Socialists Ran for the Border, and now Canada is ranked more free?

After Bush won re-election in 2004, tons of people jumped ship to Canada for "a better, more Socialistic life".

So....how is it Canada is now able to make several major cuts to Socialistic policy--with a borderline Communist mainstream media, no less--and has now( if only temporarily) outranked the USA in terms of being free?

Could someone please explain this, cause it makes zero sense to me.

Post 1

Wednesday, October 27, 2010 - 2:56pm

What is your source on this? What criteria did they use to rank countries? Freedom is not a low-level matter of fact like area or population, so you can't judge the finding without this information.

I doubt that more than a few hundred Americans moved to Canada. It was mostly cheap talk, like moving to France. A ton is maybe fifteen adults, so your statement could be literally true.

Post 2

Wednesday, October 27, 2010 - 9:42pm

While I don't expect their "improved freedom" to last long, the source was a recent piece by the Heritage Foundation..it was even mentioned recently on Stossel.

http://www.heritage.org/Multimedia/Video/2010/10/Beach-FBN-10-14-10

Here's the clip from Stossel. I can see us being below Hong Kong in terms of economic freedom with ease; but CANADA?!!!!!!!!!!!!

Again, it probably won't last, but it doesn't make it any less baffling.

Post 3

Thursday, October 28, 2010 - 10:00am

Perhaps because we have since elected a Communist?

Post 4

Thursday, October 28, 2010 - 8:36pm

You can visit the site here and explore some links on what metrics they use

http://www.heritage.org/index/

Here's the map of economic freedom

http://www.heritage.org/index/pdf/2010/Index2010_map.pdf

It's obviously not something as easily measured as population, but it's certainly not immeasurable.

Post 5

Friday, October 29, 2010 - 3:06pm

Peter Reidy asks how the Heritage Foundation came up with their list of national scores on Economic Freedom. The metrics are described in an answer to the question 'How do you measure economic freedom?'

We measure ten components of economic freedom, assigning a grade in each using a scale from 0 to 100, where 100 represents the maximum freedom. The ten component scores are then averaged to give an overall economic freedom score for each country. The ten components of economic freedom are:

Business Freedom | Trade Freedom | Fiscal Freedom | Government Spending | Monetary Freedom | Investment Freedom | Financial Freedom | Property rights | Freedom from Corruption | Labor Freedom

How can Canada rank slightly above the USA? Seems somewhere in the relative ratings the Canadian setup outscored the American. You can compare the two countries according to the criteria here for Canada and here for the USA.
(Edited by William Scott Scherk on 10/29, 3:06pm)

Post 6

Friday, November 5, 2010 - 2:07pm

I am Canadian and can tell that there has not been an influx of Americans, at least not in Ontario. Perhaps there have been some that have moved to B.C. but I would doubt the number is significant.

As far as freedom, I can tell you that the only ones who are free are those who a truly ignorant of what the future holds, particularly if we, as a society, are unwilling to assume responsibility for our own wellbeing and continue to look to government to provide all.

Our welfare state and crippling social programs will certainly make Canada less competitive in the future and as such, lower our ranking on the freedom index. Taxes will need to increase to support the programs that we have and at present governments have been unwilling to make any significant cuts. Health care costs are staggering and will continue to rise. I could give many examples of wasteful spending and various levels of government in our faces on a daily basis.

Proud to be Canadian? We changed the definition of marriage, decriminalized marijuana, and most recently our Charter of Rights and Freedoms was used to strike down key provisions of our prostitution laws. Oh yes, and our provice now has a 13% tax applied to all goods and services within the province.

One need only look to the European socialist model to see where things are going in North America (U.S. and Canada included).

Has anyone found Galt's Gulch yet?

Cheers

Post 7

Friday, November 5, 2010 - 2:28pm

Welcome to RoR, Robert.

I agree with you except for this:

As far as freedom, I can tell you that the only ones who are free are those who a truly ignorant of what the future holds, particularly if we, as a society, are unwilling to assume responsibility for our own wellbeing and continue to look to government to provide all.

There is a particular sense of freedom (freedom from want, freedom from care, freedom from fear, etc) where what you said seems right, but that is not the same kind of freedom being referred to in the rest of this thread. I would argue that it isn't even a coherent kind of freedom. It's like a freedom from existence, or something like that.

Ed

Post 8

Friday, November 5, 2010 - 6:07pm

Welcome, Robert.

I was surprised to see that rating showing Canada ahead of the United States. But as fast as the U.S. has been moving left it didn't seem unreasonable - just horrible that our two nations have been going so far in the wrong direction.

I think that Heritage Foundation study was only measuring economic freedom which would not include many of the freedoms that Canada has squelched in recent decades (like hate speech, definition of marriage, etc.) Maybe the study also included an uncertainty factor (down here, we don't know what is coming up).

Post 9

Friday, November 5, 2010 - 6:15pm

Welcome, Robert!

You wrote:

We changed the definition of marriage, decriminalized marijuana, and most recently our Charter of Rights and Freedoms was used to strike down key provisions of our prostitution laws.

Could you elaborate on these changes and how they degraded or enhanced freedom?

(Edited by Luke Setzer on 11/05, 6:16pm)

Post 10

Saturday, November 6, 2010 - 9:14pm

As a person with both American and Canadian citizenship I feel I can chip in. I was born and lived in Canada for 62 years. I haven't resided in Canada for over 15 years and travel on my US passport. I haven't relinquished my Canadian citizenship primarily because my children are Canadian and I have a myriad of nieces and nephews who are also Canadian. None of them understand the American spirit and American exceptionalism, and this is a cause of some friction.

One of the most grating incidents for me was when Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau introduced the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and it had a clause within it with respect to where and how the French language would be incorporated into the English-speaking areas. The language was that "it would be allowed and supported where numbers warrant." I have no basic problem with French usage within English speaking areas but the namby-pamby approach can mean anything the government may choose.Compare that with the heroic, inspirational and precise language in the US Bill of Rights.

To be fair, most of my nieces and nephews are doing very well financially and some are wealthy and have shown a great deal of entrepreneurial spirit.

My e-mail conversations with boyhood and adult friends just don't "get it." They can't conceive a situation where a citizenry might require firearms for protection against a repressive government. I don't quite know how I have a truly American mind set as my childhood friends were exposed to the same media and influences as I was but I always regarded the US as a place where all things were possible.

I truly don't know whether I would be better off financially if I lived in Canada as my income depends of the value of the $CA but in any case I'd rather be poor here than "comfortable" in Canada.

Sam

Post 11

Saturday, February 25, 2012 - 6:20am

Well gay marriage is now legal in canada, taxes definately suck and many look at me like I am some weird alien mutant when I mention private hospitals would take a huge burden off of the system. I live in Alberta where most other Canadians view it almost like it is its own country. 50% of canada's job growth came from alberta in 2011..go figure.
For the average joe most canadians are relatively happy.
Me? As an objectivist I am angry alllll the time when ever I read the paper.

Post 12

Sunday, February 26, 2012 - 2:30pm

i gather that the canadia healthcare system is quite egalatarian. so any talk of competition or privatization is met with scorn i would imagine

Post 13

Monday, February 27, 2012 - 5:08pm