By Beryl Wajsman, Institute for Public Affairs of Montreal
Saturday, July 14, 2007
The Roman historian Tacitus once wrote "When the state is most impotent, the laws are most multiplied." This thought occurred to us as we reflected on Quebec's proposed new traffic regulations. Particularly on the timing of their announcement.
We are witnessing a disturbing trend in the politics of our city and our province. It seems that whenever administrations fail to deliver the basic services that are their core responsibilities, they revert to the politics of deflection and demonization. And lately, in the cases of Montreal and Quebec, the politicians demonize the very citizens they are elected to serve instead of solving the problems they are in office to fix.
When Charles Lapointe, Montreal's tourism commissioner, commented that the city could be cleaner, he was not aiming his remarks only at Montrealers. He was also highlighting the failure of City Hall to get the city's street cleaners and garbage collectors to do their jobs effectively and efficiently.
However, our municipal administration decided it was far easier to demonize and penalize the victims of that failure -- Montreal's citizens -- by enacting an egregious "cleanliness" campaign complete with onerous fines. Among its more insupportable elements are penalties for owners of buildings and stores who fail to keep public property clean. That's the very job of the city! But deflecting responsibility -- buckpassing -- is easier. The city doesn't have to deal with its obligations and gets to collect a considerable amount of extra revenue for the very services our singularly high tax rates supposedly pay for. The wonder of it all is why Montrealers take this.
Quebec seems to have taken a page from Montreal both in the substance of its new traffic proposals and the timing of their release. It cannot go un-noticed that these proposals came so soon on the heels of the Johnson Commission recommendations that over 300 bridges and overpasses in this province need urgent assessment and repair.
But instead of meeting its responsibilities and dealing forthrightly with this problem, the Johnson report gets overshadowed by a whole new slew of driving rules that not only make citizens culpable for things they weren't before, but also allow for more invasion into our lives by the omnipotent busybodies of the provincial statocracy.
Transport Minister Julie Boulet went further than even her unwieldy 41-person advisory commission recommended. She wants to ban cellphone use in cars. Her commission concluded that would be unenforceable and probably unnecessary given current data. But facts never stopped a bureaucrat from imposing more suffocating regulation.
Boulet also wants to start a photo radar program. Photo radar was dropped by Gordon Campbell's Liberals in British Columbia and by Mike Harris' Conservatives in Ontario almost immediately upon their election. It was found to be invasive of privacy and not terribly reliable. It's usefulness to road safety is also questionable. In fact current Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty admitted candidly that its one benefit is as a "revenue generator". But of course that's just what Quebec wants.
Yet it is ironic that when Boulet was asked about the rationale for another of her recommendations -- changing the acceptable blood alcohol level from .08 to .05 -- she said it was necessary because "other" jurisdictions have it. That statement begs the question of why bother with photo radar since the "jurisdiction" next door killed it. But why let logic get in the way?
And not to be outdone by Montreal in the ability to demonize the people, Boulet threw in massively increased fines, demerit points and car seizure rights. Montrealers, and Quebecers, may soon find themselves doing nothing but walking around all day paying fines for everything from throwing a gum wrapper on the sidewalk to having imbibed a half-shot glass of whiskey.
All these laws and regulations won't make us safer or better. They will only make government richer and all of us sadder.
They are meant to make us doubt ourselves so that our elected officials are not put under too much scrutiny. If we don't start saying no soon, then it is not just the state that is impotent. We are, too.
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