The number one threat to our western way of life isn’t Al Qaeda.
It’s mission creep.
39 Replies to “They Hate Us For Our Freedoms”
Much as I’m not a fan of parents smoking around their kids, the article makes an exceedingly valid point about the likelihood of harm resulting to the children (emotional at least) from forced separation from the family. And God help these kids if they end up stuck in a group home for the duration. More to the point, as a practical point of risk assessment, which is more dangerous to the child’s health, smoking with a kid in the car, or simply having the kid in the car period? Young people are pretty resilient, health-wise, and I’d wager the likelihood of long term damage from childhood proximity to cigarette smoking is not all that significantly different from the immediate statistical risk of being injured or killed in a car accident. So should responsible parents be making their kids walk everywhere? Maybe while wearing full padding and a helmet? Or, given that even a pedestrian possesses some risk of being hurt or injured, perhaps the parents should be looking to keep their kids locked in their rooms full time. Make that a padded room. The kids might as well get used to it.
Perfectly stated, Kate. Statism is the crack cocaine of political ideology; there’s never enough, and it’s adherants always want more, more, more.
Perhaps it is more a case of “creep mission”.
Kids raised in group homes are better, than errant parents puffing in cars.
Bureaucracy will save you from stupidity!
Isn’t stupidity a Charter right?
Section 1 says all our rights and freedoms are subject to reasonable limits in a free and democratic society.
Clearly stupidity is unreasonable. Therefore the Charter affords the unlimited right to stupidity.
Hence we need a constitutional amendment to limit the right to stupidity. This should keep the lawyers busy for quite some time.
As Jim Carrey would say in the film “The Mask”:
“SMMMMOOKIN”!!
Wait a minute. Why stop there? Since corn syrup is now being indicted in obesity in children, how about roadblocks, arrest, confiscation, followed by foster care for juice boxes?
In the universe of adult depravity toward children, I’d rather have a loving nicotine addict as a parent than the parent of a young guy I saw recently in psych crisis with numerous perfectly circular cigarette burn scars on both arms inflicted by his dad when he was little.
Right on, Kate. This situation proves the point that the rigid ideologues of the nanny state aren’t very different from the Taliban.
Yes, exactly.
We’ll do it to ourselves. History seems to indicate that statistically, the greatest threat to any citizens’ life and freedom is his own government.
The pressure to “conform” is bad enough with peer pressure on the school playground, it is a nightmare when carried out by State power.
They banned smoking, citing risks, but you did nothing for you did not smoke. They banned drinking, citing risks, but you did nothing for you did not drink. They banned thinking, citing risks, but you did nothing for you did not think. Then they realized that only the dead face no risks. So they banned living, but you did nothing for you have no life. Finally, citing risks, they banned stupid f-ing idiots, and then they killed you.
Remember the rallying cry “we will not allow the terrorists to change our way of life”!!! The government just forgot to finish that sentence, “WE WILL DO THAT”! We now have cameras monitoring our every move, our very email being monitored, chips in cars, and soon to be chips in everything else to monitor our movements! And just who does this affect? Us! Who collects all this information? Our benevolent governments. We also have benighted idiots stating that ‘if you are doing nothing wrong, you have nothing to worry about’! They forget who decides what is right and wrong! Smoking is NOT and illegal activity. The governments make mega dollars from this product.
That’s great, Vitruvius. If you don’t mind, I’m going to recycle that whenever the need arises.
Fining people for this is stupid. While I won’t smoke around my niece, preferring to err on the side of caution in light of all the “education” I received, this entire second-hand smoke fiasco strikes me as something that stinks far worse than tobacco. I grew up with two parents who were avid smokers, and on car trips they’d sometimes indulge without even cracking a window. Yet, somehow, I excelled as an athlete, as did my older brother (subjected to the same “abuses”), who was also a cross-country runner throughout school.
Even if this wasn’t a slap in the face to individual freedom, it’s nonsense, plain and simple.
Wouldn’t Ghief Goody Twoshoes have to prove harm? I tend to doubt that a statistical analysis from the SG would do that.
REMEMBER THE QUOTE,
CIVILIZATIONS DIE FROM SUICIDE NOT MURDER.
I’m glad you liked it. For something a little less sarcastic, perhaps this 1887 quote from Roger Q. Mills: “Prohibition was introduced as a fraud; it has been nursed as a fraud. It is wrapped in the livery of Heaven, but it comes to serve the devil. It comes to regulate by law our appetites and our daily lives. It comes to tear down liberty and build up fanaticism, hypocrisy, and intolerance. It comes to confiscate by legislative decree the property of many of our fellow citizens. It comes to send spies, detectives, and informers into our homes; to have us arrested and carried before courts and condemned to fines and imprisonments. It comes to dissipate the sunlight of happiness, peace, and prosperity in which we are now living and to fill our land with alienations, estrangements, and bitterness. It comes to bring us evil – only evil – and that continually. Let us rise in our might as one and overwhelm it with such indignation that we shall never hear of it again as long as grass grows and water runs.”
Did you know that cbc did a study on the air quality and found that the worse place for your kids was in the families non-smoking car?
Most drive their children to school and the exhuast is the main problem around schools where the children are exposed to 1000’s times more pollutants from the cars then cigarettes. 1 running car equals 300 cigarettes per minute. Which causes more Harm?
Why as the number of smokers goes down, the number of childhood asthmatics increases?
Right on neutralsam. Over the past thirty years, the percentage of the population that smokes in this country has been cut by more than half (47% versus 23%). With a growing population, that means a lot more in real numbers.
But, at the same time, we are told that, over the same period, childhood asthma has more than tripled. Yet second-hand smoke is listed as the main cause of asthma in children both then and now. Doesn’t make much sense, does it?
Here’s another little tidbit for you. It used to be that, in order to get a scientific study of “relative risk” published, you had to be able to show from your study (which itself had to have rigid controls), that doing Activity X increased the risk of result by at least 200%. And that was just to get published so that a discussion could be started. To be considered “convincing”, your study had to show an increase in relative risk of 300%.
Smoking causes cancer in smokers. We know that because study after study has consistently shown a 1000-2000% rate in the incidence of lung cancer. That was first proven in the early to mid 50’s. Since then, many many studies have been done to try to establish a link between second-hand smoke and just about every illness.
None of these studies ever came close to the “suggestive” 200% mark…so, they were never published.
