Something on my Mind: Don't Cook the Golden Goose (4)

I never thought that such a simple story about a goose and golden eggs could produce as many columns as it has. Are you still with me?

A quick review is in order here: The goose could represent big or small business and industry, or individual families or people agencies. There is economic benefit, both directly and indirectly, by not being taxed and regulated to death. By over-taxation and over-regulation, the producer of what is good (the bird itself and the eggs it produces), is stifled, squashed and finally taken out—all to the detriment of a free society.

There: Strange, isn't it, how I am able to summarize in one paragraph what took me three columns to write?

The application of business or volunteerism (I am isolating one sample from each application) is very relevant to where we are in Alberta today. When there is a top-down government motivated by a socialist worldview, we have this golden goose scenario played out. When there is no fresh, unrestricted, healthy economic environment providing opportunities to build, sell, serve, or give, the results can be a very difficult place to thrive.

The spirit of of free enterprise must not be reigned in. We need to encourage ambition, initiative, and creativity. Again, whether it's at the business investment or the local service level, it's all the same.

Government at any level should be pro-business and pro-family. The two work together for the good of society on a large scale and for the individual on a small scale. When the "goose" thrives, good results, and all benefit. Anything less is simply not good enough. In fact, it is counter-productive.

This province has so much untapped potential, both to restore what has been stripped away and to create what has never been done before. There needs to be freedom that stimulates entrepreneurship and imagination.

I want to say "no strings attached," but that may be too generous. Also, so long as the string doesn't become a noose or restrictive tether, I'm good.

When government is good, there's nothing like it; but when government is bad, there's nothing like it either. (That, by the way, applies to all governments.)

The key is to unbind the entrepreneurial free spirits, whether they are corporations, industry, or small mom-and-pop enterprises, or individual families, and agencies, and let them go.

I think the goose analogy is a perfect illustration of what this is all about: feed and nourish vision, get the community working together, have limited government interference, then sit back and watch things grow.

I was a kid in British Columbia when W.A.C. Bennett ruled. Since then, BC has never been the same, even though it's the same province, same populace, with all the same ingredients.

I see the same destructive, erosive potential for Alberta. We've just got to create that optimum environment for the "golden egg-layers" and let them thrive.

Bring on the birds!