Libertarian candidate Robert McFadzean thinks government needs to step out of the way

A former agricultural economist instructor at Lakeland College in Vermilion, Robert McFadzean is running as a Libertarian candidate in the Lakeland riding in the federal election.

“I think a Libertarian is basically in its essence respect and consideration for other people,” he said.

He decided to run because he couldn’t vote for any of the other parties. McFadzean isn’t even hopeful of his chances, facing off against six other candidates, but he’s running as a matter of principle.

“I just do not believe in the kind of government that they would form, like taxes and regulations and that the government should be responsible for us and all this kind of stuff like this. I’m basically running on a matter of principle,” he said.

“We’re a free country and we’re doing well and in as far as that’s the case it’s because of the culture that we live in. It’s not because of governments. Governments put roadblocks, they take over 40 per cent of the income from the private sector. They’re not the ones that are helping this, it’s the culture. That’s really what libertarianism is about.”

There aren’t a ton of policies that McFadzean has that relate specifically to today’s core political issues.

Overall, he wants the government to be less involved in every aspect of citizen’s lives.

“In my mind, the government is not responsible, has no legitimacy in being responsible for people. People are responsible for themselves. You put government in charge, what you have is you have a some small relatively small contingent of people deciding for everybody. And that does not work,” he said.

“The whole idea of trying to run something with a bureaucracy does not work. From a financial point of view, they don’t have an income statement. There’s no income and expenses. There’s no profit. It’s just money coming in and we spend it we have no idea how much we should pay for things. We just pay whatever. They’re so wasteful and it’s not their money. They have no skin in the game.”

He thinks governments create roadblocks with pipelines, the welfare state creates problems with taking in some of the proposed immigration plans, and the current financial situation with debt and inflation is corrupt.

Electing not to represent his views at the candidates forums, McFadzean felt when he ran four years ago that people were mainly there to support their candidate.

His message to people thinking of voting for him is: “They will have to have the same mindset that they don’t want to see a government that taxes and regulates people. They can see that the government is not that helpful in things that they do.”

The federal election is Monday, October 21.