In my latest LooniePolitics column I say budgets have become so routinely vote-buying exercises that people cheer or boo depending if they get a good price for theirs not because they think it’s a good or bad idea to loot the Treasury for private gain.

In my latest National Post column I say Ottawa’s overdue, overbudget light rail project is a warning to citizens everywhere about how politicians and contractors underestimate costs and overestimate benefits of projects that, once they start, are “too big to fail” so you have to put up and pay up.

In my latest National Post column I say it’s absurd and ghastly for the major parties each to rail at the other for wanting to tax without spending, as if there were no connection between high program spending and high taxes.

No, really. Governments across Canada face appalling challenges including the growing threat of Western alienation. But most politicians are far too cautious, focus-grouped and partisan to put forward bold new ideas. If we want frank talk and big ideas that challenge the status quo and open the way for reforms that work, we’re going to have to do it ourselves.

So we’re holding the 6th annual Freedom School conference in Calgary on Feb. 8 and 9 to discuss “Things that Matter: An Agenda for Alberta”. We’ve got a terrific lineup of speakers to talk taxes and pipelines, pensions and schools, equalization and efficiency, and open the way for politicians to escape the rut of stale rhetoric, complacent overspending, bad public services and a weak economy.

Remember Ralph Klein’s supposed wisdom about finding a big parade and getting in front of it. Well, join us in Calgary and let’s get the parade going.