The nanny state gone wild

Well I for one am certainly glad that the Ontario Provincial Police are unstinting in their pursuit of crooks, villains, evil doers, criminals of the highest order, and assorted other ne’er do wells. Why just last week they stopped a trucker on the 401 and charged him with … not speeding, or improper passing, or dangerous driving, or having an unsafe load, or road rage. No, they stopped him for smoking!

According to this article in The Toronto Star, the driver was pulled over and given a $305 ticket for smoking in the cab of his rig.

The man, who hails from London, Ont., was headed for Windsor when he was pulled over Wednesday along Highway 401 and given a ticket under the Smoke-Free Ontario Act.

The law, considered a Canadian standard-setter when it was passed in 2006, forbids smoking in all workplaces and enclosed public spaces, including buildings, structures or vehicles worked in or frequented by employees, according to the government's website.

What makes this so egregious is that it is his own rig. He’s an owner-operator and it’s his property, his home away from home. Yet the long arm of the state still thinks it has the right to reach in and legislate what he can or cannot do in his own property.

What’s next for Ontario’s finest? Will they be raiding my home office to see if there’s an ash tray on the desk? How about busting the farmer flouting the law by having a quick puff in the cab of his tractor? Oh and don’t forget those dastardly real estate agents who might want a quick nicotine fix in their car with the agent’s name and logo on the side – clearly a workplace in need of protection.

And while they’re doing that perhaps they could, if they get a chance, keep an eye out for the guys who have broken into several homes in this area over the past couple of months, or find the hit and run driver who put a friend’s son in hospital, or maybe even try to find some of those many missing native women. That is if they’re not too busy with important stuff like this.

And they wonder why respect for the law is decreasing.

Now that I own GM, here are my demands.

As a forced and reluctant shareholder in GM (I’ll never buy their product, why would I want their stock?) here are my demands:

1. Stephen Harper and Dalton McGuinty must explain in detail (use pictures and one-syllable words if necessary) why the ongoing demand for cars wouldn’t/couldn’t be met by other more successful manufacturers. People are still going to buy new vehicles, whether supplied by GM or others.

2. I want a letter of appreciation from GM pensioners thanking me and all other pension-less Canadians for the taxes paid on our depleted savings to top up their incomes so they don’t have to suffer the effects of the global recession like their fellow citizens. That’s the least they owe us.

3. A formal letter of apology to all taxpayers by the various levels of government which failed in their fiduciary duty to ensure that GM (and other corporations like it) adequately funded their pension plans, resulting in item 2 above. The letter is to be read out in the House of Commons by Prime Minister Stephen Harper and in the Ontario Legislature by Premier Dalton McGuinty. Name names.

That’s all. Three demands. Satisfy those and I’ll quit bitching about this egregious waste of taxpayer dollars to selectively support one industry sector that just happens to be centered in a vote-rich area of the country.

Sadly, I expect I’ll be complaining for a while yet.