So what changed? Between 1991 and 1994 (depending on which country you are talking about), the “200% = ‘suggestive’ and 300% = ‘compelling'” rule was dropped. There has never been an explanation as to why.
Now, a study can get published without meeting any scientific standards at all…it just seems that it has to meet a political standard.
The Surgeon General’s report mentioned in the article that this post refers to said that second hand smoke can cause an increased risk of “up to 30%” in non-smokers. Scientifically speaking, that means nothing. But, there it is…on the news.
And it isn’t just the usual hot-button issues like smoking.
About a month ago, I was watching Pravda’s “The National” and heard Mr. Mansbridge mention a new study that shows there may be a link between a pregnant woman’s exposure to sunlight and depression in her child.
The “study” said that children born between April and August are 17% more likely to commit suicide later in life.
At first, I couldn’t stop laughing. Then I started thinking about what political agenda is brewing behind that.
Good points bryceman,
I have looked at many of the results of second-hand smoke studies and ironically, the only ‘relative risk’ that continually showed up was that children of smokers had less occurence of asthma than children of non-smokers. Strange, but true. Perhaps it has something to do with building up tolerance to the environment, but it is odd nonetheless.
A good site for this topic, including how statistics are abused, is davehitt.com/facts
the lower the statistical connection the more likely (ah the handy dandy probability in using statistics!) that there are OTHER factors not considered or examined.
busting people for puffing in the OWN car with their OWN kids in back? where will it end ???
I dont smoke. I made up a very sarcastic T-shirt explaining why and get lots of laughs from it.
busting people for smoking in the OWN car for whatever reason is ludicrous.
Nice comments, vitruvius and bryceman. There’s no greater fanatic than a social worker, out to save you from whatever. More insidious than the Islamic fascist fanatic but equally dangerous, because both claim direct contact with Pure Truth.
As Pierre Lemieux wrote in the National Post on 2004-01-17: “The public-health state is no laughing matter; it is the number one public health danger at the beginning of the 21st century. As German poet Friedrich Höderlin said, “What has always made the state a hell on earth has been precisely that man has tried to make it his heaven.”
So would someone explain please..
In Canada today, is it legal to smoke Allan Rock Flin Flon Gold left hand cigarettes in your own car , with your own kids present if ,lets say , the kids are being a real pain in the a..?
So far “Allan Rock Flin Flon Gold” left hand cigarettes are still illegal. I gather you mean the Mark Emery medicinal use only marajuana type of filterless cigarettes. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20050730.wxdope0730/BNStory/National/
Moreover, if this contributes to being “impaired” while behind the wheel and one is in an accident your insurance people may leave you on the hook for driving ‘without due care and attention’.
Just because one is ‘high’ doesn’t mean your car can fly. Cheech and Chong parenting classes anyone? If you are driving in the US the DEA may have a dim view of navigating the roads whilst consuming cannibis.
Secondly, if the kids are being a “pain in the ass” then it is time to have that birds and bees talk and explain what goes where. Alternately, if the inference is that the kids are causing you grief, escapism will not solve the issue.
Out of the natural fight or flight responses this would be indicative of the latter.
Recently, some news reports have suggested that using drugs will get you closer to God, through the mechanism of mental spiritual experiences.
The very real possiblity that one will wrap one’s vehicle about the next phone pole may get one closer to a theological experience as well. Of course you needn’t attend church/temple services on the Sabbath/Sunday as you may speaking to GOD directly; with no translator required. At this stage your life will be more spiritual than you had at first imagined before lighting up.
Drive responsibly.
CHEERS!!
Luv this….ban stupid f-ing idiots! On the downside, there’d be no one left in this country…..except of course for the few of us here @ “small dead”, and the one smart guy stuck in airport insecurity!
The pc police would rather you slam the car into a tree, Red.
Personally, if I were a cop, I’d give you the cigarette if you had a carload of thirteen year old girls in their collective Bad Hair Day mode as passengers and I spotted your eye’s glazed over.
While we are on the subject of appropriate vs inappropriate smoking, anyone want to guess the number of needless injuries to hospital personnel in a psych/regular ER because agitated psychotics and detoxing drug addicts, waiting for hours, are denied a cigarette? I’d love to organize that study. I can’t tell you how many times a lousy cigarette would have stopped an escalating situation from getting out of control.
Here’s a link to the US Surgeon General’s report on second hand smoke: http://www.surgeongeneral.gov/library/secondhandsmoke/report/
I went through chapter 7, which lists all the studies done. The upshot is that people who live with a smoking spouse have, on average, a 20-30% greater chance of getting lung cancer than a person who lives with a non-smoker. A smoker, on the other hand, has a 900% greater chance of getting lung cancer than a non-smoker. Just so you know.
Now, that may sound like a lot, but only about 1 person in 1,500 in Canada and the US will get lung cancer. And the majority of these are regular smokers, of course. Since we noted that smokers are 9 times more likely to get cancer, that means 1 non-smoker out of 15,000 people will get cancer. A 30% greater chance means one extra cancer case will show up for every 50,000 people, and this will almost always be the spouse of a smoker. And of course, getting lung cancer is not always a death sentence.
Where does 2 extra cases per 100,000 people rank as a cause of death in Canada? Well, it doesn’t make the top 15 causes according to StatsCan. Suicide, at 19.5 deaths per 100,000, is about 10 times more likely than death from second-hand smoke. Death from a fall is about five times more likely; maybe we should be banning step-ladders?
Interestingly enough, there were four or five studies that showed a NEGATIVE correlation between workplace secondhand smoke and cancer. That is, people who worked where smoking was permitted had a LOWER chance of getting cancer than people who worked in smoke-free environments. Maybe a little bit of smoke makes your body more resistant to it?
I’m not a smoker myself, and I prefer to eat in restaurants where the air is clear, but I don’t think I have a right to force my views on others. And I am especially against the use of pseudo-scientific nonsense as a justification for these neo-fascists. So, if you do smoke, light up, brother!
Just don’t blow the smoke in my face.
I’m perfectly willing to be reasonable about not smoking around people who don’t want to be smoked around. On the other hand, the City of Edmonton (new slogan: Rat Free Except for City Council) has banned the smoking, right in their shop, of the pipe tobacco sold by professional tobacconists; sort of like banning people from eating in restaurants! (The case has made it to the provincial court, I’ll say no more for now.)
When I pointed out this anomaly to councilors by mail, I received two replies that were variations of “How can we separate professional tobacconists from the corner 7-11?” I responded, they don’t sell anything but cigars, pipes, and pipe tobacco, and never did allow cigarette smoking in the shop (we’re aficionados). They did not respond. They have no concept of private property, for them, all property is subject to their whim.
