Maybe We Need It After All, Eh?

In traditional conservative thought, the role of government is pretty narrowly defined; with the emphasis placed on individual liberty, government must minimize its intrusion into that liberty, providing only the necessities that promote security such as armies, police forces, and prisons. Taxes are bad, except as they support that security. The rest of life's activities should be largely self-regulating, the wisdom of the market prevailing in the bulk of those activities.

In her column today, Susan Delacourt says the times we live in challenge that notion.

If there is any upside to the ongoing blockades, strangled rail lines, the threat of a virus pandemic, even the struggle between environment and economy in Canada these days, it is this — very few people are arguing for the government to get out of the way.

Smaller government hasn’t looked like the answer to any of the problems besetting Justin Trudeau’s Liberals in early 2020. Less politics, maybe, but not less government.

Even that ardent Conservative, Alberta Premier Jason Kenney, was musing this week about getting the government involved in financing the oil industry.

We have been hit hard lately, with crises ranging from the Iranian downing of a passenger jet killing many Canadians to the corona virus spread to rail blockades. None of those situations evoke cries for the government to mind its own business. Indeed, we look to government to address these issues and protect us from the vagaries of the world.

...the federal government has been very active this year in countries outside its jurisdiction — flying Canadians out of virus-affected spots in China and elsewhere, assisting families of the air-crash victims on the ground in Iran.

As well,

[i]t turns out ... that we do need the federal government to keep the rails running, or so Trudeau’s critics have been saying.

This past week, we learned that the federal government had been working quietly behind the scenes to get CN trains running on rival CP tracks, in a bid to avert total paralysis of train transportation. It would have been interesting to see the reaction if Transport Minister Marc Garneau had simply shrugged in the face of the blockades and said this was a matter for the private sector to settle.

The fact is, we do look to government not only for protection, but also reassurance:

...as the virus in China has been morphing into the threat of a global pandemic, pressure is building on the federal government to protect citizens. The markets may be freaking out, but the state is expected to be calm and non-panicky — and watching out for us. Rugged individualism is all well and good when we’re faced with paying our taxes, but perhaps not entirely our approach when it comes to safeguarding our health and lives. Questions are beginning to be asked as well about how the government will act to shore up any economic havoc wreaked by the virus scare

Delacourt's conclusion?

Government is based on the premises that citizens need the state. Sometimes it takes a crisis or two to remind us of that simple idea.