Hosted by Christopher Thomas, and researched by Mark Mietkiewicz, the interview proved to be the most objective media coverage received by Freedom Party during the Election'90 campaign. As a media event, it also generated the greatest public response in the party's experience. Here's how it went:

C.B.C.: David Peterson has made reference in this election campaign to a "cranky" electorate. Well, when it comes to the Freedom Party, they're not just "cranky" --- they're mad as hell. At least that's what their lawn signs say. Their buttons include phrases like "Don't steal. The government hates competition." The Freedom Party hates a lot about government and the role that it plays in our lives.

That anger began to grow for Robert Metz when he was an accounting student. Now he is the full-time leader of the Freedom Party. They're one of the alternate voices and forces vying for your vote this September 6, and as as part of our continuing series on the politics of protest, Robert Metz joined me recently to define his view of the role of government and the definition of freedom...

METZ: Essentially, we look at the purpose of government --- which is what we're running in politics for --- as (an institution necessary) to prevent some people from imposing their choices, their points of view and their will upon other people. Quite to the contrary, what we see today in the political marketplace is lobby groups, interest groups, political parties and various other interested parties all out campaigning to impose their point of view on someone else and to hope that the person who "represents" them will do that for them.

So you have people who, for example, may be against Sunday shopping and they want to force people who have no objection to Sunday shopping by denying them their freedom to do so. We could apply this to a number of issues and frankly we think that is not what a government is all about. Not in a free society. There are a lot of other kinds of societies.

C.B.C.: What's left to do then, if you don't do anything as the government?

METZ: We do need a system of laws so that we can arbitrate our disputes; that's the essential purpose of a government --- to be the arbiter, not a player in the game. It should be the referee. To that extent, a government's fundamental purpose is to provide a court system to arbitrate those disputes, to provide the necessary mechanisms in place to have police and a general defence system from foreign aggression.

C.B.C.: Can you give me a little bit of your own background, your own history --- what put you on this path?

METZ:That goes back quite a long way. I guess it came from my accounting and banking background. I worked for a large trust company for about eight or nine years and I watched interest rates rise from very low rates to 22% or so, if you recall in the early eighties. I saw businesses fail. I had a chance to visit abroad --- countries in the Carribean --- and watch what their governments' policies were doing in those countries. And I started putting the pieces together. Mainly --- I started asking questions.

I confess in my early career, I didn't know the difference between left-wing and right-wing, what a New Democrat was, what a Conservative was, what a Liberal was. By the way, none of them stand for the words their party (uses). But in any case, I started seeing that the ultimate underlying cause of a lot of our financial problems, our economic problems, the lack of services, and ever-increasing taxes, was government policy itself.

It's a universal phenomenon. It's not unique to Ontario, or Canada, or Europe, or the United States. It's everywhere. Wherever governments do not acknowledge and respect the individual choices of their individual citizens, you're going to run ultimately into problems.

I honestly believe that if governments were limited to their essential functions, I doubt if we'd see a five to ten percent tax rate across the board --- entirely, everything included. All we're doing is giving a licence to politicians to continually raise taxes. The Peterson government just raised them some thirty odd times, with no accountability for people to have any control over where the money goes.

To the extent that governments continue to force us to pay for various social programs, I think the taxpayer should at least have a right to direct those taxes to the institution of his choice.

C.B.C.: How would that work?

METZ: Well, in education, you should be able to direct your education taxes to the school of your choice. In health care, if you're going to be paying a health tax, you should be able to direct it towards the hospital of your choice. The same with the welfare agency of your choice.

If the government's going to force me to fork out $2000, let's say, for welfare, well then I should have a choice where that goes. The government shouldn't be running the welfare agency. I should be able to say, for example, this year I'm going to direct my welfare taxes to, say, the United Way. Next year, or two years down the line I find that they're not spending the money exactly the way I would like to see it better spent. Maybe that year I'll direct it to the Salvation Army. Not only does the taxpayer get control of where his money's going, but he gets to see the results for his money, and there's competition encouraged in those fields. We haven't as yet eliminated the government from the sphere yet, but that's a first necessary step.

C.B.C.: Now take me through the education system, how that would look. If somebody is allowed to devote their education taxes to the school of their choice and that school happens to be perhaps a private school that has written or unwritten barriers to other people, how do you make sure that education is equally accesible?

METZ: Well, there is no such thing as "equally accessible" education. We don't have it today, we've never had it, and certainly under a government system that is impossible.

C.B.C: Is it an ideal you would believe in?

METZ: No. Absolutely not. Equality is a terrible thing in terms of results. Equality applies to one thing only --- where it's necessary --- and that is to individual rights. We should all have equal individual rights, but that does not mean we make equal choices.