The problem isn’t reasonable people, like you folks here at SDA, it’s the Neo-Puritans. Here’s the letter to the editor I had published in the Edmonton Champagne Socialists, Limousine Liberals, and MasterCard Marxists Journal on 2003-01-20 (it didn’t help):
“The axiomatic principles relevant to the debate over the smoking of tobacco in the presence of others are clause 7 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which guarantees the legal right to “life, liberty and security of the person”, and clauses 2(c) and (d), which guarantee the fundamental freedoms of “peaceful assembly” and of “association”.
“Clause 7 implies that people who want to be secure from environmental smoke have the legal right not to be forced to experience it. I agree; to behave otherwise would simply be rude. Clauses 2(c) and (d) imply that people who want to enjoy something that is legal, such as smoking tobacco, have the fundamental freedom to associate for that purpose and to assemble to do so.
“The pragmatic non-ideological solution to this Charter dilemma is to require essential public services to be provided smoke-free (since non-smokers need to access them), and to allow private establishments that provide non-essential services to declare themselves as smokeless or not (since no one is forced to patronize a non-essential service). Bars, restaurants, and bingo halls are not essential services.
“City council should uphold the pluralistic principles of our society and stop trying to abuse its municipal authority to regulate the private lives of consenting adults. I urge council to work out a smoking bylaw that accommodates the 20 percent of Edmontonians who enjoy smoking tobacco in association with like-minded individuals. Constraining the tyranny of the majority is a pillar of council’s public trust.”
[ Here is another letter I sent to a number of journalists on this matter. To their credit, two of them who I won’t mention without permission did respond that they agreeed with me. -Vitruvius]
If we want to make tobacco illegal it is simply a matter of scheduling it in the relevant federal drug act, just like we do for cocaine and marijuana, and could for alcohol or caffine. As long as tobacco remains legal in Canada, Edmonton City Council is justified only in regulating, for the common good, the municipal commons circumstances in which public use of tobacco may occur. Council is not justified in abusing the Municpal Government Act of Alberta to unconstitionally deny citizens their freedom of association for the purpose of enjoying legal tobacco.
Before Edmonton’s new anti-smoking bylaw, 17% of the restaurants in Edmonton allowed smoking, and 20% of Edmontonians smoked. Smoking was prohibited in the context of all essential services. Nobody was forced to be a customer or staff of any premises where smoking was allowed. In what way was that distribution of services, to people as they choose, unfair?
Shouldn’t our government be doing its level best to come up with mechanisms by which people with differing personal views are accommodated? Isn’t that what a pluralistic society means? Why can’t tobacco aficionados just go over into their little corner of society and be left alone?
If I want to smoke my pipe at the Klondike Days Parade, I’ll wet my finger, figure out the wind direction, and smoke downwind of everyone. Can’t you rabid anti-smokers be as gracious, once we’ve gotten out of your way? City council’s rudeness in going so far as to ban private functions established for the sole purpose of enjoying the occasional cigar or pipe (along with a little port and stilton) suggests not.
The freedom to choose whether or not to participate in private voluntary endeavours is, in Canada, assigned by the Charter to the individual citizen. Canadians work together to ensure that our fundamental freedoms are not hijacked by the state in the idealistic pursuit of some unattainable utopia.
For example, a few percent of society is gay, yet we seem to be able to accommodate their freedom of association, even though some people find some of their behaviour to be artificial. A few percent of society is aboriginal, yet we seem to be able to accommodate their freedom of association, even though some people find some of their behaviour to be neolithic.
And yet, strangely, even though far more Edmontonians are tobacco aficionados, some people want to deny their freedom of association, because some people find some of their behaviour to be artifical, or neolithic. Shall we close the bath houses? Shall we close the sweat lodges? Shall we close the cigar clubs? What about public houses? What about churches? What about second-hand bad parenting?
People can accept a lot of restrictions on the commons in the name of getting along, but only to a point, after which there are all sorts of nasty names for those kinds of tragedy of government. Defining private establishments that provide non-essential services as being part of the commons is something our government should not do.
City council has overstepped the bounds of peace, order, and good government in the drafting and application of the new smoking bylaw. Edmontonians know that absolutism in the drafting or application of the law is not good government. Yet we have at hand the evidence from council’s handling of the smoking lounges at the Canadian Legion, at the Keep It Simple club, and on aboriginal property.
It is wrong for city council to subvert the course of good government so as to attempt to deny behaviour that is legal and is protected by the Charter’s clause 2 guarantees of the fundamental freedoms of belief, speach, association and assembly.
The responsible behaviour for council at this time is to rescind bylaw 13333 and return to the drawing board. Council’s duty is to come up with regulations that (1) accommodate those who want to be secure from tobacco smoke, and (2) accommodate those who want to associate and assemble for the purpose of legally enjoying the company of fellow tobacco afficionados.
Never forget the words of John Stuart Mill: “Neither one person, nor any number of persons, is warranted in saying to another human creature of ripe years that he shall not do with his life for his own benefit what he chooses to do with it. All errors he is likely to commit against advice and warning are far outweighed by the evil of allowing others to constrain him to do what they deem his good.”
We must all stand on guard against those who would violate our Charter’s belief, speach, association, and assembly guarantees. We must not tailor our laws to placate a clique of anti-tobacco zealots riding around in the pockets of a cabal of opportunistic litigators. Zealots do not respect the rule of law in a tolerant democracy, they besmirch it. We don’t want to do that.
Tolerant democracy isn’t about endorsing a dominant ideology, it’s about accommodating multiple perspectives within the law. If council and their advisers in the administration are telling us that they can’t do that, then they are not earning their keep.
Coming from people who support a political party that has been the most vehement opponent of marijuana decriminalization, complaining about this loss of “freedom” seems somewhat hollow.
Vitruvius rang the bell with: “and to allow private establishments that provide non-essential services to declare themselves as smokeless or not”.
I had a heated debate at the dinner table Xmas time with my 36-year old daughter (neither of us smoke). She argued, “but there might be some form of entertainment at the smoking establishment which I’d like to see”.
I replied: “Well you can make the choice whether you value the entertainment higher than the discomfort you would suffer from the smoke … life’s like that.”.
In Vancouver (I believe) smoking has now been banned on outdoor restaurant patios and if I’m not mistaken it is proposed that it be banned on the beach, proving that this is not about health at all but about life style totalitarianism.
