Shocking

 Jordan Peterson blows the whistle.

Ford Gets a Better Idea

 

Doug Ford’s government here in Ontario is facing criticism for having called for a total lockdown, then rescinding part of it within 24 hours. They had intended to have police stop people and issue fines if they did not have a good reason to be out and about. A number of police chiefs publicly declared they would not do it. The government had intended to close playgrounds, but people quickly and loudly protested that, with kids home from school, they needed the playgrounds. And kids playing outdoors did not spread COVID.

I would have been okay with the original measures. This is a public health emergency. In an emergency, it is acceptable in our liberal democratic tradition to suspend civil liberties. This is why we have a “riot act” in most democracies, and a “war measures act.” France has been using a stop-and-check policy just like the one envisaged.

But if we feel the initial orders went too far, surely it is to the government’s credit that they backed off quickly. Anyone can make a mistake, and everyone does. The mark of a good and competent person is to acknowledge this, and change. How have we lost this basic principle of morality and good judgement?

Depression and Coronavirus

I was not happy to see Doug Ford, Ontario's Premier, spending his entire press conference yesterday on the topic of “mental health,” and announcing an expenditure of $15 million on a help line to counsel the traumatized public. US sources at the same time are warning of a pending mental health crisis because of the lockdown.

First, there is no solid evidence that mental health counselling actually helps anyone.

Second, historical evidence suggests that the genuinely depressed and chronically anxious actually feel better during a crisis. During the London Blitz, the mental hospitals emptied out.

Third, the best treatment for depression and anxiety is actually to spend some time alone, away from the daily hustle. The depressed are actually finally, thanks to the lockdown, getting the time to think things through.

So this looks to me like a giveaway to already well-off professionals while some are in desperate need. No doubt the psychologists’ lobbyists saw the opportunity and convinced the politicians of the urgent need for their services.

The help lines may get traffic, too, but not from anyone in real need. Just from people experiencing ordinary loneliness and wanting to talk, or from self-dramatizing narcissists in need of attention. In which case, giving them this attention is making their condition worse, like giving an alcoholic another drink.

Notwithstanding

Allan Blakeney.

Doug Ford is planning to use the Canadian Constitution's “notwithstanding clause” to override a court that seeks to block his plan to reduce the size of Toronto City Council.

I see a bunch of people online protesting this “unconstitutional” action, which violates “the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.”

Whether or not you agree with Ford's action, it is simply wrong to call it “unconstitutional.” He is invoking a clause of the constitution. The constitution is not unconstitutional, by definition.

Is he violating the Charter of Rights and Freedoms? Yes, in the opinion of a judge. But isn't there a real-life possibility the judge is wrong? I hear everyone in the know was surprised by the ruling; they did not think there was a legitimate charter case here. After all, how is reducing the size of a city council a violation of anyone's free speech? Can anyone really justify that claim?

Beware. If rights can come to mean whatever a judge says they mean, then they mean nothing. They are gone.

And if the courts cannot be counted on to protect our rights, the legislature must step in.

Many argue that the issue is not important enough to justify invoking the notwithstanding clause. I agree that the issue is not important. But I think it is important for some government to invoke the notwithstanding clause for its own sake. Probably best to do it on an issue not itself too big and controversial, not too fraught with partisan concerns, in order to normalize the practice without causing any real crisis. If the judiciary has gotten out of control in general, and has been appropriating to itself the duties of the legislature, this is exactly what is needed: a clear shot across the bow. Without anyone getting seriously hurt.

And I think that is exactly what has been happening, in dramatic fashion. The Canadian courts have been out of control. An obvious recent example is a court's disallowance of the Kinder Morgan/Transmountain pipeline, at catastrophic taxpayer expense. The judges need to be reined in, and the job of legislating returned to the legislatures. There has been a pileup of terrible decisions and precedents now, that without resort to the notwithstanding clause, will haunt us forever. Because judges cannot bear not to be in control, and always want to make historic rulings that go into the law books and change everything.

That's the point of the “notwithstanding clause.” To prevent this. That is exactly why Allan Blakeney fought for its inclusion in the Constitution.

Now's the time, and well past the time. Ford does us all a great service.

Ontario Leaders' Debate

I gather the conventional wisdom is that NDP leader Andrea Horvath won the recent Ontario leaders’ debate.

Probably true, but unsurprising. Like Tania Granic Allen in the PC leadership debates, she was the one candidate free to say anything interesting. She was not going to be elected, and could not be held to account for any promises made. She had nothing to lose.

By contrast, Doug Ford’s job was intrinsically less inspiring. He was on course to win big; his task was to sound reassuring and to promise nothing specific that was going to come back to haunt him.

Kathleen Wynne too has little chance to win, but she is still not free to say what she wants. She has a record with which she is saddled, and which she had to defend. Were she to come up with any extravagant new promises, or new policies, the rejoinder would have been obvious: so why haven’t you done it in the last fifteen years?

Given that math, Horvath was bound to “win,” if nobody made a major mistake, and all candidates did what they needed to do as well as they could.

What troubled me most in listening to the debate was that small government had no defender. It was not in Ford’s interest to point out ideological differences: he is on track to beat Wynne sheerly on scandal and perceived incompetence. So he did not differ much from either of the other two, both on the left. But as a result, the impression was left that the answer to any problem was to spend more government money on it, and pass more government regulation. For the most part, nobody cared to point out that money did not come from nowhere, and if the government did not spend it, it did not disappear.

Citizens! Awake!

Here is a cause that is near and dear to my heart. I cannot meaningfully sign their petition, but if you live in Ontario, Canada, please do consider signing it.

http://www.naturalmilk.org/

It is about allowing the legal sale of raw milk and raw milk products in Ontario. There are a number of issues here: the free market, the right of an individual to choose for himself, the right to work (as a farmer). And, as a practical matter, the right to the hobby of cheesemaking, which falls for some of us under the heading of the pursuit of happiness.

You just can't make decent cheese with pasteurized, homogenized milk, and preventing the public from acquiring it enforces a cheese monopoly.