British Columbia politics

The recent BC supreme court ruling calling into question the constitutionality of the ‘enhanced police power in dealing with drinking drivers’ suggests we’d do well to give some thought to what we have done - to what kind of people have we granted the power to govern our lives?

Let’s begin with that ‘claim to protect the driving public’, giving police officers the power to judge and sentence, to impound vehicles and revoke driving privileges without oversight. The members of our legislature have deemed it appropriate to eliminate the judicial process entirely in the case of suspected mixing of alcohol and driving. In general, the public doesn’t appear to have much resentment in accepting the belief that alcohol and driving don’t mix at any level, a message spread by MADD and other social pressure groups for many years. Years of scientific research as to the actual impairment caused by a particular volume of blood alcohol is ignored. I’ll return to this later, but first a few more reasons why we need to look again at who we grant power to.

If we open our eyes and minds, taking a clear look at the actions of our governments over the past number of years, we will see that we now have a dysfunctional system staffed by incompetent, arrogant busybodies with no respect for the individuals whose labour buys the bread for their tables. Can I support that statement? Let’s take a drive down memory lane and, while the BC Liberals are the subject of my inquisition, I’ll also remind everyone that if we were to backtrack a little further, the provincial NDP would fare no better.

Let’s first consider the privatization of BC Rail, a move I personally supported but a process hidden from public scrutiny and shrouded in stifled controversy. There was never a public inquiry into this controversial, complete with criminal acts, deal. And after the taxpayer picked up the 6 million dollar legal bill for a couple of ministerial aids, the premier just said, “Case closed”. The broken election promise to never sell BC Rail was ignored and no sitting members of our legislature ever provided an honest, sworn,  official explanation of what took place and why the decision went the way it did, literally giving away BC rail.

Another example is the denial of public access to the books of BC Ferries, of stretching reality beyond the breaking point. The taxpayers of the province own BC Ferries but by calling it a private rather than a crown corporation, financial accountability has largely been hidden from the ‘owners’.

The implementation of BC’s carbon tax was carried out with no regard as to what was being done in other jurisdictions of Canada or the USA. Nor was consent asked from the people of the province through a ballot, only the arrogance of elected representatives believing they hold a mandate to do anything they want brought in this tax. Their claim of a revenue neutral tax, just means that they have no problem taking your money and giving it to me and saying that’s fair. While many will disagree with me here, the unscientific demonization of carbon dioxide gave legitimacy to the move to bring us a carbon tax. Events over the past couple of years entirely erased any credibility for the  belief that our world is about to suffer catastrophic, human-caused global warming.

The implementation to harmonized the BC sales tax and the GST, the infamous HST was handled in much the same way, with just months after winning an election, partly based on the promise look at any HST, the arrogant members shoved through the bill making the HST law. While the backlash was immediately obvious, the arrogant attitude prevailed not weakening until finally the pressure of a referendum awakened the sitting members to reality, that they are but a number of votes away from re-entering the competitive work force. And though the arrogance of Mr Campbell forced him out of office, his replacement continues to dig deep holes of her own by continuing that arrogance by very slowly replacing the old tax structure.

The final cost of this boon-doggle , in both financial terms and lost opportunity will be in the billions of dollars.

The government has, for years, used the crown coronations as tax collectors, siphoning revenue from both BC Hydro and ICBC. Obviously, BC citizens have been paying more for auto insurance and electricity than those organizations return to the citizens in services. Even recent revelation that these crown corporation have negative cash flow and the kickback have only been possible by increasing the debt, the arrogance of our elected representatives is not reined in.

BC Hydro’s mandate to purchase private power at far higher rates than they can sell that power for is another example of a government that has lost sight of public service, choosing to rule without consequence instead. Need I mention how arbitrary and arrogant they have been in implementing the billion dollar ‘smart-meter’ program? A billion dollar of your money spent, their own advertising claiming instant recognition of a power been interrupted as their only justification for this expense.

Recently, because members of the legislature ordered the bureaucrats in charge of licencing mines to ignore a company’s application for development, BC taxpayers paid them a 30 million dollars penalty. The justification, that the health hazard of mining uranium justifies stopping this development meets no test of science. Other jurisdictions mine uranium safely with Saskatchewan’s Cameco being the world’s largest uranium  producer. This neighbour province currently has the best growth rate in the country. Of course, watching Mr de Jong’s rant against uranium shows him to be firmly sequestered in the unscientific camp.

And my last ‘straw’ is the government’s recycle policy. Many years ago, a fee was levied to reduce beer-bottle litter. Since then automobile tires and  batteries have been considered dangerous for landfills and because those fees where greeted with public apathy, recycle fees have now been extended to every kind of beverage container and every liquid ranging from oil to paint carries a form of these ‘sin’ taxes. Now all small electrical appliances, toasters, microwaves and televisions carry the burden of extra fees and levies for the purpose of recycling.