What I find disturbing is the number of people who express relief about coerced non-smoking environments (which I enjoy too!) with no regard at all for the toll it has taken on liberty (quaint word, eh?).
One of my proudest libertarian moments was at a bar restaurant in Texas. It was kinda lonely in the non-smoking section, so I ponied up to the bar which was a smoking area. The patron on the next stool began apologizing for smoking, and I said, “good sir, enjoy your cigaratte … I don’t smoke myself but I made a conscious decision to come over here for the company and conversation”. He was in shock. Well, I may not have opened with “good sir”.
Oh for heaven’s sake, KC, one supports the political party that comes closest to one’s preferences, net net. I’m perfectly willing to debate the so-cons over the lunacy of the war on drugs, and William F. Buckley, affectionately known as “The Bill of Rights” (;-) is on my side. In other words, I think you are being silly.
KC do you read and can you comprehend simple logic.
No where in the thread do you see people defending the right to “toke up”.
Firstly, if the production, distribution, and consumption of marijuana is illegal there has never been a legal right or freedom in existence in any case.
There is nothing hollow about recognizing that some people will defy the existing law. Red Dodge appears to be such an individual. His post queried whether it was ok to smoke “flin flon gold” with his irritable kids in the back of his vehicle.
Short answer is no; not to mention the practicality or endangerment of operating motor vehicles while ‘impaired’.
About the only thing that is hollow is to suggest that operating motor vehicles whilst in an intoxicated state, with kids in the vehicle, is a sensible choice.
KC: For the record, I am against prohibition of all forms, including the criminalization of marijuana or any other drug for that matter. The “War on Drugs” is an unfathomable tragedy, and I’m thinking that people in jail for drugs will make excellent recruits for terrorism.
This is a key area for separating conservatives from libertarians.
However, one does support a political party sometimes without supporting every one of its policies. In politics you choose the lesser evil, don’t you?
Cigarettes are legal peoducts. Marijuana is not. If pot becomes decriminalized or fully legal, you’ll be hacked that you can’t smoke it anywhere just as tobacco smokers are offended by these new regs.
Anywhere? Who’s talking about anywhere? We’re talking about freedom of association and assembly of like minded individuals in private venues. Sheesh, some people’s kids.
As a 73 year old I have been through the pack a day phase and the complete stop, (April 1976) and my health has not significantly changed. My Mother smoked almost to the end, (Buckinghams, which are like smoking pure cornsilk), and while when she coughed she could pave a driveway, she lived to be 84. I have ambivalent feelings toward the righteous defenders of our health but I always go back to my original stance. Why not make them illegal.lol.
There are two reasons why tobacco is not illegal, Ron Rob. Firstly, the reason why the state currently doesn’t make tobacco illegal, is simply that the state reaps huge on-book profits from the taxes. More than 90 % of the retail price of my pipe tobacco is tax.
Second, the reason why human desires should not be made illegal per se, is that if people want stuff, and it’s banned anyway, they’ll get it anyway, or something worse, like gang-land markets, or communism (or is there any difference). Fortunately, the NDP are a fringe party, so the latter is not an immediate problem in Canada.
As Prime Minister Harper said, on 2004-06-07, per the National Post: “I’m not a smoker — I’m an asthmatic. But I’m not a prohibitionist. People are going to have a drink and a smoke and that’s kinda the way life’s going to be.”
Just to clarify, the only drug that gets abused in the Red Dodge when the kids are riding is caffine.
But thanks for the offer of the smoke Penny.
Its 2 Players Light from the high school drop to my driveway.
The PC Police are like a breath of Frisch air.
Vitruvius: “if people want stuff, and it’s banned anyway, they’ll get it anyway”
Precisely so. And we saw in the great experiment of Prohibition exactly what happens: huge profits to criminal enterprise, corruption through the police and judiciary, and a general disdain by the public for the police.
All of which is an argument for legalization and control of currently illicit drugs and prostitution. Some humans will always fall victim to these vices; why do we have to make them criminals at the same time?
I have two small daughters, 9 and 12. My biggest fear right now is that some dealer who wants to make an exorbitant profit will try to get them involved with drugs. They’re pretty good kids, so I think they’ll be strong enough to say “No”, but why do I have to risk that?
If there was no profit incentive, no dealer would approach them at all. If the government monopolized the production and sale of drugs, there would be no attempt to get new customers by addicting the young. And the profits could be used to fund treatment for people who are in trouble.
Why our society persists in banging our collective heads against this wall is beyond me.
Ok, Kevin, we have a lot of fun, and serious discussions, here at SDA, but for what it’s worth, here’s my advice on the latter to you, about your children. It’s not worth much, it’s just my anecdote, but it worked for me. (1) Don’t go there, as long as you can. Stay a child, as long as you can. You can’t go back once you’ve left. (2) Once you’ve left, there is only one rule: everything in moderation. Immoderation is the gateway to hell. Work hard, but not too much. Party hard, but not too much. Those are the keys to the lock.
Vitruvius:
I thank you for your advice, and believe me, I try to keep my kids as innocent as possible. They are impossibly wonderful – smart, fearless, proud, inquisitive, intelligent – and yet they lack what I used to call “street smarts”. I saw it happen too many times in my adolescence where naive kids got swept up under the spell of slightly older, slightly more experienced kids who were dabbling with drink, drugs, sex, etc.
I know that at some point, every child must decide will I become a smoker, a drinker, a druggie, etc. Those are hard questions for anyone; I just wish there wasn’t an economic incentive for criminals to make them say “Yes”.
Threat to freedoms?
Given the past history of direct damage done to Canadian freedom, any rational risk assessment would class a Liberal government and their policy engineering court appointees as a far greater threat to individual freedom than Al Queda.
It isn’t Al Queda that sends delegates to the UN to disarm the law biding populations of free states. It wasn’t Al Queda who was arresting grain farmers for selling their crops outside the strictures of a state grain wholesaling monolopy. It isn’t Al Queda who who has written legislation suspending constitutional constraint of police and martial law remedies to low threat situations. It wasn’t A; Queda who made laws criminalizing religeous expression. It isn’t Al queda who shakes the public down at gun point for billions more than is needed then embezzels millions of our surplus tax dollars in back room power brokering net works. It wasn’t Al Queda that left us a “charter” with less individual rights than we enjoyed under common law.
