a depression in 1920-1921 that sent unemployment up to 12 percent. The government therefore liquidated wasteful uses of capital, government spending was cut, and taxes were reduced. The economy bounced back stronger and we got the roaring 20's.

In contrast, the great depression in the 1930's was marred with endless government intrusions into the economy that only prolonged the misery that everyone felt. When government gets out the way, we all prosper.

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The Black Friday Tornado in Edmonton on This Day in History

 

This Day In History: A major tornado hits Edmonton on this day in 1987. I remember this as I had just left Edmonton the day before. The event came to be called Black Friday. 

The Edmonton tornado of 1987, was a powerful and devastating tornado that ripped through the eastern parts of Edmonton, Alberta, Canada and parts of neighboring Strathcona County on the afternoon of Friday, July 31, 1987. It was one of seven other tornadoes in central Alberta the same day.

The tornado peaked at F4 on the Fujita scale and remained on the ground for an hour, cutting a swath of destruction 30.8 km (19.1 mi) in length and up to 1.3 km (0.81 mi) wide in some places. It killed 27 people, and injured more than 300, destroyed more than 300 homes, and caused more than C$332.27 million (equivalent to $665 million in 2020) in property damage at four major disaster sites. The loss of life, injuries and destruction of property made it the worst natural disaster in Alberta's recent history and one of the worst in Canada's history.

The first "recorded" tornado in Alberta was in Vermillion in 1907. The first recorded Canadian tornado was in the Niagara Peninsula, Ontario in 1792.

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