In this episode, I sit down with my good friend and colleague, Dr. Peter Tkachuk, to talk about the need for term limits in medicine, government, and society in general. We talk about some of the ideas that have been around for a long time and why they should be implemented.
00:00:00.000so before we go making drastic changes and especially before we go trying to undo potential
00:00:08.800ills or to right past wrongs through dramatic fixes we should be careful about what we do
00:00:15.620just one example is this idea of term limits everyone's really excited about term limits
00:00:20.280we're going to show them nobody will be able to be a professional politician
00:00:23.780and my response to that is wouldn't you love to have a term limit on surgeons and doctors you
00:00:31.680know what you can be a surgeon for eight years can practice really well get really good but you
00:00:36.860know what after that it's time to get a new surgeon let's get a fresh pair of hands in fact
00:00:41.500let's get someone who doesn't even know anything about surgery because they're going to be able
00:00:45.960to do something useful they're going to change it up we would never even dream of doing that right
00:00:51.280you want the best guy who's been practicing the longest. In government, it's not about length of
00:00:56.780tenure, it's about amount of corruption. One of the best premiers we ever had was Ernest Manning,
00:01:02.480and he was premier for 25 years. And he did a darn good job for 25 years. Now, should we have
00:01:10.360looked at him and said, oh, nope, sorry, as much as you're doing a great job, let's get rid of you
00:01:14.120after eight. That's just one of those examples of, we are fed up with bad politicians, but the
00:01:20.060solution is not to get rid of the good ones after a certain amount of time. The solution is to get
00:01:24.440rid of the bad ones and don't wait until, well, they've been in for eight years. No, don't let
00:01:28.880them get in in the first place. And we have that ability actually with a system of responsible
00:01:34.080government, which we used to have. Shame caused them to resign where now no amount of shame can
00:01:41.800ever unseat a politician. At the end of the day, usually, and you'll probably find this if you have
00:01:47.660kids, you can't make enough rules to make them be good. You actually have to teach them how to be
00:01:54.120good. And it's the same with government and with politicians. It's the same with our entire society.
00:02:00.600So my real pitch is let's not change anything. Let's just get rid of Ottawa and then start
00:02:08.240cleaning up the mess. The Criminal Code, Canada Health Act, Indian Act, all of these federal laws
00:02:16.160and federal impositions that have done so much damage.
00:02:19.560Let's fix those things and then see where we are.
00:02:22.700Maybe then we say, hey, we want to change this, or we want to change that.
00:02:26.540But let's do some change, see how it sits, go slow, go steady.
00:02:32.200And then we're not going to get to a point where one day we go, oh man,0.98
00:02:35.540we got rid of the czar because he really sucked.0.99
00:02:37.620And now we've got the communists and they're killing us.0.99
00:02:40.680So I can see where you're coming from, but I might push back
00:02:45.960on this idea that it's for a lot of people that it's purely out of purely a reactive or like a
00:02:52.460hate like an anger lashing out the movement's not new it's like we're it's 120 years old i think when
00:03:00.600it comes to how some of these ideas for a new structure it comes from looking at well here's
00:03:11.680what's common in all these different countries, all these different systems. We're seeing some
00:03:17.000of the breakdowns because of this or that, or you're, you are essentially observing and diagnosing
00:03:23.180based on more of a critical analysis through first principles. I think that's, that's how
00:03:29.620you'd get to some of this. And just to push back on the, um, the term limits is it's assuming that
00:03:37.840You need the level of management required that needs a surgeon level of skill to run a government versus a system that puts more of the responsibilities on individuals, families, communities, and building from the ground up rather than top down.
00:03:57.020So I think this is where some of these ideas, they are starting to challenge some of these fundamental pillars of do we need a managerial state to manage people or do you set up a framework that limits certain things?
00:04:16.300like you can't go around, you can't just shoot random people. You can't infringe on other
00:04:20.160people's rights. And you need somebody to adjudicate these fundamental laws. But do you
00:04:26.900need somebody micromanaging the way that you live? And I think these are some of the conversations
00:04:32.220that are underpinning some of these suggestions when it comes to revising the system.