Nope, where destruction of freedoms and commission of criminal acts against the people of Canada Al Queda is runing a distant last to the Liberal governments in this nation.
Much as I’m not a fan of parents smoking around their kids, the article makes an exceedingly valid point about the likelihood of harm resulting to the children (emotional at least) from forced separation from the family. And God help these kids if they end up stuck in a group home for the duration. More to the point, as a practical point of risk assessment, which is more dangerous to the child’s health, smoking with a kid in the car, or simply having the kid in the car period? Young people are pretty resilient, health-wise, and I’d wager the likelihood of long term damage from childhood proximity to cigarette smoking is not all that significantly different from the immediate statistical risk of being injured or killed in a car accident. So should responsible parents be making their kids walk everywhere? Maybe while wearing full padding and a helmet? Or, given that even a pedestrian possesses some risk of being hurt or injured, perhaps the parents should be looking to keep their kids locked in their rooms full time. Make that a padded room. The kids might as well get used to it.
Perfectly stated, Kate. Statism is the crack cocaine of political ideology; there’s never enough, and it’s adherants always want more, more, more.
Perhaps it is more a case of “creep mission”.
Kids raised in group homes are better, than errant parents puffing in cars.
Bureaucracy will save you from stupidity!
Isn’t stupidity a Charter right?
Section 1 says all our rights and freedoms are subject to reasonable limits in a free and democratic society.
Clearly stupidity is unreasonable. Therefore the Charter affords the unlimited right to stupidity.
Hence we need a constitutional amendment to limit the right to stupidity. This should keep the lawyers busy for quite some time.
As Jim Carrey would say in the film “The Mask”:
“SMMMMOOKIN”!!
Wait a minute. Why stop there? Since corn syrup is now being indicted in obesity in children, how about roadblocks, arrest, confiscation, followed by foster care for juice boxes?
In the universe of adult depravity toward children, I’d rather have a loving nicotine addict as a parent than the parent of a young guy I saw recently in psych crisis with numerous perfectly circular cigarette burn scars on both arms inflicted by his dad when he was little.
Right on, Kate. This situation proves the point that the rigid ideologues of the nanny state aren’t very different from the Taliban.
Yes, exactly.
We’ll do it to ourselves. History seems to indicate that statistically, the greatest threat to any citizens’ life and freedom is his own government.
The pressure to “conform” is bad enough with peer pressure on the school playground, it is a nightmare when carried out by State power.
They banned smoking, citing risks, but you did nothing for you did not smoke. They banned drinking, citing risks, but you did nothing for you did not drink. They banned thinking, citing risks, but you did nothing for you did not think. Then they realized that only the dead face no risks. So they banned living, but you did nothing for you have no life. Finally, citing risks, they banned stupid f-ing idiots, and then they killed you.
Remember the rallying cry “we will not allow the terrorists to change our way of life”!!! The government just forgot to finish that sentence, “WE WILL DO THAT”! We now have cameras monitoring our every move, our very email being monitored, chips in cars, and soon to be chips in everything else to monitor our movements! And just who does this affect? Us! Who collects all this information? Our benevolent governments. We also have benighted idiots stating that ‘if you are doing nothing wrong, you have nothing to worry about’! They forget who decides what is right and wrong! Smoking is NOT and illegal activity. The governments make mega dollars from this product.
That’s great, Vitruvius. If you don’t mind, I’m going to recycle that whenever the need arises.
Fining people for this is stupid. While I won’t smoke around my niece, preferring to err on the side of caution in light of all the “education” I received, this entire second-hand smoke fiasco strikes me as something that stinks far worse than tobacco. I grew up with two parents who were avid smokers, and on car trips they’d sometimes indulge without even cracking a window. Yet, somehow, I excelled as an athlete, as did my older brother (subjected to the same “abuses”), who was also a cross-country runner throughout school.
Even if this wasn’t a slap in the face to individual freedom, it’s nonsense, plain and simple.
Wouldn’t Ghief Goody Twoshoes have to prove harm? I tend to doubt that a statistical analysis from the SG would do that.
REMEMBER THE QUOTE,
CIVILIZATIONS DIE FROM SUICIDE NOT MURDER.
I’m glad you liked it. For something a little less sarcastic, perhaps this 1887 quote from Roger Q. Mills: “Prohibition was introduced as a fraud; it has been nursed as a fraud. It is wrapped in the livery of Heaven, but it comes to serve the devil. It comes to regulate by law our appetites and our daily lives. It comes to tear down liberty and build up fanaticism, hypocrisy, and intolerance. It comes to confiscate by legislative decree the property of many of our fellow citizens. It comes to send spies, detectives, and informers into our homes; to have us arrested and carried before courts and condemned to fines and imprisonments. It comes to dissipate the sunlight of happiness, peace, and prosperity in which we are now living and to fill our land with alienations, estrangements, and bitterness. It comes to bring us evil – only evil – and that continually. Let us rise in our might as one and overwhelm it with such indignation that we shall never hear of it again as long as grass grows and water runs.”
Did you know that cbc did a study on the air quality and found that the worse place for your kids was in the families non-smoking car?
Most drive their children to school and the exhuast is the main problem around schools where the children are exposed to 1000’s times more pollutants from the cars then cigarettes. 1 running car equals 300 cigarettes per minute. Which causes more Harm?
Why as the number of smokers goes down, the number of childhood asthmatics increases?
Right on neutralsam. Over the past thirty years, the percentage of the population that smokes in this country has been cut by more than half (47% versus 23%). With a growing population, that means a lot more in real numbers.
But, at the same time, we are told that, over the same period, childhood asthma has more than tripled. Yet second-hand smoke is listed as the main cause of asthma in children both then and now. Doesn’t make much sense, does it?
Here’s another little tidbit for you. It used to be that, in order to get a scientific study of “relative risk” published, you had to be able to show from your study (which itself had to have rigid controls), that doing Activity X increased the risk of result by at least 200%. And that was just to get published so that a discussion could be started. To be considered “convincing”, your study had to show an increase in relative risk of 300%.
Smoking causes cancer in smokers. We know that because study after study has consistently shown a 1000-2000% rate in the incidence of lung cancer. That was first proven in the early to mid 50’s. Since then, many many studies have been done to try to establish a link between second-hand smoke and just about every illness.
None of these studies ever came close to the “suggestive” 200% mark…so, they were never published.
So what changed? Between 1991 and 1994 (depending on which country you are talking about), the “200% = ‘suggestive’ and 300% = ‘compelling'” rule was dropped. There has never been an explanation as to why.
