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Whatever anyone thinks of Donald Trump or his policies, he has drastically deregulated, facilitated increased energy production and reduced petroleum imports (down to a third of the country’s needs and falling steadily), and reinforced the incentive economy; and he is setting out a clear range of policies. The reduction of air and water pollution is retained, but the suppositions of man-created warming or climate change is a matter of agnostic skepticism. Non-unionized schools locally directed are being favoured over the state system that has degenerated halfway towards a virtual daycare standard of instruction. The tax bill sharply reduces the deductibility of state income taxes from federally taxable income, so states who elect incompetent governments like those of the Cuomos in New York and Jerry Brown in California (coincidentally Democrats), will pay for it in their taxes. And the pending bill will lightly tax income on the endowments of immense, flaccid American universities (that have often ceased to be centres of free thought and expression encouraging vigorous discussion of a wide variety of viewpoints).

Trump will defeat his present opponents, but his successor will be a less startling personality

These events will have their consequences in this country beyond fluctuations of the trans-border brain drain. This country’s federal deficit is too high, and wildly beyond the government’s promises of comparative frugality. The current version of the proposed small business tax is only marginally preferable to the insane original bill presented for quick passage in the summer. (The Senate of Canada has done itself proud and shown its value by proposing that the whole concept of monitoring the legitimacy of “income-sprinkling” within family businesses by federal tax inspectors, for the purpose of collecting less than $200 million dollars a year for a government running an annual deficit of almost $18 billion, be abandoned. The Senate national finance committee was also right to call for a complete review and overhaul of the federal tax system as was conducted by the Carter Commission of 1966.) Canadians should not be complacent about our tax rates and structure, nor about the state of social services. As the Wall Street Journal pointed out in a prominent editorial on Wednesday, our health-care system isn’t working. Citing the Fraser Institute, it showed its readers that a single-payer system leads to impossible delays, and caused 63,500 Canadians to seek health care outside Canada last year, as more than a million Canadians are now awaiting doctor-recommended treatment, and that there is a 21-week average delay between referral by a general practitioner and specialist treatment. “The lesson,” the editorial noted, “is that Canada hasn’t repealed the basic law of economics that scarce resources must be rationed by price or time… Free treatment isn’t much good if it’s not available.”