The busybodies in the federal government are planning yet one more step towards the full collectivization of Canadians: They’re planning to feed kids across the country via a “pan-Canadian” school lunch program..A recent release from Employment and Social Development Canada invites citizens to express their views on the plan by completing an online questionnaire. Submissions will be accepted until December 16..But it’s pretty clear they’re not really interested in hearing from anyone who might think this is a bad idea. You can tell by the questions they ask..Only the first question gives you the opportunity to say anything negative about the plan. It asks whether you think a school lunch program would be beneficial to children under 18 who are attending school. Your options are: strongly agree, agree, neither agree nor disagree, disagree, strongly disagree, don’t know, or prefer not to answer..All of the remaining questions assume that you’ve agreed or strongly agreed with the policy. They merely ask you about why you think it would be beneficial and how you’d like to see it implemented. They apparently want to know how to word their future promotional propaganda to appeal to the greatest number of voters..For instance, you can choose up to five different objectives for building “a future where more children can receive nutritious food at school.”.Or you can choose up to five actions that might be “most important for the success of a pan-Canadian school food policy”..But if you disagreed or strongly disagreed — as I did — with the whole idea of the government feeding children at school, there’s nowhere to express your reasons or suggest alternatives..The plan completely overlooks the role the government has played recently in increasing the poverty rate among families: How breadwinners became unemployed rather than comply with vaccine mandates, how government has reduced food and fuel supplies, thereby increasing grocery costs. Instead of attempting to roll back government spending — as if shovelling money out the door had no impact on inflation — government is planning to spend even more. Instead of undoing the laws, regulations and mandates that inflicted financial hardship, they’re going to cover the wounds with band-aids. Then they’ll expect everyone to be grateful for the band-aids and not think about what created the need in the first place..By their own statistics, this program would be unnecessary for 80 percent of schoolchildren whose parents can afford to feed them at home, yet the questionnaire suggests that the government might reduce the stigma attached to a free food program by making it available to all schoolchildren via a “pay what you can” model..Why would they want to reduce the stigma? It’s simple: They want to rope everybody into this program — make every kid in Canada get “free” school lunches to increase their dependency on the state in yet another way. The state already provides free health care, free education and now even dental subsidies for kids. Add food to the benefit package and there’s not really much left for parents to provide..Kids don’t pay taxes so they never see the downside of all this “free” stuff. From an early age, they’ll become good little socialists, thinking that everything in life is free and that the government is their benefactor..Once they’ve become used to this additional handout, reversing it will be almost impossible. When Margaret Thatcher, as UK secretary of education in 1971, tried to end the free provision of milk for school lunches, cries of “Thatcher, Thatcher, milk snatcher” dogged her for two decades..It’s predicted that the program will cost a billion dollars over five years. But like all such programs, expenses will probably exceed expectations. Pretty soon, collectivists will start wondering why the program includes only breakfast and lunch. Give ‘em supper and bedtime snacks to take home with them too, they’ll urge. And then they’ll ask why the recipients should be only school children. If a family is too poor to feed the kids, they’ll argue, then the adults should be given free food as well..Meanwhile, caterers who’ve moved into the new industry of providing school food will be lobbying as a concentrated interest group to expand the program, while the hapless taxpayers who are still buying their own groceries will be too strapped for time and money to muster effective opposition..What this country really needs is a philosophical revolution — a return to the days when people understood that freeloading was bad for the soul, and independence was good for it..Meanwhile, you might as well go fill out the questionnaire. Whenever it gives you the opportunity to select “other”, a little box will open up where you can give them a piece of your mind. Maybe, just maybe, if we flood them with negative responses about the project, they’ll abandon it.