Now, a study can get published without meeting any scientific standards at all…it just seems that it has to meet a political standard.
The Surgeon General’s report mentioned in the article that this post refers to said that second hand smoke can cause an increased risk of “up to 30%” in non-smokers. Scientifically speaking, that means nothing. But, there it is…on the news.
And it isn’t just the usual hot-button issues like smoking.
About a month ago, I was watching Pravda’s “The National” and heard Mr. Mansbridge mention a new study that shows there may be a link between a pregnant woman’s exposure to sunlight and depression in her child.
The “study” said that children born between April and August are 17% more likely to commit suicide later in life.
At first, I couldn’t stop laughing. Then I started thinking about what political agenda is brewing behind that.
Good points bryceman,
I have looked at many of the results of second-hand smoke studies and ironically, the only ‘relative risk’ that continually showed up was that children of smokers had less occurence of asthma than children of non-smokers. Strange, but true. Perhaps it has something to do with building up tolerance to the environment, but it is odd nonetheless.
A good site for this topic, including how statistics are abused, is davehitt.com/facts
the lower the statistical connection the more likely (ah the handy dandy probability in using statistics!) that there are OTHER factors not considered or examined.
busting people for puffing in the OWN car with their OWN kids in back? where will it end ???
I dont smoke. I made up a very sarcastic T-shirt explaining why and get lots of laughs from it.
busting people for smoking in the OWN car for whatever reason is ludicrous.
Nice comments, vitruvius and bryceman. There’s no greater fanatic than a social worker, out to save you from whatever. More insidious than the Islamic fascist fanatic but equally dangerous, because both claim direct contact with Pure Truth.
As Pierre Lemieux wrote in the National Post on 2004-01-17: “The public-health state is no laughing matter; it is the number one public health danger at the beginning of the 21st century. As German poet Friedrich Höderlin said, “What has always made the state a hell on earth has been precisely that man has tried to make it his heaven.”
So would someone explain please..
In Canada today, is it legal to smoke Allan Rock Flin Flon Gold left hand cigarettes in your own car , with your own kids present if ,lets say , the kids are being a real pain in the a..?
So far “Allan Rock Flin Flon Gold” left hand cigarettes are still illegal. I gather you mean the Mark Emery medicinal use only marajuana type of filterless cigarettes.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20050730.wxdope0730/BNStory/National/
Moreover, if this contributes to being “impaired” while behind the wheel and one is in an accident your insurance people may leave you on the hook for driving ‘without due care and attention’.
Just because one is ‘high’ doesn’t mean your car can fly. Cheech and Chong parenting classes anyone? If you are driving in the US the DEA may have a dim view of navigating the roads whilst consuming cannibis.
Secondly, if the kids are being a “pain in the ass” then it is time to have that birds and bees talk and explain what goes where. Alternately, if the inference is that the kids are causing you grief, escapism will not solve the issue.
Out of the natural fight or flight responses this would be indicative of the latter.
Recently, some news reports have suggested that using drugs will get you closer to God, through the mechanism of mental spiritual experiences.
The very real possiblity that one will wrap one’s vehicle about the next phone pole may get one closer to a theological experience as well. Of course you needn’t attend church/temple services on the Sabbath/Sunday as you may speaking to GOD directly; with no translator required. At this stage your life will be more spiritual than you had at first imagined before lighting up.
Drive responsibly.
CHEERS!!
Luv this….ban stupid f-ing idiots! On the downside, there’d be no one left in this country…..except of course for the few of us here @ “small dead”, and the one smart guy stuck in airport insecurity!
The pc police would rather you slam the car into a tree, Red.
Personally, if I were a cop, I’d give you the cigarette if you had a carload of thirteen year old girls in their collective Bad Hair Day mode as passengers and I spotted your eye’s glazed over.
While we are on the subject of appropriate vs inappropriate smoking, anyone want to guess the number of needless injuries to hospital personnel in a psych/regular ER because agitated psychotics and detoxing drug addicts, waiting for hours, are denied a cigarette? I’d love to organize that study. I can’t tell you how many times a lousy cigarette would have stopped an escalating situation from getting out of control.
Here’s a link to the US Surgeon General’s report on second hand smoke: http://www.surgeongeneral.gov/library/secondhandsmoke/report/
I went through chapter 7, which lists all the studies done. The upshot is that people who live with a smoking spouse have, on average, a 20-30% greater chance of getting lung cancer than a person who lives with a non-smoker. A smoker, on the other hand, has a 900% greater chance of getting lung cancer than a non-smoker. Just so you know.
Now, that may sound like a lot, but only about 1 person in 1,500 in Canada and the US will get lung cancer. And the majority of these are regular smokers, of course. Since we noted that smokers are 9 times more likely to get cancer, that means 1 non-smoker out of 15,000 people will get cancer. A 30% greater chance means one extra cancer case will show up for every 50,000 people, and this will almost always be the spouse of a smoker. And of course, getting lung cancer is not always a death sentence.
Where does 2 extra cases per 100,000 people rank as a cause of death in Canada? Well, it doesn’t make the top 15 causes according to StatsCan. Suicide, at 19.5 deaths per 100,000, is about 10 times more likely than death from second-hand smoke. Death from a fall is about five times more likely; maybe we should be banning step-ladders?
Interestingly enough, there were four or five studies that showed a NEGATIVE correlation between workplace secondhand smoke and cancer. That is, people who worked where smoking was permitted had a LOWER chance of getting cancer than people who worked in smoke-free environments. Maybe a little bit of smoke makes your body more resistant to it?
I’m not a smoker myself, and I prefer to eat in restaurants where the air is clear, but I don’t think I have a right to force my views on others. And I am especially against the use of pseudo-scientific nonsense as a justification for these neo-fascists. So, if you do smoke, light up, brother!
Just don’t blow the smoke in my face.
I’m perfectly willing to be reasonable about not smoking around people who don’t want to be smoked around. On the other hand, the City of Edmonton (new slogan: Rat Free Except for City Council) has banned the smoking, right in their shop, of the pipe tobacco sold by professional tobacconists; sort of like banning people from eating in restaurants! (The case has made it to the provincial court, I’ll say no more for now.)
When I pointed out this anomaly to councilors by mail, I received two replies that were variations of “How can we separate professional tobacconists from the corner 7-11?” I responded, they don’t sell anything but cigars, pipes, and pipe tobacco, and never did allow cigarette smoking in the shop (we’re aficionados). They did not respond. They have no concept of private property, for them, all property is subject to their whim.
