James Albers is a Calgary-based management consultant specializing in leadership development.Ottawa has been issuing a flurry of pronouncements of late, each laden with promises that some new program will “create value” or “deliver returns.” The press, ever obliging, repeats these claims as though they were gospel. Not a single voice in the commentariat bothers to ask the obvious: is this true?It is not. Governments do not create value. They never have. .EYRE: Beware the ‘nation-building’ boosters: Why governments shouldn’t pick winners and losers.That is not their nature. This delusion — that Ottawa can substitute itself for the market, and do better — is not merely a passing error. It is a crucial issue. Persist in it, and Ottawa will not just distort the economy; it will bankrupt the nation.Adam Smith, that Scottish sage, wrote of the “invisible hand” — the unseen guide of supply and demand, propelled by individuals pursuing their own interests, and in so doing, producing the prosperity of the whole. To this the French added their wisdom: laissez-nous faire — leave us alone. It was a philosophy of humility: the state should stay out, for the market itself is the true regulator..Now fast forward. What do we see? Governments worldwide with fingers in every pie, their hands not invisible but heavy, clumsy, and leaden. In Ottawa, and in many a provincial capital, bureaucrats with no skin in the game pull the levers of vast sums of public money, unchecked, untested, and — most galling — unaccountable. Their salaries, already swollen, now eclipse the private sector, bonuses included. And what are these bonuses for? Not for excellence, certainly. Canada Post, CBC — examples abound of bureaucracies rewarded in the face of mediocrity or worse.Contrast this with the entrepreneur: risk capital, sweat equity, and the brutal honesty of the balance sheet. Fail, and you are culled. Succeed, and you are rewarded. Such is the stern but honest arithmetic of the market..WENZEL: Teaching our kids the wrong lesson.Government, by contrast, knows no such discipline. Consider the Trans Mountain pipeline. Driven out by Ottawa’s anti-energy zeal, Kinder Morgan exited, and the government was “forced” to take over. Result? A project once budgeted at $7 billion swelled grotesquely to $34 billion. Over four times the original cost. And accountability? None. No heads rolled, no bonuses clawed back, no bureaucrat chastened. Only the taxpayer left with the bill.And then, with comic disingenuousness, Premier David Eby of British Columbia declares there is no private interest in pipelines. Of course there isn’t — how could there be, with Ottawa and Victoria erecting barricades at every turn? The invisible hand has been shackled by the meddling hand of government, which never builds but always bloats, and drives up the price of everything it touches. It was once said of Ottawa: give it the Sahara Desert, and in two years there will be a shortage of sand..Now Ottawa extends its ambitions further still: into housing, into infrastructure, into the very marrow of the economy. What private initiative might do better, more efficiently, and at lower cost, the state, having strangled the private sector with regulations, now insists on commandeering.Here in Alberta, Premier Smith has seen the danger. Her naming of the “Nine Nasty Policies” was not only apt but essential. These directives from Ottawa drive out investment, hobble the energy industry, and threaten our way of life. They are not nuisances; they are existential threats..OLDCORN: Moe's China EV tariff flip flop betrays Saskatchewan producers.It is unmistakable: Ottawa has pushed too far into the market, and must roll back the very regulations and policies that are strangling it.So Albertans look to their Premier. She has set the right tone, and her warnings are clear. But her own deadline approaches — the Grey Cup looms. And when Ottawa does not bend, as it surely will not, the question becomes unavoidable: what then, Premier Smith? What then?James Albers is a Calgary-based management consultant specializing in leadership development.
