Freedom Flyer 17

In the wake of the NDP's big victory in the Ontario election, most observers are trying to assess its impact on provincial politics.

Things can only go from bad to worse under the NDP. During the campaign they promised to raise taxes, the provincial debt and the minimum wage, which would surely harm the economy. And that means our standard of living will fall.

It is a tragic irony that the party gaining popular support is the very party that instigated many of the policies that made the Liberals and Conservatives look so bad in the first place.

Now, in order to fill the moral and intellectual vacuum created by both Liberals and Conservatives, Ontarians appear to have voted for a greater dose of the disease that has rotted the core of both "liberalism" and "conservatism" alike: socialism.

Has the Ontario electorate gone mad? Does the soaring popularity of the New Democrats signal a dramatic shift to a left-wing, state control ideology? Are we all fated to live in a totalitarian society that allows but few individual freedoms and choices?

To the first two questions I would respond with a definite no. The NDP was elected by people voting against David Peterson, not for Bob Rae. But the answer to the last depends on the future choices Ontario voters make at the polls, and those choices depend entirely upon the available alternatives.

Most people have become used to voting for political parties whose policies are based on nothing more than political expediency. As a result, they have found themselves faced with voting for the "lesser of three evils". Current public perception is such that, for the time being at least, the NDP seems to fit that shoe.

Ontarians need a viable political alternative that is consistently dedicated to preserving individual rights and freedoms: that is, the right of the individual to responsibly make his own personal or economic choices, and not to have someone else's choice imposed upon him by whichever political party happens to have popular support.

Contrary to popular belief, the real loser in the recent election was not David Peterson and the Liberals. The real loser was the individual voter and taxpayer who, ironically, would have been just as much a loser if either of the other two parties had won an electoral victory.

Both the Liberals and Conservatives have been copying the NDP's ideas for so long the three parties are basically the same. They all believe they should run our lives for us, and the only purpose of elections is to give them such authority.

For this reason, the only result of electing these parties to government is higher taxes, poorer government services, and an unhealthy economy.

The policy of appeasing the socialists has reached its inevitable outcome. It is time for those people who oppose the socialist agenda to stop wasting their time and start working with a party that has a real alternative to offer. It's time for them to get involved with Freedom Party.