Good afternoon, taxpayers of Canada. It is me, Mark Carney, your Definitely Liberal Prime Minister. I hope that you are all having a wonderful, fiscally profitable day.
My secretary told me this morning that some of you are upset to hear that I plan to use a paltry three billion of your tax dollars to bail out wealthy convo developers in Vancouver because no one can afford to buy their units. What you don’t understand, however, is that I am a numbers man. A banker. I understand the free market better than you, because I went to Oxford (that is a school in England, which is a country in Europe).
Thus, let me tell you five reasons why what I am doing is actually perfectly aligned with free market principles. I will try to use simple everyday language.
1: The “free” part of “free market” stands for “As the leader of Canada’s government, I am free to do whatever I need to do in order to keep wealthy developers and boomer voters happy by ensuring housing prices don’t go down.” It’s okay if you didn’t learn that in whatever public school you went to. Don’t be ashamed of your ignorance.
2: The free market concept of supply and demand is perfectly exemplified in this very situation. You see developers, who are determined to supply you with wildly-overpriced, tiny shoebox condos, demand your money whether you like it or not. Hence, where your tax dollars are going in this new venture of mine.
3: While free market principles include limited government interference, “limited” is in the eye of the beholder. Specifically, the developers to whom I am beholden, because if I lose the confidence of the wealthy investor class, they’ve vowed to publicly reveal that I am secretly just Stephen Harper in one of those hyper realistic silicone masks. Thus, in this case, “limited” means “complete and total intervention.”
4: The concept of “voluntary exchange” between buyers and sellers is a core tenant of the free market. In this case, the sellers are the developers who refuse to acknowledge that none of you have any money for their over-valued products, and the buyer is technically you, by way of me using your tax dollars. So technically, you are all buying condos. I am very happy for you.
5: I can think of no better example of free market fundamentals in action than the Vancouver condo market: a massively-overpriced housing bubble held aloft for decades by wealthy investors, speculators, and laundered overseas money, wherein the vast majority of citizens are permanently priced out of home ownership and will be renting for the rest of their lives.
Having cleared that up, now imagine if Pierre Poilievre were your prime minister right now. Haha, I know, right? This measly bailout doesn’t sound so bad now, does it? Please remember that when you find out my next plan, which is to turn all of our national parks into privatized ski hills.
