Our generation has a choice. Governments at all levels across our country suffer from an illness which has long lingered; a condition of sorts that has festered in the bloated auspices of our regional departments to the distant yet intrusive halls of power in our capital. It is an addiction that occupies the psyche of the politicians and lobbyists, the bureaucrats and policy makers. With every turn the crave only worsens; the thirst only ever grows. Our government is addicted to spending.

It spends when times are good, it spend when times are bad. It spends when Canadians are happy and yes, it will even start to spend when Canadians seem to be upset! While the economics of growing government expenditures and growing national debt is dangerous enough, – a danger that our organization has dedicated itself to protest and reform – the politics of government spending is what gives the killer its silence. It is the venom of the bite – the notion that our economic woes and our joint societal fears can be solved by giving government license to spend indiscriminately.

I pride myself in being a fiscal conservative. For our non-partisan association this means far more than any party leaning. By its very nature, to be fiscally conservative means to have a multi-generational conscience; to have an awareness of the next generation while reminding ourselves of our predecessors.

Firstly, what many do not consider is that deficit spending today will have to be paid back in the future – with interest! Today’s government spending, whatever it may be, comes from our future earnings (our careers), not those of the politicians and bureaucrats who spend our tax dollars. Secondly, we should never forget the lessons learned by the previous generation who first began the disastrous experimentation with massive amounts of government debt. Debt which would go on to burden the governments of the 80’s and 90’s; Debt that we still bear the weight of to this day. Imagine what our great country would be like now if, for two decades, 31% of tax revenues were not condemned to interest payments. Where would we be? What could we have accomplished?

Recall also that the overdose of past decades is today’s quick fix. What is asked of government (your wallet) is growing every year. This means that as governments, on their political high, delude themselves more and more that they are the catalysts of growth, they continue to raise the bar on spending. A free society believes that prosperity comes from people, not government.  Governments do not innovate. Individuals, businesses and communities innovate. Governments are not ‘ambitious’. Only people have ambition – whether they are working class entrepreneurs, young families or determined students. The government does not create jobs, prosperity or a future for a better tomorrow. It is from the citizenry that our country derives its strength.

Every election, every town hall, every committee and public gathering, is your opportunity, either in person or through your elected representative, to change the course of our collective future; to kick the habit and buck the trend of governments addiction to spending. Through organizations like the Canadian Taxpayers Federation and Generation Screwed you have a voice to hold government to account. If you’re a young Canadian concerned, like many of us, about your fiscal future, join us today and show politicians and big government officials that we are a generation independent of the popular political prescriptions. We won’t give license to radical Keynesianism, and we won’t give the reigns of our finances over to bureaucrats and career politicians. We stand for private agency and against government’s synthetic growth.

That is why I’m proud to be the campus coordinator for Generation Screwed at Simon Fraser University. Together we’re putting our boot to the needle, fighting government’s addiction to spending. Together we’re paving a debt-free path for our governments, communities, families and generation.