Conservative Values Series: The Conservative Free Market Identity Crisis

REAL CONSERVATIVES BELIEVE IN FREE MARKETS

If it seems to you like the modern conservative movement is having an identity crisis, you’re not wrong. Nowhere is this more apparent than the waning commitment to free markets.

Generally speaking, small-scale conservatives understand that free markets are the most efficient and the most effective way to grow our economy.

The forces of supply and demand create competition, which helps ensure that the best goods and services are provided to consumers at the lowest possible price.

But who decides what the best goods and services are? In a free market system, you do. The free market is the most democratic economic system because it allows individuals to choose which products they will produce and consume.

Conversely, small conservatives are supposed to oppose government interference in the economy. There is a reason for this. Every time governments subsidize certain industries, invest taxpayer dollars in certain companies or use regulation to interfere in the marketplace, they effectively overrule the will of the people.

It should come as no surprise that Canada’s federal Liberal government has no respect for the will of the people as expressed by the free market. It seems every second month the federal government dumps hundreds of millions into global corporations for everything from electric vehicle battery plants to crickets-for-human-consumption.

Unfortunately, it seems provincial conservative parties are at the front of the line playing the same game.

Here in Alberta, for example, the government uses taxes and regulation to interfere in multiple industries, then proudly advertises its efforts online. No mention is made of the fact that such efforts contributed to a doubling of the electric bills that Albertans now pay.

Alberta has also set up an entire Crown Corporation to invest taxpayer dollars in chosen industries. The Invest Alberta homepage advertises that it has provided $19.3 billion to 883 active clients, creating 27,470 jobs. That works out to more than $700,000 per job created. Apparently, this “free market” conservative government thinks this is something worth bragging about.

I doubt former Premier Ralph Klein, who dedicated himself to getting “government out of the business of being in business,” would agree.

If provincial governments like Alberta’s United Conservative Party want to follow the federal Liberals down the path of Chinese-style central economic planning, they certainly can continue to do so.

If so, however, they should take word “conservative” out of their brand names.

Real conservatives believe in free markets.