In Canada, at least in the political realm, it is rare to come across a paleoconservative or a libertarian. Rather than finding a political junkie sitting with a group of like-minded people at a pub discussing monetary policy, you can now find a senior politician running for the Conservative Party leadership talking about monetary policy.
His name is Maxime Bernier.
It is a shock. If Justin Trudeau is any indication, you’d think that Canada only has politicians promoting more government, more welfare, more debt.
And it isn’t just a conservative revolt to Trudeau’s majority victory. Bernier has been talking about economics, monetary policy and the gold standard for a long time.
In June 2010, Bernier posted an op-ed in the National Post entitled “How the central bank eats your money.” It’s something you’d find written by someone like former Texas Republican Congressman Ron Paul or a piece published on some obscure libertarian blog.
Here is what he wrote:
“…At a time when there were no central banks and when money was calculated as a certain quantity of gold or silver.
Deflation is not a threat to our prosperity. On the contrary, in a situation where the money supply is stable, it is the manifestation of prosperity!
Prosperity has nothing to do with the quantity of money that we have in our pockets, but rather with the quantity of goods that we can buy. And if we can buy more goods with the same amount of money because prices are lower, then we are more prosperous.
This is why there is no reason to fear a drop in prices. And why the interventions by central banks to prevent prices from going down causes more harm than good to the economy.
Now, given all this, what should we do? I believe that within a few years, we will need to hold a serious debate about returning to the gold standard.”
These kinds of remarks coming from a Canadian politician are rarer than the Toronto Maple Leafs winning the Stanley Cup.
As much of the Conservatives currently in government rail against updated sex-ed curriculums, immigration and Trudeau’s selfie obsession, you have Bernier discussing the meat and potatoes of what conservatism used to be about: small government, tax cuts for all, non-interventionism and monetary policy. It’s refreshing to finally have a Barry Goldwater-, Milton Friedman- or Ron Paul-type conservative in Canada, particularly in today’s times.
Here is a clip of Bernier talking to a young supporter:
You can’t also forget that he cited Murray Rothbard, Henry Hazlitt, Friedrich Hayek and Ludwig von Mises on his Facebook page this past summer!
Right now, Bernier is competing against Trump-lites, Harperites and lightweights for the CPC nomination. So far, one can only hope that the former Foreign Affairs Minister can win the nomination and actually return this kind of conservativism to the forefront of Canadian politics.
(Please note: if you’d like to know more about Bernier, we’ll be publishing a detailed profile of Bernier and his policies soon.)
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The American People need to push their elected representatives into this subject, hopefully before the coming economic collapse.