My last column was about how governments brainwash people into thinking that they have to depend on government for their every need and how the government gradually gets them hooked with their various government support and subsidy programs.
So this column will be somewhat of a followup to my last column.
The crisis caused by the COVID-19 virus has been an ideal vehicle for this government to train people to become dependent on government assistance.
It is already obvious that there are disincentives for many businesses due to wage assistance such as the Canadian Emergency Response Benefit (CERB).
That is the program designed to replace EI and pay unemployed people $2000 a month.
As I pointed out in my last column, Trudeau pops out of his rabbit hole every morning to announce another assistance program for some disadvantaged group or another.
This has been going on for over two months [he is still doing it]. As my wife pointed out, the only group he hasn’t helped so far are the prostitutes who can’t do their work with a separation of six feet.
While the original intent appears to be good, some of these programs are already having unintended consequences.
According to a column written by Brian Lilley in the Edmonton Sun, there is massive fraud occurring with the CERB program.
What I find appalling is officials who became aware of this were told to ignore it for now.
We are talking about 200,000 cases a month at $2,000 a month for a total of $400 million dollars a month in fraud.
This kind of thing should be nipped in the bud now. There is no way that the government will ever get that money back after it has been spent.
Knowing how government works, they will spend more money trying to collect it after the fact than what was lost in the first place.
There are two other situations that are occurring due to the CERB program that are having serious consequences right now.
Vegetable farmers can’t find the labour in B.C. and in Eastern Canada to plant their crops. Some of their usual labour has been temporary foreign workers who are not available due to the COVID-19 situation.
However, there are lots of workers available in Canada but if a worker earns more than a $1,000 they are no longer eligible for the CERB subsidy, so why work?
The lobster industry has the same problem. The processing plants are short of workers to process all of the lobster that the fishermen are able to catch. As a result, the plants have had to reduce the amount of lobster they can accept to process.
So we have this interesting situation. The price of the lobster is about half of what it should be due to available oversupply but the price out of the plant is higher than normal due to a shortage of supply.
This is similar to the beef supply situation in Alberta.
If this progressive government had of allowed the EI system to work as it was designed to work, the farmers and fishermen would have been able to carry on business as usual.
There are more of these examples where you can depend on the government to solve your financial problem that are backfiring but I don’t have space to itemize them here.
These are examples that show the government programs to capture pigs are working for the government.
These programs are all designed to discourage innovation and motivation bu looking to government to solve your problems.
My wife reminded me of something the other day and I can remember this from the depression.
There was a time when a man felt absolute shame if he had to except dole or handouts from government or anyone else to feed his family.
It doesn’t seem to bother the government trained pigs a bit!