I could list many more instances showing that our governments have been operating under the guiding principle that all citizens are fools and idiots, looking at ski-hill helmets and food control. There are few areas where we have not had  the decision making power stripped from our personal lives and rules have been implemented to spoon-feed us all the same diet of ‘socially correct’ pablum.

Forgotten entirely is our history - by both our elected leaders and by ourselves, the general public. It was an environment of political freedom allowing individuals to fail that sorted through our action, giving us the feedback to determine when we acted beneficially or detrimentally to our own and the health of those around us. Now the decision making has moved to our parliaments, ultimately turning those institutions into elected dictatorships. While bicycle helmets and cell phone usage are more of the same in the destruction of personal freedom and responsibility, I consider the modified drinking and driving laws to represent a monumental step away from legitimate law. There is no clearer example of an impending police state than this. That our legislators could conceivable see this as a proper way to rule a state tells me we have a very serious problem.

Historically, in the development of law, two hard-fought principles helped ensure that justice was achievable. The right of appeal along with the separation of arresting and sentencing authorities were prime factors in removing the arbitrary from the enforcement of rules in a society. Police are the enforcement arm of law. Their task is to arrest said violators of law. Historically guilt could not be determined by the arresting police officer and the accused subject was considered innocent until proved guilty in a court of law. Giving police the ability to sentence individuals and removing the right of appeal is a monument step toward dictatorship.

We can debate the accuracy of roadside, hand-held breathalysers or the need prohibit driving for 0.05 and changing the legal limit from 0.08, but those are details detracting from the broader travesty of transferring arbitrary power to our police. The foregoing is irrelevant to the broader question on the means by which law should be established and enforced.

Furthermore, just as we’ve not made law better, we’ve not helped the police with this either. We have opened a can of very smelly worms as the opportunity for graft that arbitrary, unmonitored power bestows on the officers will certainly have us see criminal acts by police officers.
 
But a further look sheds still more light on how dysfunctional our BC legislature has become. The stated justification for this change in law was to both ensure the safety of the driving public by taking drunks off the road and help the government’s clear the clogged court system. They claimed that lengthy arrest procedures restricted the ability of the police to set up enough road checks but on the cogged courts I’m going to predict, “we ain’t seen nothin’ yet” compared to what is coming.

With the ruling by justice Don Siguardson labelling portions of this law to be unconstitutional the appeal process has been opened up and is about to flood the courts. That he also grants a 6 month extension for this law to the government  so they can draft suitable, legal regulations simply show that he too, has no consideration for taxpayer cost nor justice for individuals. Previously a suspected drinking driver could insist on having a legal breathalyse reading taken at the station to challenge a judgment of a roadside suspension. Now the only choice is a different road-side machine. I do not believe the judge has ruled correctly in favour of law and we have not yet seen the end of this legislative fiasco.

The case of Ms Margaret MacDonald of Cranbrook, who wisely had the foresight to have the hospital confirm her sobriety, should have been a wake-up call. Instead we see the minister, the MLAs and the police joining forces and continue to deny justice. Though supplying proof of innocence, the bureaucracy stonewalls by claiming to ‘study’ this case, almost a year after she was falsely charged. A case of the individual being fought with the tax dolars of every other citizen - a travesty of justice.

At the root of the entire problem is our society’s move away from personal responsibility and the desire by a meddling class to try creating a problem-free society. But the so-called commitment to clear the roads of drunks becomes a rather shallow promise when those who do cause death by irresponsible driving often spend a year or less in jail. The fact that we have people stealing cars that have been convicted of more than thirty offences for the same thing shows that our government’s commitment to halting crime has been hollow, words with no action. Instead, looking at their stated concern, that the costs of enforcement means that laws need revision to reduce court time, shows that our governments are incurring costs beyond their ability to collect money for. That both taxes and fees are sky-rocketing while services such as law enforcement are considered sacrificial is further proof of how dysfunctional this government has become.  The big three, healthcare, education and welfare are driving the cost of government yet the elected body is unwilling to reduce funding in those very areas where the financial problems are.

And the unavoidable question that is being ignored by all, is, how much further down the road of taxing one individual to provide service to another will we go before we open our eyes and our minds to reality. Are we going to go over the debt cliff before we stop? Are we going to tolerate a state that subverts all law in its zeal to provide all things to all people? Are we going to ignore the lessons of history and destroy a once affluent society, ignoring all those factors that created our wealth? It is intelligent human action that forms a free, affluent society - it is thoughtless reactionary government policies that destroys it. We have the ability to avoid a disaster but we’ll only do so by reclaiming control of our own lives.