I'm sure everyone's familiar with the analogy that if you start off with 100 people who all had an equal amount of money, by the next day, not two of them would have the same amount of money, because they all make different choices.

C.B.C:But how do you make sure the education system is accessible to everyone?

METZ: That's how the marketplace works. If there's a demand for a certain school and there's money pouring towards that, that's where you're going to see the development. It's just like it works in shoes, and in food, and in any other area where we're buying and selling or trading commodities and services. Education is a service. Healthcare is a service.

C.B.C.: I still don't understand how you make sure that the kid from the poor area of town gets to go to school.

METZ: There again, if he's given the opportunity to choose the school of his choice, and there's a demand for that school, they will expand in that area. You can't "make sure". What are you asking for? How can you "make sure"? How can I make sure that you're going to supply me with a service I want? You may not want to. So I look elsewhere --- to someone who does supply me with the service I want. That's what competition's about.

But the more we look at our health and education systems, everything's being "equalized". And when you equalize something, you lower the standard, you don't raise it. That's just the natural economic consequence of trying to spread out as many dollars to as many people as possible. And it does not work. It's a short-term "solution" to something that will become a major problem in the long-term.

Ultimately, I'd like to see voluntary charities have more leeway. I think if a person wants to give money to a voluntary charity, he should take it off the bottom line of his taxes entirely. Why should the government have the right to spend the money and not the individual himself?

C.B.C.: What would the hospitals look like? I mean, would every hospital decide, "Well to meet the competition, we all have to have cardiac units," (or) "To meet the competition we all have to have private rooms," or..?

METZ: I get a lot of American stations on my cable at home. And I see hospitals advertising for precisely what you're saying. And I see nothing wrong with that. People have private health insurance. It's not as if you have to pay taxes for a hospital. Really you shouldn't. You should have the health insurance to cover it. That is an individual responsibility. If there are a lot of people who don't carry the appropriate health insurance, then the government should direct its efforts strictly at the people who need it, not the people who don't.

We practice universality in this country. (We must) understand that the main reason for that is so that politicians can get votes. I mean, you're going to be more inclined to vote for a politician who promises you something, rather than promising someone else something free at your expense. Therefore, we just deplete the system. We're spending money in our health care system on routine examinations, on routine things. When you're dealing with a person with a serious problem, suddenly he finds out that there's no money available, because of the intensive amount of money his problem needs. It's all been expended on routine expenses for a lot of other people.

C.B.C.: Listening to you reminds me of some times that I've spent out in California. I'm sure you're familiar with the Proposition 13 phenomenon, when there were major votes on the part of Californians to cut their taxes.

METZ: Yes I am. And unfortunately, it backfired.

C.B.C.: It really did! Boy, they suddenly realized their roads weren't being kept up, their education system fell apart...

METZ: ... because it was a tax protest in isolation. It was strictly a property tax protest. When you cut the property taxes --- sure, they got their property taxes cut --- then they weren't getting the services that those property taxes were supposed to go towards. There was no alternate mechanism for how (to) get these services. And it's just like people today protesting the GST. We might get rid of the GST, but you can bet we're going to get another tax that's a lot worse to replace it.

C.B.C.: So how do you avoid what California discovered by cutting its tax base?

METZ: Well, you have to educate the public to understand what taxes are. Taxes are not a payment for service received. The reason we call something a tax is because a government legislates and forces the money out of our pocket, whether we agree with what we're paying for or not, whether we want the service or not, whether we think it's moral or not. There are so many instances here where taxes, and the way they're collected, violate all our fundamental freedoms.

And yes, we do owe government a certain amount of money for the basic services it provides but most of that can be privately covered too. Governments are there, for example, to register private property and to protect people's private property rights. There's nothing wrong with paying a registration fee to pay for that thing being filed and kept in a registry office. And indeed, we do things like that today. But the taxes we are charged do not go to those basic services. They go to other goals set up by other groups, and not everyone agrees with that. We think that people should be able to support what they believe in.

I mean. we have "freedom of association", supposedly; we have "freedom of conscience", supposedly; if we can't exercise these things we don't have them. It's only empty words on paper.

C.B.C: I suppose there are those who would say that what you advocate is the freedom to be rich.

METZ: Of course. Would I make it a crime to be rich? Is there any justification to say that every individual in this country shouldn't have the freedom to be rich, to aspire to be rich? I'm in a generation where I'm finding, because I'm in my late thirties, that people in my age bracket or lower do not have the opportunities and do not have the likelihood of becoming millionaires or becoming great successes as much as our parents did. And that is simply because the environment in which we live today is less free than it was when our parents were here.

