Larry Stevens

Kitchener-Conestoga

My name is Larry Stevens. I'm married, have three grown sons, a daughter-in-law and a granddaughter. I retired several years ago and moved to Kitchener at that time.

When I was young, I despised the bullies at school whether they were pulling the hair of the little girls or intimidating smaller children to give up their lunch money. I despise bullies even more now when I see them as union organizers harassing people to sign union cards or as special interest groups using the government to: 1) keep young adults in school when they'd prefer to be out working, 2) prevent people from opening businesses in competition with their own, 3) receive money they have done nothing to earn—to name just a few of many activities that would be considered criminal behaviour if not mediated by government.

I feel very strongly that we must stop all bullying. To do so, we must start with the adult bullies. Only when we have stopped adults from bullying others into giving up their money or their liberty, will we be able to convince children to stop bullying those smaller than themselves. It does no good to tell children: "Do as we say; not as you see adults doing." Government approved act if bullying are just too loud for our words to be heard.

After decades of observing our governments at work and several years of reading and investigation, I've come to the conclusion that no government program has ever accomplished what the politicians assured us it was going to do. Instead, programs have always done the opposite by taking money from the poor and giving it to the rich, restricting the choices available to consumers while protecting inefficient businesses, and generally allowing a small group of people to take advantage of the rest of us.

I enthusiastically support our party's values: controls and restrictions on government, individual liberty, property rights, personal responsibility.