National Post columnist Allison Hanes wrote an article that was published on Friday entitled, “Turning Toronto into a Nanny State.” Actually, Toronto has been a nanny state for a long time now but let’s not quibble.
No doubt Ms. Hanes was prompted to write what she did as a result of the city of Toronto’s decision to conduct a “shade audit”. Bureaucrats will measure the amount of shade that is currently available in the city’s parks, public swimming pools and playgrounds. We all know that it will only be a matter of time before the city mothers regulate the amount of shade that must be provided in public spaces. This of course will be shortly followed by regulations that will require private property owners to keep a certain portion of their outdoor areas properly shaded lest children wander on to their property and get too much exposure to the sun. And when that happens you better watch out for the shade police!
While Canada has been known as a country that strives for mediocrity, Toronto City Councillors are guided in their decisions by society’s lowest common denominators . As pointed out in Ms. Hanes’ column, since some parents cannot take proper care of their children, the government steps in and passes laws to regulate how all parents must look after all of their children. This rationale was admitted by Councillor Howard Moscoe who was quoted in the nanny state piece.
One word that appeared in the article was the word “freedom”. It should come as no surprise that the word was found in a quote from U.S. columnist and author David Harsanyi because Canadians hardly ever speak of “freedom” except in situations such as “Omar Khadr should be granted freedom from the clutches of those evil Americans”. Freedom in terms of people being free to raise their children or free to eat what they want, is hardly ever mentioned in the True North Strong and Hardly Free.
About the only time that freedom is actually discussed is in the first eleven days of November when veterans of Canadian wars are honoured. Even those on the far left can’t help but say that these soldiers fought so that we can be free. But no one really seems happy about whatever freedom that we have left. We don’t even talk about the current war that Canadian troops are engaged in as a fight for freedom. We really don’t know why the men and women are currently fighting in Afghanistan because the federal government won’t tell us. Part of the reason that we are involved in Afghanistan is to protect Canada from Islamofascism but the government can’t say that because it would make Muslims mad and besides, it is politically incorrect to use the word “Islamofascism”.
It does seem ironic that we speak of the freedom that previous generations fought for when the defeat of fascism in the 1940s allowed us to remain free to elect governments that pass laws preventing people from cutting trees down on their own property. And with the current panic about global warming, we are bound to lose more and more freedoms that we now enjoy. But not too many people seem to care. As long as people are allowed to freely and democratically vote in elections every four or five years and go to a doctor “for free”, they seem perfectly content to have governments make more and more of their decisions for them.
It’s hard to expect people to care about freedom when governments have sole control over their health. Governments literally make decisions that determine who will live or die or who will get medical treatment and who won’t and for what illnesses and diseases. Canadians not only allow governments to make such personal decisions for the populace but most people are happy with it; it is what defines us as a nation. Under these circumstances it is hard for people to view more government interference with their lives as a negative.
Toronto is not turning into a nanny state; it is a nanny state. And things not only in Toronto will get worse in the future. The reality is that too many people couldn’t care less about their freedom and are happy to have all three levels of governments run their lives.