C.B.C.: But it doesn't sound, and I know you will object to this, is it freedom without or freedom with a capacity for compassion for those who are left out?

METZ: Well of course with a capacity for compassion. It's a very important element of a free society and I think if you look at the record again, you'll find that free societies are the greatest examples of outpourings of compassion. Regardless of how much criticism a country like the United States gets internationally or whatever, look at the record. It's the number one compassionate society in the world. Canada's up there too, but we're way behind the States yet we criticize them a lot for their lack of compassion simply because they don't institute forced programs. And I think that speaks to the credit of their government, rather than to their lack of virtue.

C.B.C.: One issue that does seem to keep coming up in my discussions with all the leaders is that when it comes down to choice, freedoms, etc., somewhere along the way the word abortion comes up. Do you have a policy on that?

METZ: We certainly do. We believe in freedom of choice in abortion to the extent that a woman should be allowed to have one and the government doesn't have the right to restrict it. On the other hand, we don't believe that taxpayers and health insurance payers against their will should be paying for the practice. Again, it comes down to freedom of association. That's the basic issue.

I have always found it a great irony to watch anti- abortion groups protest individuals like Dr. Morgentaler, who is not taking their money out of their pockets, who is not using tax-funded money for abortions and by putting him out of business, they're putting the business back in the public hospital sphere, and they themselves are paying for the practice that they say they object so greatly to.

I have learned that you can't solve an issue like abortion, which is strictly a moral issue, through legislation. It is an impossibility. Regrettably, people are so single- minded about the issue that they don't understand that there is not a political resolution to the issue.

I'm personally oppposed to abortion,but as a matter of political consequence, I cannot impose my point of view on other people.

C.B.C.: ... And if a woman can't afford to pay for a private clinic...

METZ: Again, this comes back to the issue of poverty. If she can't afford to pay for an abortion, that doesn't justify sending all our tax dollars to pay for everybody's abortion. If she can't afford her abortion, she probably can't pay for her rent and her groceries and her train ticket and everything else. So again, that is where the help has to be directed --- not to the agency that's providing the service. What a backward way to do everything! What a wasteful way! What an uncaring way! Because all we're doing is drying up all the resources that we no longer have: the average taxpayer's paying 55% of his wages in tax. And that's average. Don't ever think that the poor are getting away without paying the same rate of taxes as everyone else.

We hear people like Bob Rae say that we've got to tax the corporations and the rich. But the corporations make our food. They make our clothes. They make all the very goods that especially the lower (economic levels) in society have to depend on. So when we say "let's tax the corporations" we are again saying "let's tax the poor", because it's going to be in the price of the goods they buy.

C.B.C.: One final question. As you well know, given the campaign you've been waging, this country has committed itself over a number of decades to principles of universality, principles of medical care provided by the government. Is Ontario really ready to even consider what you're talking about?

METZ: Maybe not. I'll accept that. But it's going to have to get ready. On that matter, there is no choice. The money's running out and we can see it by the issues that are coming to the electorate now. I think people are getting fed up with paying taxes. I think they're getting fed up with getting fewer services.

We're on the credit card principle, you know. We've jacked up the old Visa and Mastercard to the limit; now the payments are large but the benefits are few. And that's where we're at in the politicial structure in this country. Unless we turn that around, we can't compete in the world market, and we can't survive at home. We have to turn that around. The tax tap has to be shut off.

C.B.C.: The standard question I suppose for me is always, what attracts you to trying to do this from the outside rather than from within?

METZ: I don't think I'm doing it from the "outside". If I was going to do it from "within", I would have to lie to the electorate. I've been invited to join other parties, and if I had to join the major parties, I'd have to promise everybody something for nothing to get elected. That's the mentality that's still out there.

I feel so disgusted with today's politicians who, rather than lead, they choose to follow. Rather than set the new trend, they're following the old ones because they know that's where the votes are. But the truth of the matter is that they're all going to change their ways. Eventually. And if we become the party that can influence them, and be the one that gets them to change their ways --- and we've had success, measurable success, critical success in this very regard --- I think that makes it all worthwhile.

I'm not here for some pie-in-the- sky unachievable ideal or perfect society. I'm here to influence my little corner of the world, just like every other individual should be influencing their corner of the world. And that's where you start. We've broken a lot of myths. Yes, you can fight city hall and win --- and we've done it!

C.B.C.: Thank you for coming in.

METZ: Thank you for inviting me.

C.B.C.: Robert Metz is leader of the Freedom Party of Ontario.

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Page last updated on April 28, 2002