 Nanny State
Sometimes, Politicians Get in the Way of Community
– February 15, 2013
Recently, residents of Okotoks learned that it is illegal to skate on a neighbourhood pond. People who lived in the neighbourhood since it was built a decade ago were not aware that town council had changed the rules, making such a fun activity unlawful for their children. A town councillor said that she wants to save lives, though no lives have been threatened.
Safety Seats on Planes Don’t Necessarily Make Kids Safer
– January 22, 2013
As every mom or dad knows, infants travelling by car must be firmly strapped into a government-tested, properly installed (and often maddeningly complicated) car seat. Failure on this account can earn you a hefty fine and demerit points. Flying with your kids, on the other hand, is a whole other matter.
Losing Sight Of The Issues
– December 21, 2012
Councillors have also spent time debating and voting on matters they have no power to actually address, whether it be banning shark-fin soup, opposing the Iraq War, or ending the NHL lockout -- just this week, a Vancouver city councillor put forward a motion to write a letter to the NHL and the players' association urging them to end the standoff (it passed).
Prohibition is Dead. Long Live Prohibition!
– June 4, 2012
Many Ontarians will celebrate Repeal Day (the anniversary of the end of prohibition) on June 1st with a pint or a glass of wine. But while alcohol prohibition is technically a thing of the past in Ontario, we still have many quasi-prohibitionary laws in place—and there may be more on the horizon.
France: Political Party Forms to Oppose Photo Radar
– May 31, 2012
Anger at the French government's extensive use of speed cameras has sparked a movement to eliminate the devices. In legislative elections scheduled to begin June 10 and last through June 17, the group Mouvement Anti-Radar (MAR) hopes to make a difference with eighty candidates on the ballot around the country, though mostly in the south.
Get Your Greasy Government Hands Off My Fast Food
– November 1, 2011
It’s easy to chuckle at the hubris of a Quebec town trying to ban the delicious French Canadian staple of French fries laden with cheese curds and gravy. But don’t believe for a minute that the poutine ban was trivial or funny. It is merely one more instance of governments’ creeping encroachment into what goes onto your dinner plate.
Bye Bye, Miss American Pie
– August 26, 2011
Big Government requires enough of a doughnut to pay for the hole: you take as much dough as you can get away with and toss it into the big gaping nullity of micro-regulation. And it’s never enough. And eventually you wake up and find your state is all hole and no doughnut. Excerpted from the recently released book After America: Get Ready For Armageddon by Mark Steyn. Reprinted with permission of Regnery Publishing, Inc. © Mark Steyn 2011.
Snack Trucks Thwart Nutrition Goals
– June 2, 2011
After the Novato school district banned junk food in its K-12 schools in 2007, Rana Sanghi saw an opportunity. He altered his ice cream truck route to include Novato High School, parking the vehicle just outside the entrance.
The Road to Ruin
– December 22, 2010
Manitoba’s Public Insurance’s arbitrary policy to destroy cheap used cars made before 1995 ostensibly to protect the environment will hurt the environment and make it more difficult for the unemployed poor to find jobs.
Ezra Levant, lawyer, journalist, and political activist
– December 9, 2010
Ezra Levant was interviewed after his Lunch on the Frontier speech in Winnipeg on December 2, 2010.
The Traditional Census is Dying, and a Good Thing Too
– July 22, 2010
America’s constitution requires it to conduct a shoe-leather census, which is why this year’s effort is going to cost it over $11 billion. The Finns, by contrast, spent about €1m ($1.2m) on their last one. That’s about $36 per head in America and 20 cents in Finland. Denmark has been keeping track of its citizens without a traditional census for decades; Sweden, Norway, Finland and Slovenia, among others, have similar systems. Germany will adopt the approach for its next count, also due in 2011.
Busybody Eurocrats and the new “Right” to Vacation
– May 6, 2010
The EU recently announced a program to subsidize vacations for the old, the young and people with low incomes. This wasteful nanny-state policy uses taxes and manipulative subsidies to encourage people to spend their recreation dollars on tourism instead of other things they might like more.
It’s Always About Ann, Isn’t It?
– March 29, 2010
No one has perfect knowledge, which is why trying to shut down Ann Coulter is a mistake.
Stoning Sacred Cows
– March 16, 2010
t’s time to ask whether the amount of harm reduction we get from prohibiting cannabis is worth its negative side effects.
Zero Budget Growth
– February 20, 2010
"Over the past hundred years, government has grown to gigantic proportions. It intervenes in almost every aspect of our lives."
The Gluttony of Governments
– February 17, 2010
"One of the worst by-products -- among many -- of the rapid expansion of government in the past 50 years has been the politicization of everything, including aspects of personal daily life that government has no business in."
When Welfarism Takes Over, Disaster Will Follow
– February 17, 2010
"The misery of Aboriginal Australia is a testament to the social disaster that results when the welfare state colonises responsibilities that are best held by individuals, families and local communities."
It’s Show Time!
– October 19, 2009
Human “rights” commissions are long past being fixable. Barry Cooper explains why they should be shut down.
Whatever Happened to the Idea of Progress?
– October 5, 2009
Risk-taking is essential to human progress, and the nanny state becomes a source of risk if it displaces resilience in human behaviour.
Canada’s “Schauprozess”—Show Trials
– October 1, 2009
Canada’s Human Rights Commissions are akin to “show trials” that have long existed in other, less free countries and to which Canadians once thought we would always be immune. Dr. Barry Cooper from the University of Calgary, Cooper advises Americans to learn from Canada’s poor example on free speech, and for Canadians to both beware of and ridicule the “human rights” bodies that are now the proper object of scorn. |
