“John -- 2014 comes to an end in just a few weeks. Now is the time to save big and support the the important work of the Ontario NDP! All donations to the Ontario NDP in 2014, are eligible for generous provincial tax credits.”

“Hey John,/ Did you know that when you donate to the NDP, you get up to 75% back in tax credits?/ I’m not a banker or a sales guy, but that’s a great deal no matter how you slice it. Here’s what you’re eligible for if you chip in before December 31st./ Total you’ve given in 2015: $0*/ What you could get back in tax credits: $30/ Donation required today to get $30 back: $40/ Donate $40 today to maximize your tax credits before the deadline.”

Email from “Ontario NDP” Dec. 5, 2014 and email from “Director of Operations/ Canada’s New Democrats” Dec. 14, 2015. Just a few among many they’ve sent me (in return for zero total lifetime contribution) in an effort to prove that even socialists know incentives matter, except when devising or debating policy.

“Things do come to those who wait, but only things left over from those who hustle.”

Not Abraham Lincoln, despite countless internet attributions. (And to be blunt, it doesn’t sound like him either, in tone or content.) It’s still a good line. But not his.

In my latest Loonie Politics column I say it is clown-level silliness for B.C. Premier John Horgan to insist that our health care system is brilliantly designed and crumbling simultaneously.

In my latest National Post column I ask whether Canadians will yet again excuse a pathetic performance by an elite institution because we are snobs.

“Why does the Post Office return a letter that’s one cent short on the postage? It costs more than a cent to get the extra penny. But if they didn’t, almost everyone would send insufficient postage letters and they’d lose a fortune.”

This one is from me (January 2, 2002) and if you think it prosaic, well, it’s still an important principle of economics.

“The world is filled with willing people; some willing to work, the rest willing to let them.”

Widely attributed to Robert Frost online, but I haven’t seen any actual specific place he supposedly said or wrote it

“human behaviour ultimately derives from human volition – tastes, attitudes, values, and so on – and these aspects of volition in turn are either formed entirely by choices or are the product of biological or social processes that we cannot or will not change.... The one thing we cannot easily do, if we can do it at all, is change, by plan and systematically, the minds of men.”

James Q. Wilson Thinking About Crime

In my latest Loonie Politics column I say our political classes are reacting to inflation like a bird to a snake, paralyzed by approaching danger.