The problem isn’t reasonable people, like you folks here at SDA, it’s the Neo-Puritans. Here’s the letter to the editor I had published in the Edmonton Champagne Socialists, Limousine Liberals, and MasterCard Marxists Journal on 2003-01-20 (it didn’t help):
“The axiomatic principles relevant to the debate over the smoking of tobacco in the presence of others are clause 7 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which guarantees the legal right to “life, liberty and security of the person”, and clauses 2(c) and (d), which guarantee the fundamental freedoms of “peaceful assembly” and of “association”.
“Clause 7 implies that people who want to be secure from environmental smoke have the legal right not to be forced to experience it. I agree; to behave otherwise would simply be rude. Clauses 2(c) and (d) imply that people who want to enjoy something that is legal, such as smoking tobacco, have the fundamental freedom to associate for that purpose and to assemble to do so.
“The pragmatic non-ideological solution to this Charter dilemma is to require essential public services to be provided smoke-free (since non-smokers need to access them), and to allow private establishments that provide non-essential services to declare themselves as smokeless or not (since no one is forced to patronize a non-essential service). Bars, restaurants, and bingo halls are not essential services.
“City council should uphold the pluralistic principles of our society and stop trying to abuse its municipal authority to regulate the private lives of consenting adults. I urge council to work out a smoking bylaw that accommodates the 20 percent of Edmontonians who enjoy smoking tobacco in association with like-minded individuals. Constraining the tyranny of the majority is a pillar of council’s public trust.”
[ Here is another letter I sent to a number of journalists on this matter. To their credit, two of them who I won’t mention without permission did respond that they agreeed with me. -Vitruvius]
If we want to make tobacco illegal it is simply a matter of scheduling it in the relevant federal drug act, just like we do for cocaine and marijuana, and could for alcohol or caffine. As long as tobacco remains legal in Canada, Edmonton City Council is justified only in regulating, for the common good, the municipal commons circumstances in which public use of tobacco may occur. Council is not justified in abusing the Municpal Government Act of Alberta to unconstitionally deny citizens their freedom of association for the purpose of enjoying legal tobacco.
Before Edmonton’s new anti-smoking bylaw, 17% of the restaurants in Edmonton allowed smoking, and 20% of Edmontonians smoked. Smoking was prohibited in the context of all essential services. Nobody was forced to be a customer or staff of any premises where smoking was allowed. In what way was that distribution of services, to people as they choose, unfair?
Shouldn’t our government be doing its level best to come up with mechanisms by which people with differing personal views are accommodated? Isn’t that what a pluralistic society means? Why can’t tobacco aficionados just go over into their little corner of society and be left alone?
If I want to smoke my pipe at the Klondike Days Parade, I’ll wet my finger, figure out the wind direction, and smoke downwind of everyone. Can’t you rabid anti-smokers be as gracious, once we’ve gotten out of your way? City council’s rudeness in going so far as to ban private functions established for the sole purpose of enjoying the occasional cigar or pipe (along with a little port and stilton) suggests not.
The freedom to choose whether or not to participate in private voluntary endeavours is, in Canada, assigned by the Charter to the individual citizen. Canadians work together to ensure that our fundamental freedoms are not hijacked by the state in the idealistic pursuit of some unattainable utopia.
For example, a few percent of society is gay, yet we seem to be able to accommodate their freedom of association, even though some people find some of their behaviour to be artificial. A few percent of society is aboriginal, yet we seem to be able to accommodate their freedom of association, even though some people find some of their behaviour to be neolithic.
And yet, strangely, even though far more Edmontonians are tobacco aficionados, some people want to deny their freedom of association, because some people find some of their behaviour to be artifical, or neolithic. Shall we close the bath houses? Shall we close the sweat lodges? Shall we close the cigar clubs? What about public houses? What about churches? What about second-hand bad parenting?
People can accept a lot of restrictions on the commons in the name of getting along, but only to a point, after which there are all sorts of nasty names for those kinds of tragedy of government. Defining private establishments that provide non-essential services as being part of the commons is something our government should not do.
City council has overstepped the bounds of peace, order, and good government in the drafting and application of the new smoking bylaw. Edmontonians know that absolutism in the drafting or application of the law is not good government. Yet we have at hand the evidence from council’s handling of the smoking lounges at the Canadian Legion, at the Keep It Simple club, and on aboriginal property.
It is wrong for city council to subvert the course of good government so as to attempt to deny behaviour that is legal and is protected by the Charter’s clause 2 guarantees of the fundamental freedoms of belief, speach, association and assembly.
The responsible behaviour for council at this time is to rescind bylaw 13333 and return to the drawing board. Council’s duty is to come up with regulations that (1) accommodate those who want to be secure from tobacco smoke, and (2) accommodate those who want to associate and assemble for the purpose of legally enjoying the company of fellow tobacco afficionados.
Never forget the words of John Stuart Mill: “Neither one person, nor any number of persons, is warranted in saying to another human creature of ripe years that he shall not do with his life for his own benefit what he chooses to do with it. All errors he is likely to commit against advice and warning are far outweighed by the evil of allowing others to constrain him to do what they deem his good.”
We must all stand on guard against those who would violate our Charter’s belief, speach, association, and assembly guarantees. We must not tailor our laws to placate a clique of anti-tobacco zealots riding around in the pockets of a cabal of opportunistic litigators. Zealots do not respect the rule of law in a tolerant democracy, they besmirch it. We don’t want to do that.
Tolerant democracy isn’t about endorsing a dominant ideology, it’s about accommodating multiple perspectives within the law. If council and their advisers in the administration are telling us that they can’t do that, then they are not earning their keep.
Coming from people who support a political party that has been the most vehement opponent of marijuana decriminalization, complaining about this loss of “freedom” seems somewhat hollow.
Vitruvius rang the bell with: “and to allow private establishments that provide non-essential services to declare themselves as smokeless or not”.
I had a heated debate at the dinner table Xmas time with my 36-year old daughter (neither of us smoke). She argued, “but there might be some form of entertainment at the smoking establishment which I’d like to see”.
I replied: “Well you can make the choice whether you value the entertainment higher than the discomfort you would suffer from the smoke … life’s like that.”.
In Vancouver (I believe) smoking has now been banned on outdoor restaurant patios and if I’m not mistaken it is proposed that it be banned on the beach, proving that this is not about health at all but about life style totalitarianism.
