The food bank remark, is of course, asinine.
Aside from making the would-be MPP look incredibly ignorant, much as with my critique above, it takes away from fair expressions of concern.
Every party should be concerned that food banks have become far too common place. Not that feeding the hungry is wrong, nor that fraud is rampant as middle-class folk visit to cut their grocery bill!
Rather, what was meant as a stop-gap solution to one symptom of extreme poverty, has instead become a permanent and growing staple of life for many, including a great number of people who have full-time employment.
There are small-c conservative ideas that can help address this issue, though they would not be fulsomely effective without some progressive ideas as well.
When someone chooses to make such an incredibly stupid and insensitive statement, one that should and probably does embarrass any serious conservative (or other) thinker on the subject its a sad
waste. It diminishes faith in government and those who seek its office and leaves many w/the impression there are no good ideas to tackle issues such as these, when indeed there are, this is simply not one of them.
Somewhere in his statement is the bare whisper of a notion that self-reliance is good quality/value. I happen to agree.
I simply see nothing in his suggestion that furthers that goal, nor do I care for what seems like a crass insult to those who find themselves in a vulnerable place, implying that its their own lazy fault.