Chip Wilson: The NDP is killing 'incentive' and making voters dependent on handouts

Opinion: This is what happens when the NDP redistributes wealth: it breeds laziness

Published Oct 16, 2024  •  4 minute read

Chip Wilson, founder of Lululemon, says: The NDP doles out tax money to voters who want someone else’s money today, staying in power by creating dependence.  Photo by Taehoon Kim /Bloomberg

Most people have a dream.

Some dreamers choose to act, risking all their money, working 24 hours a day, seven days a week for 20 years to attain those dreams. Most people who choose to work hard and risk everything fail. For every successful person, there are 30 who sacrificed and failed.

But it is the bright light of success and wealth creation that keeps our economy and social programs strong. Those few successful people, unstoppable with their ideas, employ thousands who also pay taxes. Without the creation and fulfilment of ideas, there is no basis for taxation.

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I feel deeply for those 30 people who gave it their all and failed but are unwilling to give up.

A typical example is someone in their 40s, with two small children, working in a job that doesn’t fulfil them, waiting for the right opportunity to risk it all again. These people, who have failed, are never content with the status quo. They are action-oriented, willing to sacrifice again, but the NDP fails them.

The NDP focuses on penalizing the uber-successful one per cent with high taxes that the successful can afford.

To the average voter, this sounds good: the successful sacrifice their lives, health, and time with their families, and the lazy voter benefits. The NDP doles out tax money to voters who want someone else’s money today, staying in power by creating dependence.

This cycle continues until an economy collapses. B.C. is no different.

Here’s the catch.

A person in their 40s with a small family, in a job they don’t like, must be guaranteed outsized rewards to start a new business compared to when they were younger. The risks are higher with family responsibilities, so the reward must be higher, too.

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The NDP’s hidden “wealth” taxes are so burdensome that these people, ready to risk again, don’t. The short-term tax on the successful kills the incentive for middle-class entrepreneurs in B.C.

If a flat tax for all were implemented, of the 30 failed entrepreneurs who are given the incentive to try again, five would succeed, creating businesses, employing thousands, and forming a strong tax base.

The NDP will, of course, find an academic — who has never run a business — to refute this.

The NDP claims those in privileged positions have the upper hand, but wealth frequently goes from shirt sleeves to shirt sleeves in three generations. Take the immigrant who starts with nothing and sacrifices everything for their children and grandchildren. The third generation often loses the money the first generation made because they lack challenges and become complacent.

This is what happens when the NDP redistributes wealth: it breeds laziness.

Canada has one of the most accessible education systems in the world. Education is the great equalizer. Anyone can enter and graduate from university with a decent amount of drive and an easy loan from the government.

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There’s no excuse to reward those who don’t strive for their standard of living. We shouldn’t reward these people with GST/PST rebates.

Let them figure out how to contribute to society.

The NDP’s voter base comes from those who have never wanted to risk anything, never wanted to work the extra hour, and want the government to take care of them. The NDP’s goal is to make over 50 per cent of the population dependent on handouts. Once they achieve this, society begins to decline.

The NDP hires inefficient government workers to do free enterprise work. Once these workers are dependent on the NDP for their livelihood, they vote for them.

This is why Europe fails.

There’s a saying: the U.S. innovates, China replicates, and Europe regulates. Europe must regulate because innovation stagnates due to taxes and regulation. Europe’s only line of defence is to find successful global companies to create income.

Make no mistake: the NDP understands this strategy as a way to keep power.

It’s critical for NDP legislators to stay in power because they’re paid far more than they could earn outside elected office.

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Many conservative legislators take a pay cut to serve the province. Social media makes it difficult to convince successful conservatives to run for politics, as they have too much to lose. NDP candidates usually have nothing to lose.

The reason the NDP will fail voters is that the children of these 30 failed dreamers will not have the chance to witness a parental template to create a second wave of successful businesses.

There is a clear reason why Canada has the lowest productivity per person in the developed world. There’s a reason why B.C. has only two of Canada’s top 100 fastest-growing companies.

Taxes and over-regulation may seem like a good idea today, but they slowly kill society over time.

The NDP caters to renters, the largest voter base, by capping rent increases to secure votes from those who can’t see the big picture. If rents were allowed to float, developers would have built more units, bringing rent prices down.
The NDP destroys the chance for the average person and their children to reach their full potential.

Chip Wilson is a Vancouver businessman and philanthropist who co-founded Lululemon. He made headlines during this B.C. election campaign for anti-NDP billboards erected outside his Point Grey mansion.

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