What I find disturbing is the number of people who express relief about coerced non-smoking environments (which I enjoy too!) with no regard at all for the toll it has taken on liberty (quaint word, eh?).
One of my proudest libertarian moments was at a bar restaurant in Texas. It was kinda lonely in the non-smoking section, so I ponied up to the bar which was a smoking area. The patron on the next stool began apologizing for smoking, and I said, “good sir, enjoy your cigaratte … I don’t smoke myself but I made a conscious decision to come over here for the company and conversation”. He was in shock. Well, I may not have opened with “good sir”.
Oh for heaven’s sake, KC, one supports the political party that comes closest to one’s preferences, net net. I’m perfectly willing to debate the so-cons over the lunacy of the war on drugs, and William F. Buckley, affectionately known as “The Bill of Rights” (;-) is on my side. In other words, I think you are being silly.
KC do you read and can you comprehend simple logic.
No where in the thread do you see people defending the right to “toke up”.
Firstly, if the production, distribution, and consumption of marijuana is illegal there has never been a legal right or freedom in existence in any case.
There is nothing hollow about recognizing that some people will defy the existing law. Red Dodge appears to be such an individual. His post queried whether it was ok to smoke “flin flon gold” with his irritable kids in the back of his vehicle.
Short answer is no; not to mention the practicality or endangerment of operating motor vehicles while ‘impaired’.
About the only thing that is hollow is to suggest that operating motor vehicles whilst in an intoxicated state, with kids in the vehicle, is a sensible choice.
KC: For the record, I am against prohibition of all forms, including the criminalization of marijuana or any other drug for that matter. The “War on Drugs” is an unfathomable tragedy, and I’m thinking that people in jail for drugs will make excellent recruits for terrorism.
This is a key area for separating conservatives from libertarians.
However, one does support a political party sometimes without supporting every one of its policies. In politics you choose the lesser evil, don’t you?
Cigarettes are legal peoducts. Marijuana is not. If pot becomes decriminalized or fully legal, you’ll be hacked that you can’t smoke it anywhere just as tobacco smokers are offended by these new regs.
Anywhere? Who’s talking about anywhere? We’re talking about freedom of association and assembly of like minded individuals in private venues. Sheesh, some people’s kids.
As a 73 year old I have been through the pack a day phase and the complete stop, (April 1976) and my health has not significantly changed. My Mother smoked almost to the end, (Buckinghams, which are like smoking pure cornsilk), and while when she coughed she could pave a driveway, she lived to be 84. I have ambivalent feelings toward the righteous defenders of our health but I always go back to my original stance. Why not make them illegal.lol.
There are two reasons why tobacco is not illegal, Ron Rob. Firstly, the reason why the state currently doesn’t make tobacco illegal, is simply that the state reaps huge on-book profits from the taxes. More than 90 % of the retail price of my pipe tobacco is tax.
Second, the reason why human desires should not be made illegal per se, is that if people want stuff, and it’s banned anyway, they’ll get it anyway, or something worse, like gang-land markets, or communism (or is there any difference). Fortunately, the NDP are a fringe party, so the latter is not an immediate problem in Canada.
As Prime Minister Harper said, on 2004-06-07, per the National Post: “I’m not a smoker — I’m an asthmatic. But I’m not a prohibitionist. People are going to have a drink and a smoke and that’s kinda the way life’s going to be.”
Just to clarify, the only drug that gets abused in the Red Dodge when the kids are riding is caffine.
But thanks for the offer of the smoke Penny.
Its 2 Players Light from the high school drop to my driveway.
The PC Police are like a breath of Frisch air.
Vitruvius: “if people want stuff, and it’s banned anyway, they’ll get it anyway”
Precisely so. And we saw in the great experiment of Prohibition exactly what happens: huge profits to criminal enterprise, corruption through the police and judiciary, and a general disdain by the public for the police.
All of which is an argument for legalization and control of currently illicit drugs and prostitution. Some humans will always fall victim to these vices; why do we have to make them criminals at the same time?
I have two small daughters, 9 and 12. My biggest fear right now is that some dealer who wants to make an exorbitant profit will try to get them involved with drugs. They’re pretty good kids, so I think they’ll be strong enough to say “No”, but why do I have to risk that?
If there was no profit incentive, no dealer would approach them at all. If the government monopolized the production and sale of drugs, there would be no attempt to get new customers by addicting the young. And the profits could be used to fund treatment for people who are in trouble.
Why our society persists in banging our collective heads against this wall is beyond me.
Ok, Kevin, we have a lot of fun, and serious discussions, here at SDA, but for what it’s worth, here’s my advice on the latter to you, about your children. It’s not worth much, it’s just my anecdote, but it worked for me. (1) Don’t go there, as long as you can. Stay a child, as long as you can. You can’t go back once you’ve left. (2) Once you’ve left, there is only one rule: everything in moderation. Immoderation is the gateway to hell. Work hard, but not too much. Party hard, but not too much. Those are the keys to the lock.
Vitruvius:
I thank you for your advice, and believe me, I try to keep my kids as innocent as possible. They are impossibly wonderful – smart, fearless, proud, inquisitive, intelligent – and yet they lack what I used to call “street smarts”. I saw it happen too many times in my adolescence where naive kids got swept up under the spell of slightly older, slightly more experienced kids who were dabbling with drink, drugs, sex, etc.
I know that at some point, every child must decide will I become a smoker, a drinker, a druggie, etc. Those are hard questions for anyone; I just wish there wasn’t an economic incentive for criminals to make them say “Yes”.
Threat to freedoms?
Given the past history of direct damage done to Canadian freedom, any rational risk assessment would class a Liberal government and their policy engineering court appointees as a far greater threat to individual freedom than Al Queda.
It isn’t Al Queda that sends delegates to the UN to disarm the law biding populations of free states. It wasn’t Al Queda who was arresting grain farmers for selling their crops outside the strictures of a state grain wholesaling monolopy. It isn’t Al Queda who who has written legislation suspending constitutional constraint of police and martial law remedies to low threat situations. It wasn’t A; Queda who made laws criminalizing religeous expression. It isn’t Al queda who shakes the public down at gun point for billions more than is needed then embezzels millions of our surplus tax dollars in back room power brokering net works. It wasn’t Al Queda that left us a “charter” with less individual rights than we enjoyed under common law.
Nope, where destruction of freedoms and commission of criminal acts against the people of Canada Al Queda is runing a distant last to the Liberal governments in this nation.